of nmcfr V A FEB 5 1924 CSIC1L $W' & s J3XSn4-g> ,H 6 > 82 > Division Section REASONABLE RELIGION. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG HIS MESSAGE & TEACHING Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/reasonablereligiOOhodg REASONABLE RELIGION. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG HIS MESSAGE ^ TEACHING By E. BRAYLEY HODGETTS PRESIDENT OF THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY 1923 LONDON AND TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain PREFACE The theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are spread over numerous volumes* They have been before the public for at least one hundred and fifty years* Originally printed in Latin, they were subsequently translated into ponderous English, and later into many other languages, but nobody has so far had the temerity to endeavour to present a general review of the whole system* The recent achievements of science and the general trend of ideas have tended to bring Swedenborg into greater harmony with contemporary thought than ever before, and the interest recently awakened, especially among certain members of the scientific world, in the supernatural would seem to indicate that the present is a favourable time for the popularisation of his remarkably harmonious, rational, and logical philosophy* The statement of Swedenborg's views has, as far as possible, been reproduced in his own words. To reproduce these teachings fully in all their details and ramifications would be a much more ambitious task than the author has set himself* His aim has been rather to outline their main features in a popular form, and he ventures to hope that a perusal of these pages may stimulate the reader to go to the fountain-head and prosecute further researches for himself in the directions most interesting individually to him* CONTENTS CHAPTER Introduction: The Man AND HIS Work ♦ PAGE I L Life and Creation ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 25 IL The Origin of Evil ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 42 III. Ethics ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 57 IV. Sex .... ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 70 V. The Governance of the World ♦ ♦ 87 VI. Revelation ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 104 VII. Prayer ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 123 VIII. The Sacraments ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ i43 IX. The Church ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 159 X. The Soul♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 181 XI. The Hereafter ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 197 XII. The Godhead . ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 217 Conclusion ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 238 Index ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 251 Vll REASONABLE RELIGION EMANUEL SWEDENBORG HIS MESSAGE AND TEACHING INTRODUCTION The Man and His Work Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm on January 29, 1688, the year of the great revolution in England, and about a century before the still greater revolution which broke out in France in 1789* By a curious coincidence both Swedenborg and his eminent contemporary, the philosopher Kant, were christened Emanuel, God with us, which, in the case of Swedenborg at least, was a name singularly prophetic and appropriate* He came of a middle-class stock of peasant origin* His father. Dr* Jesper Swedberg, was a Lutheran divine who eventually became a bishop, was the son of a peasant of Fahlen called Daniel Isaacson, and had adopted the name of Swedberg from his father's estate or homestead, * Sweden*' Swedish peasants, like those of Russia, have no family names, but are called by their patronymics, thus Daniel Isaacson was the son of Isaac Nilson, whose father was the son of Nils Otteson, and so on* Through a successful mining venture this Daniel Isaacson had risen from comparative poverty to affluence* Very naturally the son of this local mining magnate married in the same sphere and espoused the daughter of another mining magnate, Albrecht Behm, an Assessor of the College of Mines, a position similar to that which his dis¬ tinguished grandson was destined to fill some years later* B 2 REASONABLE RELIGION Emanuel was the third child and second son of his parents* In a letter to his friend Dr* Beyer, Professor of Greek at the University of Gothenburg, written in 1769, Swedenborg says of his childhood : From my fourth to my tenth year I was constantly engaged in thought upon God and salvation, and the spiritual experi¬ ences of men ; and several times I revealed things at which my father and mother wondered ; saying that angels must be speaking through me* From my sixth to my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing with clergymen about faith, saying that the life of faith was love, and that the love which imparted faith was the love to the neighbour ; also that God gives faith to every one, but that only those receive it who practise that love. I knew of no other faith at that time than that God was the Creator and Preserver of nature, that He imparts understanding and a good disposition to men, and several other things that follow thence. I knew nothing then of that learned faith which teaches that God the Father imparts the righteousness of His Son to whomsoever, and at such times as He chooses, even to those who have not repented and have not reformed their lives* And had I heard of such a faith, it would have been then, as it is now, above my comprehension* This is indeed the key-note to Swedenborg's religious opinions* The doctrine of salvation by faith alone always was repugnant to him, and most tremendously did he in after years fulminate against it* But this was to come much later* In 1688, when he was born, he was surrounded by professors of the Lutheran faith* His father was acting court chaplain at the time, and it was in the capital that the first three or four years of the child were spent. In 1692 the father was made pastor of the rural parish of Vingaker, where for a few brief months young Swedberg, as he was then, tasted the delights of country life* From this rural parish the Rev* Dr. Jesper Swed¬ berg was soon promoted to be dean of the cathedral of Upsala, where the next ten years were passed in the cathedral square in which the deanery was situated : here his education was begun* This was entrusted to a cousin on his mother's side, one Johannes Moraeus, INTRODUCTION 3 afterwards Dr* Moraeus, and Councillor Sandels speaks of * the thoughtful care which was bestowed on his education/ At that time Upsala had a population of not more than some 5000 inhabitants, but its cathedral was con¬ sidered one of the finest Gothic buildings in northern Europe* His mother had died two years before, but his father married again, some eighteen months after her death, a wealthy widow, Sarah Bergia* Swedenborg also lost his elder brother at about the same time* Of his remaining seven brothers and sisters, Anna, sixteen months older than he, appears to have been his favourite* She married, before the completion of her seventeenth year. Dr. Ericus Benzelius, librarian to the University of Upsala* In 1702 his father was appointed Bishop of Skara, and had to remove to that place, but he himself, who had by this time commenced his studies at the University, remained at Upsala till 1709* At the University he was dis¬ tinguished for his Latin verses, and it would seem that he was regarded in his own circle as a poet of some promise* On the conclusion of his University studies he went to live with his father at the episcopal residence of Brunsbo, near Skara, and vainly tried to persuade that worthy prelate to permit him to proceed on a foreign tour. But Bishop Swedberg had little sympathy with his son's Wanderlust; moreover, funds were low and the Bishop was of a distinctly frugal disposition* Writing on July 13, 1709, to his brother-in-law Ben^elius, the ardent young man begged him to plead for him with his obdurate parent, and asked him to recommend him an English college where he could brush up his mathematics, physics, and natural history* It appears that at that early date he had already conceived the ambitious plan of drawing up a summary of the principal discoveries during the last few centuries in these branches of knowledge* He also mentioned that he had learned the art of book¬ binding from a craftsman who had been binding some books for his father* This is very characteristic of the man, so eminently industrious and practical* Two years 4 REASONABLE RELIGION later, when he had succeeded in carrying out his scheme of travel, he wrote from London to say that he turned his lodgings to some use and changed them often* * First/ he says, ' I was at a watchmaker's, afterwards at a cabinet-maker's, and now I am at a mathematical- instrument maker's; from them I steal their trades, which some day may be of use to me*' He learned to make brass instruments ; and later, at Leyden, how to grind glass for lenses, etc*, in order that he might be able to construct appliances he could not afford to buy* His brother-in-law asked him, when in England, to purchase several globes for the Upsala Library, but as they were too expensive, and difficult to pack and transport safely, he was instructed to obtain the printed sheets, which would then be mounted on arrival, and as the makers refused to supply these, the indomitable young man set to work to learn engraving, and prepared the sheets himself! But before he could give effect to his cherished dream of foreign travel he had to spend a year of hope deferred, of weary and impatient waiting* His practical father meantime looked with disapproval on the apparently idle life his gifted son was leading* Here was a young man of twenty-two who had completed his studies, had given evidence of ability, and yet had failed to find useful occupation* How the son felt may be gathered from Swedenborg's letter to Benzelius, dated March io, 1710, He writes : I have little desire to remain here much longer; for I am wasting nearly all my time* I have, however, made such progress in music that I have been able on several occasions to act as substitute for our organist; but in spite of all my studies this place affords me very little opportunity to give effect to them, and they are totally unappreciated by those who ought to encourage me in them. There was a welcome break in this monotonous life when he paid a short visit to the celebrated Swedish engineer and inventor, Christopher Polhammar (who on being raised to the nobility took^the name of Polhem), INTRODUCTION 5 a congenial spirit who, in a letter to Benzelius, thus speaks of Swedenborg's visit: With regard to young Swedberg, I must confess I was extremely well pleased that he came here, like the others, and without first making any conditions ; and as we were pleased and satisfied with each other, his wishes could be gratified without difficulty, especially when I found him able to assist me in the mechanical undertaking which I have in hand and in making the necessary experiments ; in this matter I am more indebted to him than he is to me. By the autumn of 1710 young Swedberg had at last managed to reach London; but he was kept very short of funds, and he complains to his trusted confidant and brother-in-law of his father's treatment of him, stating that he had had no more than something less than £50 to subsist on for sixteen months, adding pathetically and quaintly : ^ It is hard to live without food or drink,' In those days travelling was not as free from adventure as it is to-day, his ship was nearly wrecked, and was sub¬ sequently boarded by a pirate, for whom it was later mistaken by a British man-of-war who fired at it. On his arrival in the mouth of the Thames, Swedberg was so eager to get to London that he evaded the strict quaran¬ tine regulations and had a narrow escape from being hanged for it. Once in London he seemed to be absolutely happy; he studied Newton daily, purchased mathematical books and instruments, such as an astronomical tube, quadrants, prisms, microscopes, etc,, and even two camerae obscurae , which he greatly admired. He hoped to be able to have enough money left to buy an air-pump. His letters breathe with the almost childish joy of a scientific enthusiast. Poor young man ! His stern parent gave him but little encouragement. He was much impressed with the town itself, * the magnificent St, Paul's Cathedral was finished in all its parts a few days ago,' he writes. He was particularly affected by the sight of the tomb of Casaubon in Westminster Abbey, and must have surprised the stolid English when he fell down and kissed it, for he was * inspired with a love for this literary hero,' and composed some Latin verses in 6 REASONABLE RELIGION his honour. At the time of his visit the religious world was still astir over the Sacheverell incident, * respecting whom every bookshop displays pamphlets/ In spite of his very limited means, which did not permit him to frequent society as his position in Sweden would have entitled him to do, he nevertheless was able to report: * I visit daily the best mathematicians here in town, I have been with Flamsteed, who is considered the best astronomer in England and who is constantly taking observations/ Already he had worked out a method of finding the terrestrial longitude by means of the moon, which he proposed to submit to the Royal Society, He was frequently requested by his Swedish friends to execute commissions for them, to purchase scientific books and instruments, and to advise them generally on scientific matters, and he seems to have acquitted himself of these tasks with his usual painstaking conscientiousness. He also found time to read the English poets and recommended to his correspondents the study of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Spenser, Milton, Waller, Cowley, Dryden, and many others. Two years of close study and versatile work were thus spent in London and Oxford, From England he proceeded to Holland and France, In the first country he lived chiefly at Utrecht, where the Diet was assembled and where he was in great favour with the Swedish Ambassador, Palmquist, In Paris he associated with such men as De La Hire, Varrignon, and the Abbe Bignon, of the Academy, and noted the rivalry that existed between the French and English savants, Halley of Oxford [he wrote] told me that he was the first to examine the variation of the pendulum under the equator; they keep silence about this here ; the astronomers here also maintain that Cassini's paper was written before Halley made his expedition to the Island of St, Helena, and so forth. After nearly a year in Paris the young student went to Hamburg via Lille, and from thence to Pomerania, then still Swedish territory. We next hear from him at Rostock, whence he sends his brother-in-law a list of his INTRODUCTION 7 inventions* Among these was a design of a submarine, a flying machine, a device for raising cargo-laden ships by means of sluices, and a device for setting a mill in motion when there was no fall of water available, for, as he claims, * the wheel will nevertheless revolve by means of the fire which will put the water in motion/ also a magazine air-gun to discharge sixty or seventy shots in succession without reloading* Most of the next nine months was spent at the little Pomeranian University town of Greifswalde, where he printed a collection of fables in Latin verse dealing with contemporary politics* It is not improbable that it was here that he first attracted the notice of King Charles XII, who was at that time at Stralsund, only fifteen miles distant* When that place was about to be besieged, Greifswalde was no longer a fit place for non- combatants to remain in, and, in company with Mme* Feif, he obtained a passage home in a yacht after an absence of more than four years* On his return he did not find himself much nearer to suitable employment* He had seen the centres of learning of Europe, and some of the leaders in those centres, and he had not neglected his opportunities* Full of ideas and schemes for the amelioration of his country he yet could not get a hearing, all his ingenious proposals fell on deaf ears* Thus he suggested the formation of a sort of Swedish Royal Society to be called a * Society for Learning and Science/ and recommended the foundation of a professorship or chair of mechanics at the University of Upsala* But he was always met with a non possumus answer* He proposed to Ben^elius the erection of an observatory, and to the Mining Depart¬ ment a reconstruction of their old wooden models, with the same want of success* He therefore decided to have recourse, like so many young men of his temper, to journalism, and to start a scientific and technical journal under the title of Dsedalus Hyperboreus ♦ This is perhaps the proper place to say a few words about that striking personality, Swedenborg's father, Dr* Jesper Swedberg, Bishop of Skara, for beyond his 8 REASONABLE RELIGION convenient habit of contracting wealthy marriages (he had three wives all well-to-do) and his tendency to be careful and saving—a characteristic which, although not confined to the clergy, is one for which the Swedish pastors have been particularly noted—he was a man of outstanding merit, sincerely pious and God-fearing, yet tolerant and broad-minded withal, though no latitudi- narian, fearless in his speech, unselfish and disinterested* At about the time we are speaking of, he was in the throes of a controversy regarding the Swedish language, his views on which had been fiercely and acrimoniously attacked by venomous opponents* But he had the support of the King, who appears to have held him in the same respect and esteem in which he was held by Charles XI* Besides these polemical troubles the good bishop had many others; he was engaged in a revised translation of the Bible, he had produced a Swedish Dictionary and several other publications of a similar nature, and these had eaten up a large part of his not inconsiderable fortune* Moreover, his first wife had left her money to her children, and not to him, and he had had other financial worries* This was therefore hardly a suitable time to approach him for pecuniary assistance in the launching of a journal, nor does he seem to have approved of the scheme* Nevertheless the journal was started, and, on the advice of Ben^elius, dedicated to the King, who, in spite of his many preoccupations and the war he was engaged in, professed much interest in the publication* It was now felt that something must be done for this young man to mark the royal appreciation of his ability, and three separate posts to choose from were offered him by the King* Of these, young Emanuel accepted the 4 Extra¬ ordinary Assessorship' of the College of Mines, the Government Department which administered the mining industries of the country* At that time the government of Sweden was divided into colleges instead of ministries, and so efficient were these that the Empress Catherine II of Russia obtained a report on this system and introduced a similar one in her own country* INTRODUCTION 9 No salary was attached to this post, but the work was so congenial that Swedenborg, two years later, refused the Professorship of Astronomy at the University of Upsala on the grounds that he thought he could be more useful to his country where he was, and that as there was a dearth of technical knowledge on the Council of the College, he would endeavour to supply this deficiency. Besides, he believed he would displease the King by giving up his post, and he also hoped to vindicate by his work the King's appointment. This he certainly did most handsomely. Thus the young man who but recently could not find employment was now a recognised scientific authority and universally esteemed. He was speedily to render his country a signal service. His friend and patron, the engineer Polhem, secured his special services, and he was, what, for want of a better term, may be called, seconded. He assisted this friend in many of his labours, the most notable of which was the transfer, in 1718, by land, over a distance of fourteen English miles, of several Swedish war galleys by means of which, to the great delight of the King, a small flotilla of Danish craft, who retarded the capture of the fortress of Frederickshall by supplying it with provisions, was attacked and destroyed. Other works were the construction of the great dock at Carlscrona and the preparation of plans for a canal from the North Sea to the Baltic, a scheme never executed owing to the death of the King, from whose private purse the expenses were to be met, Swedenborg's relations with Polhem had now become so cordial that the latter, on the King's recommendation, offered him his eldest daughter in marriage. It appears that they were actually engaged, but the young lady eventually married someone else, and the jilted youth was fain to console himself with her younger sister, to whom he was formally betrothed and for whom he conceived a deep and tender affection. She proved, however, as fickle as her sister—at any rate the Extraordinary Assessor discovered that she did not really care for him, and con¬ sequently chivalrously absolved her from her promise. 10 REASONABLE RELIGION vowing at the same time that he would never again allow himself to fall in love—a vow he faithfully kept* This episode produced a coolness between Polhem and Swedenborg, who seems to have felt considerable resent¬ ment against his prospective father-in-law, whose repeated letters he returned unopened* It is perhaps cause for surprise that Swedenborg, who in later years manifested a gentleness of disposition that can only call for admira¬ tion, should have shown a spirit so nearly akin to vindic¬ tiveness. It appears, however, that this second dis¬ appointment had thrown him into a state of profound dejection* The light of his life had gone out, and he viewed the world with despondent melancholy* Nothing seemed to go right with him* He complained that his father and step-mother, to whom he was much attached, had been estranged from him, and he was discouraged in his scientific projects, for which he could obtain no support* Not even the decimal system, the adoption of which he advocated, found acceptance. He had thoughts of retiring to one of the little villages near the mines in which he was interested through his mother, and of living secluded from the world* Some six months before he had been ennobled, 1 together with his brothers and sisters : he had, in common with them, taken the name of Swedenborg, and, as his mother's eldest surviving son, become entitled to a seat in the House of Nobles of the Swedish Parliament* The King, the intrepid Charles XII, who had continued to show him his favour, had died in November 1718* * Every day/ he writes, * I had some mathematical matters for His Majesty, who deigned to be pleased with them all. ♦ ♦ ♦ I hope in time to do something in this quarter for the advancement of science; but I do not wish to bring anything forward now, except what is of immediate use*' Now that his royal patron was no more, he felt himself entirely deserted: nevertheless he did not retire* 1 He had just published a work ‘ Respecting the Great Depth of Water and the Strong Tides in the Primeval World : Proofs from Sweden,’ which he dedicated to the Queen, congratulating her on ruling over a land constantly being enlarged at the expense of the sea. He was thus the first to call attention to the rise of the Swedish coast. INTRODUCTION ii In the summer of 1721 he obtained leave of absence and started on an extensive foreign tour, for the ostensible object of studying the mines and industries of other countries, visiting Holland and the German States* In Saxony and the Hartz mountains he was entertained on a princely scale by Duke Ludwig Rudolph of Brunswick- Luneburg, who not only paid all his expenses, but made him valuable presents* While on this tour he published several scientific and engineering works, as well as a treatise on algebra (the first in the Swedish language)* On his return, in the July of 1722, he put forward numerous projects for the material prosperity of his country, and notably, schemes for improvements in the manufacture of steel, and for increasing the yield of copper, which he not only submitted to his department, but also directly to the King* He also advised the abandonment of the 4 foolish distinction ' between 4 precious * and * base ' metals* On these, and indeed on all subjects, his views were broad and liberal. The easy-going con¬ servatives of his native land, however, were difficult to rouse, and the jealous officials were even actively hostile* On July 15, 1724, Swedenborg, now in his thirty- seventh year, was raised to the rank of Ordinary Assessor to the College of Mines, with an annual salary of 800 silver dalers, and it was not till 1730 that he was awarded the full salary of 1200 dalers* He was a regular attendant at the Council Meetings, the minutes of which bear testimony to the active part he took in the work of the department and the wide scope of his interests* It may be safely asserted that among all his colleagues he was the most public-spirited, the most able, the one who, certainly from a scientific and technical point of view, was the most competent* This arduous work, which entailed frequent visits of inspection, etc*, was not sufficient to satisfy his intel¬ lectual energy. By the beginning of 1733 had com¬ pleted several substantial scientific and philosophical works, and applied for leave of absence again for several months in order to proceed to Dresden and Leipsic to 12 REASONABLE RELIGION see them through the press, for Sweden was at that time so backward that it was not advisable to entrust important scientific books to the local printers, besides the press censorship was a perpetual source of annoyance* These works of Swedenborg's were entitled the 4 Opera Philo- sophica et Mineralia/ in three heavy folio volumes, besides a treatise on 4 The Infinite/ The publication of these two works, the entire cost of which was generously borne by his friend, the Duke of Brunswick, won for Swedenborg an European reputation, and placed him in correspond¬ ence with the leading scientific men and philosophers of his day, the Academy of Sciences of St, Petersburg electing him a corresponding member, and he was also one of the first elected members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, which had at last been founded in his own country. In the fairly detailed account of this visit to the Con¬ tinent, which Swedenborg has left, he stands revealed as a shrewd and careful observer of men and things, of whom it was justly said that 4 nothing ever escaped him that merited the attention of a traveller/ 4 It would be too prolix/ he says, 4 to mention all the learned men I visited, and with whom I became acquainted during these journeys, since I never missed an opportunity of doing so, nor of seeing and examining libraries, collections, and other objects of interest/ He also visited the principal mines and factories. Swedenborg had now reached middle-age. He was highly respected at home and abroad, and his works had marked him out as one of the leading thinkers of his day. He was no longer regarded as merely a painstaking scientific worker and a distinguished government official; he had taken his place as one of the leaders of thought of his day. In the 4 Opera Philosophica et Mineralia/ the first part of which was entitled 4 Principia Rerum Naturalium/ he stood forth as a speculative philosopher of the first rank. His investigations ranged from the composition of matter to the seat of the soul. In his theory of the origin of the world he propounded the nebular hypothesis, and INTRODUCTION 13 thus anticipated by many years the speculations of Kant, Laplace, and HerscheL He had made all science his domain, and his next works, 4 The Economy of the Animal Kingdom ' and 1 The Animal Kingdom/ were so original that Emerson has described him, with some justice, as the Darwin of the eighteenth century, whilst his philosophical essay on the creation of man which appeared under the title of 1 The Worship and Love of God/ with its beautiful yet classically simple style and charming imagery, proclaimed him a poet of philosophy and science* Small wonder that in his own country he held an exceptional position* In the Swedish House of Nobles he had been a member since 1719* He was a bad speaker, having a slight impediment in his speech which interfered with his fluency, though it was scarcely notice¬ able by his hearers, and he therefore prepared before¬ hand the speeches he made at the Swedish Diet* The first of these, the original of which is preserved in the State archives of Stockholm, is dated February 5, 1723, and was read in Committee on February 7, 1723* It is named 1 A Memorial on the State of the Finances of Sweden/ and sets forth that 4 the balance of trade is the genuine vein and source of a country's welfare': it ascribes the decline of his country's prosperity to the loss of its mercantile marine, and asserts that 4 the most valuable property and the surest source of income which Sweden has had for a long time are its iron and copper works*' Then follows what for the time was a singularly luminous statement: Iron brings annually from two to three millions of rix- dalers into the country, or in other words , it pays for as large a quantity of goods as corresponds to that amount; copper yields annually one million; whence it follows that the country's welfare and the balance of trade have been based for a long time upon our mining interest, the proper maintenance of which ought to receive our most careful attention, since foreign merchants will use every means in their power to gain the profit which our mining districts ought to yield to our own country* 14 REASONABLE RELIGION But in 1734 he submitted a Memorial to the Secret Committee of the House of Nobles on the impolicy of declaring war against Russia, which reveals a truly astounding breadth of vision, and a statesmanship of a much loftier kind than might have been expected from an ordinary official of a government department* The times were sufficiently critical; France was earnestly endeavouring to get Sweden to join her in her military operations in Poland against Russia and Germany* After submitting the necessity of taking long views when declaring war, and reviewing the political situation generally, he made the very remarkable and far-seeing statement that, while it would be of great advantage to reconquer Livonia, it was still more to the advantage of the country not to possess it, seeing that that province was politically a source of weakness, being liable to attack from Poland and Russia; whilst Sweden, as then con¬ stituted, was in no danger of an offensive attack, * as we have already given away what might embroil us with our neighbours* A war, or the equipment of an army and a navy, would draw more money out of Sweden's treasury than Livonia brought into it for many years*' There is every reason to suppose that this Memorial had a great influence at the meeting of the Secret Com¬ mittee of the Diet, of which Swedenborg was a member, and that it was largely due to his views that his country was saved for six more years from the horrors of war and the humiliation of defeat* His attitude with regard to the liquor traffic was equally sound and statesmanlike* But perhaps his most remarkable political achieve¬ ment was his defeat of Nordencrantz in the Diet of 1760, and his Memorial in favour of a return to a pure metallic currency* In this Memorial he shows himself to have been as sound a political economist as he was a man of science, nor should it be forgotten that Adam Smith's * Wealth of Nations ' was not published until 1776, four years after Swedenborg's death* By 1761, when he was seventy-three, he had become quite a patriarchal figure, and in addressing the Swedish INTRODUCTION i5 Diet in the January of that year he wished them a blessed progress in their duties and a prosperous and unanimous conclusion of their labours* This brief review of his political activities has neces¬ sarily left his other work out of sight* A return must now be made to the earlier period* Between 1734 and 1745 he spent much time in travels, visiting Italy among other countries* In a letter to the Rev* Thomas Hartley, written towards the close of his life, Swedenborg gives the year 1743 as the date of the opening of his spiritual sight* It was probably in that year that he received the earliest intimation of his call; but it was not till April 1745, as he tells us in several places, that he was fully admitted to intercourse with angels and spirits* In conversation with Carl Robsahm, many years later, he stated : I, for my own part, had never expected to come into that spiritual state, in which I am now; but the Lord selected me for this work, and for revealing the spiritual meaning of the Sacred Scriptures, which he had promised in the Prophets and in the Book of Revelations* My purpose previously had been to explore nature, chemistry, and the sciences of mining and anatomy* In a letter to F* C* Oetinger he answers the question, 4 Why from being a philosopher have I been chosen i * and says : The cause of this was that the spiritual things which are being revealed at the present day might be taught and under¬ stood rationally; for spiritual truths have a correspondence with natural truths, because in these they terminate, and on these they rest* * * * For this reason I was introduced first into the natural sciences and thus prepared ; and indeed from the year 1710 to 1744, when heaven was opened to me* Every one also is led by means of natural to spiritual things ; for man is born natural; by education he is made moral, and after¬ wards by regeneration from the Lord he becomes spiritual* * * * Falsities which have been confirmed close the Church, where¬ fore truths rationally understood have to open it* How else can spiritual things, which transcend the understanding, be understood, acknowledged, and received i i6 REASONABLE RELIGION In another place he states that the Lord had prepared him from his earliest youth for the mission which he was called on to fulfil* A full and detailed account of Swedenborg's gradual illumination will be found in Dr* Tafel's * Documents concerning Swedenborg/ three volumes, especially in Documents No* 208-209, vol* ii* pp* 134-219* For the purposes of this notice it will suffice to say that Sweden¬ borg at first had serious doubts as to his fitness for the task, and although he had lived an absolutely pure and upright life he found, he writes, that he was more unworthy than others and the greatest sinner* He regarded his intellectual pride as his besetting sin, and confessed that he was inclined to resist God's will and choose his own course* Especially was he reluctant to give up his studies in which he took so much delight, but gradually he felt a change coming over him* He went through severe temptations also, but in 1747 he resigned his Assessorship at the College of Mines, and from henceforth regarded himself as the servant of our Lord, doing nothing of his own will* The College of Mines showed their appreciation of his services by retiring him on half-salary, so that what with his private means and his pension he was in com¬ fortable, though not in affluent, circumstances, and his mind was thus set free* He was now able to devote himself whole-heartedly to his mission* He did not remain long in Sweden, but was in Holland in November 1747, remaining there until the October of 1748* On November 23, 1748, he was in London, and had taken there lodgings at six shillings a week* It was here that he published the first volume of his * Arcana Ccelestia,' which was issued anonymously by John Lewis, of Pater¬ noster Row, but only four copies were sold in two months, Swedenborg eschewing all adventitious aids to circulation* This was followed by a second volume issued in parts, in English and Latin, from the hands of the same publishers in 1750* The work was handsomely produced, but sold at an extremely low price* There was, however, small encouragement in the way of sales, yet the publication INTRODUCTION 17 went on year by year until its completion in 1756* During this period Swedenborg was in residence in Stockholm, sending his manuscripts to London* In Stockholm he lived the ordinary life of a retired and studious old bachelor, mixing occasionally in society, and betraying neither by word nor sign that he had entered on a new field of work* In 1758 he again went to London and there published four small works, * The Earths in the Universe/ 4 The Last Judgment/ * The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine/ * On the White Horse in the Apocalypse/ and a larger and more widely known book, * Heaven and Hell/ Between 1757 and 1759 he also wrote 4 The Apocalypse Explained/ which, although never completed, filled six volumes* It was superseded in 1766 by a shorter work entitled 4 The Apocalypse Revealed/ In the spring of 1762 Swedenborg, now seventy-four, proceeded to Amsterdam, to which town he transferred his publishing, the reason probably being, as suggested by Dr* Tafel, that his teachings had been rejected by the clergy of the Church of England, to whom his books were principally addressed* He certainly published no more books in London beyond a pamphlet on 4 The Intercourse between the Body and the Soul/ which appeared in 1769* All his other later religious works were now published from Amsterdam* The Transactions of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences for the quarter April, May, and June 1763, however, contain a paper by him on the inlaying of marble, but his * New Method of Finding the Longitude of Places on Sea and Land ' was republished at Amsterdam in 1766* The frequent voyages which Swedenborg undertook at his advanced age were conducted alone, and were free from misadventure of any kind—indeed, the superstitious sea-captains of vessels plying between Sweden and Amsterdam and London liked to have him on board, because, they maintained, he brought them fine weather and favouring winds* He last crossed over to London in July 1771, and there remained to the close of his earthly life i8 REASONABLE RELIGION on March 29, 1772, the day which he had himself foretold. During his last years it began to get known that he was the author of the remarkable books above mentioned, and that he professed to have open communication with angels and spirits, and he became the object of curiosity. Jung-Stilling states that he made no secret of it, but would frequently at dinner-parties or similar conven¬ tional gatherings, in the midst of some interesting con¬ versation, say : * On this point I conversed not long ago ' —with Luther, St. Paul, or some other departed authority, as the case might be. Jung-Stilling adds that although the veracity of these statements had been impugned, and 4 the good gentleman * had even been charged with imposture, yet there could be no doubt that he was a pious Christian and incapable of deceit. Swedenborg's works need no extraneous support, they stand or fall by the internal evidence of their sound¬ ness ; but it may nevertheless be interesting here to adduce the three principal but authenticated external proofs of his seership which are on record, although many similar incidents are related of him. The first is the story of Queen Louisa Ulrica of Sweden, sister of the Crown Prince Augustus William of Prussia, who at a court function asked Swedenborg, among other things, whether he had ever met her brother, who was dead, in the spiritual world, and on receiving a negative reply requested him to ask after the prince and to give him her greeting. This he promised to do. It is suggested that the Queen gave Swedenborg this com¬ mission in jest rather than in earnest, but Swedenborg took it seriously, and on the occasion of the next court approached her as she was receiving in what was called the white room, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. The Queen had forgotten the incident, and was surprised when Swedenborg informed her that he was the bearer of greetings from her brother, and that the prince desired to apologise to her for not answering her last letter, and had entrusted his reply to Swedenborg. Count Hopken, who tells the story, relates that the Queen was greatly INTRODUCTION 19 overcome, and said: 4 No one but God knows this secret/ According to another account the Queen nearly fainted, and Swedenborg was bitterly reproached by Count von Schwerin for distressing her, and asked to tell him the secret. But whatever truth there may be in the story, the secret was never revealed. Jung-Stilling, at least, fully believed in it, and says : * A distinguished Swede, who was by no means an admirer of Sweden¬ borg's, has assured me that it is the pure truth and cannot be called in question.' It appears that he furnished him with additional proofs, which, however, he thought it would be indiscreet to publish. The next story is of a very different order. Sweden¬ borg, arriving at Gotha from England in 1759, was invited to dinner by a Mr. William Castel to meet fifteen other guests. At about six o'clock [writes Emanuel Kant] Swedenborg went out and returned to the company quite pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm (300 miles off) and that it was spreading very fast. He was restless and went out often. He said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed * Thank God ! the fire is extin¬ guished, the third door from my house !' Several days later a messenger arrived in Gothenburg with official news of the fire which absolutely bore out all Swedenborg's statements. Then there is the Marteville incident. Mme. Marte- ville, widow of the Dutch Ambassador at Stockholm, received a demand from a silversmith for payment for a service of plate. Convinced that her husband had paid, but unable to find the receipt, she asked Swedenborg whether he could ascertain from her departed husband how the matter stood. Three days later Swedenborg called on the lady and told her, in a matter-of-fact way, how he had seen her husband, that the plate had been paid for, and that the receipt would be found in a secret drawer of a certain escritoire. The lady, who did not 20 REASONABLE RELIGION know of this secret drawer, now had no difficulty in finding the missing document* These stories were carefully investigated by Kant, who was not, at one time, at all well disposed towards Swedenborg, and he satisfied himself of their authenticity. There are several others, but, as has been already observed, such stories are of small value. Swedenborg's claims for credence are based on a surer foundation. What manner of man was this many-sided person— theologian, philosopher, scientist, statesman, and engineer i As a politician and engineer it has been shown that he was a reformer, that he stood for progress and enlighten¬ ment, but he was never a revolutionary. In the House of Nobles he was no partisan ; at that time in Sweden there were two parties, the 1 hats ' and the 4 caps,' but he refused to be identified with either. Opposed alike to despotism and anarchy, he was a consistent and ardent advocate of freedom and order, the one being impossible without the other. He had witnessed the misfortunes into which an ambitious, vainglorious, unlimited monarch like Charles XII could plunge his country. He had seen the miseries which an eighteen years' war had entailed. He was therefore in favour of constitutional government. His writings show that he was no respecter of persons, and that he held bureaucracy and officialism in particular abhorrence. Yet he was no demagogue, but a calm and dignified thinker, an aristocrat by training and position, in whose eyes, however, rank, dignities, place, and the pomp and self-importance of the Jack-in-office were alike contemptible and ridiculous. Thus he was a true demo¬ crat who knew that in the eyes of God all men were equal, and that, as a Scottish poet was to sing some years later. The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that. But if he was contemptuous of the worldly ambitions of self-seekers, he was neither truculent nor intolerant. He was indeed so considerate of others, and so careful not to give offence, that he was not even unconventional, either in his dress or manner, or in his mode of life. INTRODUCTION 21 In appearance tall, with a pleasing face and regular features, he possessed singularly fine blue eyes, which retained their beauty even in his old age* John Christian Cuno, a merchant and banker in Amsterdam, who was a friend of his, said of him : * When he gazed upon me with his smiling blue eyes, which he always did in con¬ versing with me, it was as if truth itself was speaking from them/ These eyes had a sort of magnetic power, and the same friend observed that he often noticed with surprise how scoffers, who had come * to make fun of the old gentleman/ were fain to listen in silent wonder at * the singular things which he, like an open-hearted child, told about the spiritual world, without reserve and with full confidence* It almost seemed as if his eyes possessed the faculty of imposing silence on everyone/ His dress was simple, but neat* According to the prevailing custom he wore a wig, but this was not of immoderate length* One Swedish contemporary de¬ scribes him as usually wearing a long, light blue or greyish velvet coat, with a black taffeta waistcoat, and shoes with large gold buckles* His London landlord, a barber appropriately named Shearsmith, of Bath Street, Coldbath Fields, in whose unpretentious house he died, stated that the dress he generally wore when he went out to visit was a suit of black velvet, made after an old fashion ; a pair of long ruffles; a curious hiked sword; and a gold-headed cane* He ate little or no animal food, only a few eels sometimes* His chief sustenance was cakes, tea and coffee, made generally very sweet. His drink was water* 1 He took a great deal of snuff. Everybody who has left any record of him speaks of his easy, polished, and agreeable manners in society* Thus Cuno observes : * Mr. Swedenborg moves in the world' with great tact, and knows how to address the high and the low/ This is not surprising when we consider the circles he moved in* In a letter to the Rev* Thomas 1 In company he would drink two or three glasses of wine, but never more. 22 REASONABLE RELIGION Hartley, rector of Winwick, Northamptonshire, who asked him for particulars of his life, career, friends and relations, Swedenborg, after giving a brief and very modest outline of his curriculum vitae, states : With respect to my family connection, I had four sisters. One of them was married to Ericus Benzelius, who subse¬ quently became Archbishop of Upsala, and through him I became related to the two succeeding archbishops, who . ♦ ♦ were younger brothers of his. My second sister was married to Lars Benzelstierna, who became a provincial governor; but these two are dead. Two bishops however who are related to me are living, one of them, who is Flennius, and who is Bishop of East Gothland, officiates now as President in the House of the Clergy in the Diet at Stockholm, in the place of the Archbishop who is an invalid ; he married my sister's daughter; the other named Benzelstierna, is Bishop of Westmanland and Dalecorlia ; he is the son of my second sister. Not to mention others of my relations who occupy stations of honour. Moreover all the bishops of my native country, who are ten in number, and also the sixteen senators, and the rest of those high in office, entertain feelings of affec¬ tion for me, and I live with them on terms of familiarity, as a friend among friends ; the reason of which is, that they know I am in company with angels. Even the King and the Queen, and the three princes, their sons, show me great favour. . ♦ ♦ But all that I have related I consider of comparatively little importance ; for it is far exceeded by the circumstance that I have been called to a holy office by the Lord Himself. ♦ ♦ ♦ The letter of Mr. Hartley, a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England, to which the above is a reply, deserves quotation as throwing light on Swedenborg the man. Mr. Hartley writes : I consider myself most highly favoured and I rejoice from my inmost heart in having had the honour, which you lately granted me, of conversing with you ; and also in your having been so kind and friendly towards me who am quite unworthy of such a favour. But your charity towards the neighbour, the heavenly benignity shining from your countenance, and your childlike simplicity, devoid of all vain show and egotism are so great, and the treasure of wisdom possessed by you is so sweetly tempered with gentleness, that it did not inspire INTRODUCTION 23 in me a feeling of awe, but one of love, which refreshed me in my inmost heart. Believe me, O best of men, that by my intercourse with you I consider myself crowned with more than royal favours. ... In speaking with you every suspicion of flattery must be hushed. For what ground for flattery can there be, when I attribute everything in you, however great and extraordinary it may be, to the Lord, and not to yourself, and when I look upon you only as an instrument of His mercy and kindness ! Swedenborg must indeed have been a remarkable figure when a visit to him in his humble lodgings could evoke such a letter, of the sincerity of which there can be no doubt, for Mr. Hartley had nothing to gain by writing it, the object of the letter being to offer Sweden¬ borg an asylum in England in the event of persecution at home. Of Swedenborg's uncompromising honesty the follow¬ ing story is a good illustration. He originally intended to publish his * True Christian Religion 9 in Paris, for which purpose the consent of the Press Censor had to be obtained. This consent was given, subject, however, to the proviso that the title-page should bear an imprint to the effect that the book had been printed elsewhere, in London or Amsterdam. But Swedenborg would not permit the * True Christian Religion * to appear with a lie on its title-page, and so he took his MS. to Amsterdam and published it there. Though transparently honest, he was by no means austere, and had a keen sense of humour. This appears from an incident relating to a young lady of about sixteen who was very anxious that * Uncle ' Swedenborg should show her an angel. * At last he consented, and leading her to a summer-house in his garden he placed her before a curtain that had been lowered, and then said 44 Now you shall see an angel tf ; and as he spoke he drew up the curtain, when the maiden beheld herself reflected in a mirror/ Swedenborg was not averse to the society of ladies, towards whom he always behaved with the distinguished courtesy of his time. He was devoted to children, fond 24 REASONABLE RELIGION of music, and seems to have been literally worshipped by his servants—a man and wife, who appear to have been very charming and very original, simple folk* No better or more fitting conclusion could be given to this necessarily somewhat meagre sketch than by reprinting Swedenborg's * Rules of Life,' from an unpublished MS*: i* Often to read and meditate on the Word of God* 2. To submit everything to the will of Divine Providence* 3. To observe in everything a propriety of behaviour and to keep the conscience clear* 4* To discharge with fidelity the functions of my employ¬ ments, and to make myself in all things useful to society* CHAPTER I Life and Creation We are living in an age of materialism, in an age in which people do not believe in anything that cannot be weighed or measured. The scientific man strives to set up a philosophy of the universe in which God has no place. Nature suffices for itself and needs no spiritual explana¬ tion, This endeavour has nevertheless failed of success, and principally for two reasons. No system of material¬ istic philosophy has yet satisfactorily explained that extraordinary phenomenon called life with the associated mysterious sensation of self-consciousness, and nobody has succeeded in discovering a secular sanction for human conduct based on something stronger than the good intentions of the individual and the good of the community. Philosophers maintain that ethics are entirely distinct from religion and need no such sanction, but the practical man knows from experience that the selfishness of man¬ kind cannot be restrained by philanthropic theories. In a large measure, the negation of religion is the result of the illogical and childish beliefs of our ancestors, which have been handed down to us from generation to generation. Fallible human nature has a tendency to error, and truths handed down through the centuries are apt to become so caked in error or misconception, that the original kernel of truth is completely concealed by the gradually growing husk of falsity. Whilst primitive religion was adapted to the primitive minds of a childlike 26 REASONABLE RELIGION and unsophisticated race of beings, the errors which have accumulated round primitive religion have fre¬ quently resulted in making such religion repugnant to the logical mind. Hence the necessity of new dispensa¬ tions adapted to the time. This explains the philo¬ sophical necessity of the teachings of Swedenborg. This man of science had been prepared by a life of practical work and by mathematical training for his great mission. It was necessary to reconcile modern scientific discoveries with the truths of religion, and to unravel the latter from the errors and falsities which they had accumulated. Swedenborg's task was not to destroy, but to build up ; not to criticise, but to explain ; not to cause strife or found sects, but to reconcile and harmonise. We propose in the following pages to give a brief and popular exposition of the remarkable teachings of this extraordinary philosopher. Let us begin at the beginning. How does Swedenborg account for the existence of the world, for this mysterious life which is such a puzzle to the materialist i He puts it very clearly, very simply, and very con¬ vincingly, in a small work entitled * The Divine Love and Wisdom.' 1 He there tells us, in so many words, that the life of man is love. Though man is not aware of the nature of love, he is fully aware of its existence, it is ordinarily referred to in conversation. But although love is so universally spoken of, scarcely anyone knows what it is. Man is unable to form any definite idea of it. He is entirely ignorant of the fact that love is his very life, not only the general life of his whole body and of all his thoughts, but also the life of their minutest details. Unless it is known that man's life is love, sensation and action or thought might conceivably be so considered. Some idea of love as being the life of man may be formed from the heat of the sun. It is well known that this heat is, as it were, the common life of all vegetation. Love and heat mutually correspond, and therefore love is warm. God alone is love itself, for He is life itself, angels and men are but recipients of life. God is uncreate and 1 Dent, ‘ Everyman’s Library.’ LIFE AND CREATION 27 infinite, and no man could be created from the Uncreate and Infinite, for the Divine is one and indivisible. Man can only be brought into existence by means of created and finite substances, so formed that the Divine may dwell in them. Men so created are recipients of life, but possess no inherent life. For a man to suppose that he has inherent life inevitably leads to a belief that he is god—a form of idolatry entailing eventually the negation of all religion. Man does not receive life from his father, but only a primary and elementary form capable of receiving life, to which, as a nucleus, are successively added from the mother substances and materials in forms adapted to the reception of life in its order and degree. From this fundamental theory of the origin of life it is easy to follow Swedenborg in his theory of creation. God is not in space. Space is a natural, material con¬ ception. God is, however, omnipresent. To think about God from space is to think of the expanse of nature. God is life—hence being. Where there is life or existence there must of necessity be expression or manifestation. Being and manifestation thus form a one, and yet they are distinct, they are indeed like love and wisdom, for love is being, wisdom, manifestation; love does not manifest itself except in wisdom; being cannot exist without manifestation. God must therefore have a form. God is indeed a man, He is the self-manifest God from whom all things are. God is infinite, not only because He is Being itself and Manifestation itself, but because there are infinite things in Him. Let us now pause to consider the riddle of the universe. God is omnipresent, but He is not in space, nor con¬ sequently in time. He is infinite Being, but as we have seen, infinite Being cannot exist unless it makes itself manifest. Hence God must be infinitely operating, eter¬ nally emanating love and wisdom, which, proceeding, as we shall presently see, through degrees of substances, rests as it were, or is based on creation; the lowest, coarsest manifestation of divine operation; the last product has become finite nature conditioned in time and space. 28 REASONABLE RELIGION Further, God is infinite Love and Wisdom, He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and also omniscient. The All- Wise cannot act against His own infinite Wisdom, the laws by which He acts have not been arbitrarily framed. Infinite Wisdom can only act infinitely wisely, hence there is even in the lowest forms of nature an infinity of wisdom, and things are as they are, not because they have been arbitrarily so created, but because they could not be otherwise. Every created thing is instinct with wisdom, and must consequently be representative of spiritual things and spiritual truth; this is obvious, and on this Swedenborg bases his law of correspondence, by means of which he explains the spiritual lessons contained in the Bible, In the Book of Genesis we are told that God created man in His own image, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This shows that man is an organ of life and not life itself, for God could not create another god, nor could He create life, but He could create man a form receptive of life, as He can create an eye, a form receptive of light; moreover, God cannot divide His own essence, which is one and indivisible. As God alone is life, He, from His life, quickens a given life to every man. Without such quickening man would be as to his flesh a mere sponge, and as to his bones a mere skeleton, with¬ out more life in him than is possessed by a clock which derives its motion from a pendulum or from a weight or a spring. Consequently God flows into every man with all His divine life—i.e. with all His divine love and divine wisdom, for the Divine cannot be divided. An illustration is afforded by the action of the sun of this world. As the sun with all its essence, consisting of heat and light, flows into every tree, fruit, flower, and stone, and as every object absorbs its portion of this general influx, whilst the sun itself does not divide its heat and light, distributing a part here and a part there, but radiates it uniformly, so the sun of heaven equally radiates divine love, which proceeds as heat, and divine wisdom, which proceeds as light. These irradiate -or flow into human minds, just as the heat and light of the material LIFE AND CREATION 29 sun enter into bodies, and impart life to them according to the quality of the recipient forms, each of which takes as much as it needs from the common influx. The Lord is omnipresent, and wherever He is present, which is everywhere. He is present with His whole essence, and affords man the capacity of taking either little or much. In short, all things are full of God, and everyone takes his portion from that fullness. Nevertheless, Swedenborg must not be regarded as teaching pantheism, God is the creator of the universe. He and nature are not one. Thus, it is not the fire of the sun that passes to the earth, for that would burn up and consume all things, but it is light wherein is heat from the sun, and this light is a spiritual representation of the Divine truth, the heat is the good in the truth from the Divine good, and the paradise thence is Heaven, From the Divine Love and from the Divine Wisdom, which together constitute the very Essence which is God, arise all the affections and thoughts of man, for all things of man, both in general and in particular, are simply affection and thought, and nothing else—these two are the sources of all things of his life. This very Essence, which, as we have stated, is not inherent in nature, but outside nature, outside creation, is nevertheless substance and form in itself, and hence the one only reality, the true and only Essence, and consequently the true and only life. But the existence of this Essence, this very love and wisdom, immediately postulates something else. As Swedenborg points out, the essential of love is to be loved by others, for loving self is not the essential of love: this is obvious. Hence it follows that the Divine Love must needs be and exist in others whom it may love and by whom it can be loved. These others must be such in whom there is nothing of the Divine in itself: they must be beings created from the Divine, and this can only be effected by Infinite Wisdom, which must make one with Infinite Love, Swedenborg here entreats the reader to endeavour to banish all ideas of time and space from his mind, for the Divine is not in either, Swedenborg has been accused of mysticism, but his 30 REASONABLE RELIGION most mystical postulate, namely, that the created universe is an image representative of God Man, and that it is His love and wisdom which in the universe are pre¬ sented in an image, seems an obvious truism. The Divine is thus in all things in the universe, in general and in particular. In every seed there is the idea of the infinite and the eternal; for there is in seeds an effort to multiply and to fructify to infinity and to eternity. The same is also true with regard to every living creature, no matter how small, for all living creatures have the organs of the senses, perfect details of anatomy, not to speak of the stupendous things in their instincts. All these things are from God, but the forms in which they are clothed are from the material substances of the earth. All things created in a certain image have relation to man, and this is evident from the fact that the organs and viscera of animals are in common with those of man. Their appetites and affections are not dissimilar either. The relation of man to the vegetable kingdom is equally obvious, though his relation to the mineral kingdom is less so. As God is a Man the created universe is His image; for the general relation of all things is to Him as the particular relation is to man. The uses of all things ascend by degrees to man and by man to the Creator, from Whom they are. Swedenborg divides all created things into three cate¬ gories. The last things are those of the mineral kingdom. In these lie concealed all the uses of life. The end of all uses is the effort of producing them, and the beginning is the force acting out of that effort. The middle things are those of the vegetable kingdom. The uses of these are for all things of the animal kingdom, which they nourish, delight, and vivify. The effort towards these things is also in them from life. The first things include the entire animal kingdom. There are three degrees of ascent in the natural world and three degrees of ascent in the spiritual world, all animals being recipients of life of the former, the most perfect of all three degrees, the less perfect of two, and LIFE AND CREATION 3i the imperfect or rudimentary of only one of these degrees* Man, however, is the recipient of life of all degrees, both natural and spiritual, and can therefore be elevated above nature, and can think analytically and rationally, not only of the civil and moral things in nature, but also of the spiritual and celestial things above nature, and he can even be elevated into wisdom so as to be able to see God* Man is indeed born into the last or lowest degree of the natural world, from thence he is elevated by sciences or knowledge into the second degree, and in proportion as he perfects his understanding by knowledge he is elevated into the highest degree and becomes rational* The three degrees of ascent in the spiritual world are in him above the three natural degrees, but do not appear until he puts off his earthly body, when they are successively opened to him, but the third degree only to those who become angels of the third heaven, who alone see God. These spiritual degrees are opened progressively, according to the reception by man of the Divine love and wisdom from the Lord. In every created thing there is reaction. Action is in life alone, and the reaction is excited by the action of life. Man as a recipient of life reacts against God from his hereditary evil, the origin of which will be explained later. In proportion, however, as he believes that all life is from God, and that all the good of life is from the action of God, and all the evil from the reaction of man, this reaction becomes the property of the action, and man acts with God as from himself. We now come to Swedenborg's theory of the creation. He teaches that there are two suns through which all things have been created by the Lord: the sun of the spiritual world, and the sun or suns of the natural world. All things have been created through the sun of the spiritual world, and the sun of the natural world has been created to render subordinate aid. Siemens's theory of the sun ascribes to it an action similar to that of the heart, and this is in consonance with Swedenborg's theory. According to Swedenborg, there are three things which exist in every created thing, namely: end, cause and effect. In the sun, which is the first proceeding of 32 REASONABLE RELIGION the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, is the end of all things ; in the spiritual world are the causes of all things ; and in the natural world are the effects of all things* Seeing that no created thing is possible in which these three are not, it follows that the universe and all things belonging to it have been created by the Lord through the sun, where is the end of all things* No conception of creation is possible unless the idea of time and space is mentally eliminated. If the mind be kept, in idea, abstracted from space and time, the maximum of space and the minimum of space will be seen to differ in no respect, a similar idea can then be formed of the creation of the universe, and of the creation of the par¬ ticular things in the universe* It will be clear that the diversity in the created things is conditioned by the fact that there are infinite things in God-Man, and hence indefinite things in the sun which is the first proceeding from Him, these indefinite things exist as in an image in the universe. Hence no two things can anywhere be the same. The creation of the universe and all things belonging to it cannot be said to have been accomplished from space to space or from time to time, progressively and successively, but from eternity to infinity* Let us for one moment consider the import of this* Children frequently ask their parents what God was doing before He created the world* Swedenborg's postu¬ late completely answers this question* But we will allow Swedenborg to speak for himself* In speaking of * the end, the cause, and the effect,' he calls them * the first end, the middle, and the last,' and he says : These three must be together in everything in order that it may be anything* For a first end without a middle end, and at the same time a last end is impossible; or, what is the same thing, an end alone without a cause and an effect is impossible. So neither is a cause alone possible without an end from which it is; nor is an effect alone possible, that is, an effect without a cause and its end. He proceeds to elaborate this, and then says : LIFE AND CREATION 33 These three things, namely, end, cause, and effect, are in the created universe, both in its greatest things and in its least things* These three are in greatest and least things of the created universe, because these three are in God the Creator, Who is the Lord from eternity. . . . The universal end, the end of all things in creation, is that there may be an eternal con¬ junction of the Creator with the created universe ; and this is not possible unless there be subjects in which His Divine may be as in Itself, thus in which it may dwell and abide. In order that these subjects may be the dwellings and mansions of Him¬ self, they must be recipients of His love and wisdom as of them¬ selves ; thus they must be those who shall elevate themselves to the Creator as of themselves, and shall conjoin themselves with Him: without this reciprocity no conjunction is possible. These subjects are men who are able to elevate and conjoin themselves as of themselves. Here we have the whole philosophy of the universe in a nutshell. To return to the question so often put by children, if we eliminate time and space in connection with our attempted conception of God, we see at once that God is outside time and space, and not conditioned by them. Indeed it is inconceivable that God could be conditioned by anything except His own love and wisdom. It seems further inconceivable that infinite love could exist without having objects of affection, or that infinite wisdom should not exercise its powers. Such an idea suggests a state of inactivity comparable only with death, and cannot possibly, therefore, be asso¬ ciated with the Deity. It would therefore seem permis¬ sible and logical to assume that creation is as much a law as any of what we are pleased to call the laws of nature, and that if this earth was created some thousands or even millions of years ago, other earths and other solar systems in the universe may have been created before, and may be in continual course of creation. This idea is suggested by a perusal of Swedenborg's works, but is nowhere definitely formulated by him. Swedenborg is not content with the above abstract philosophical postulate. He proceeds to show the method by means of which creation was effected, and the created universe is sustained, or shall we say maintained, in REASONABLE RELIGION 34 existence* We are to-day becoming familiarised with the idea that there exists a spiritual world, and that com¬ munication with this world is not impossible; hence Swedenborg's claim that his spiritual senses were opened, and that facts concerning the spiritual world were com¬ municated to him, does not present the difficulties it did to our forefathers* He informs us that the spiritual and natural worlds are alike, and that there are consequently atmospheres, waters, and earths in both, from which general conditions all things exist in general and in particular in infinite variety* The atmospheres, which are called ethers and airs, are alike in both worlds, but are, of course, spiritual in the one and natural in the other* The spiritual atmospheres exist from the spiritual sun, which is the first emanation of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of the Lord, and from Him receive in themselves Divine fire, which is love, and Divine light, which is wisdom, and carry these down to the heavens where are the angels, and cause the presence of that sun in the greatest and in the least things there* The spiritual atmospheres are discrete substances or least forms originating from the sun ; and as they each singly receive the sun, therefore the fire of the sun, divided into so many substances or forms, and enveloped by them, and tempered by these envelopments, becomes heat suit¬ able for the love of the angels in heaven and the spirits under heaven* The same applies to the light of the sun, which thus becomes adapted to the wisdom of the angels and spirits. In this respect the atmospheres of the natural world resemble those of the spiritual world* They are also discrete substances and least forms, they originate from the sun of the natural world, and singly receive the sun and store up its fire in themselves, tempering it and carrying it down as heat to the earth, the dwelling- place of man; and in like manner the light* There is, however, this difference between the spiritual and the natural atmospheres—the first are receptacles of Divine fire and light, thus of love and wisdom, for these they cannot contain of themselves; whilst the natural atmo- LIFE AND CREATION 35 spheres are only receptacles of the fire and light of their own sun, which is material and consequently dead* There is therefore nothing in them interiorly from the sun of the spiritual world, although they are nevertheless environed by the spiritual atmospheres emanating from the spiritual sun* In the spiritual world there are also waters and lands as in the natural world, though they are spiritual in the one and natural in the other* The atmospheres, says Swedenborg, are the active forces, the waters the middle forces, and the earths the passive forces from which all effects exist* That these three forces are in their series is due solely to the life emanating from the Lord as a sun and causing them to be active* Here we have laid down a perfectly clear, logical and progressive theory of the universe spiritual and natural, the one sustaining and, as it were, feeding the other* It now becomes necessary to examine Swedenborg's theory of degrees by means of which the riddle of the universe is still further explained* He postulates degrees of love and wisdom, and conse¬ quently degrees of heat and light and also degrees of atmospheres* He says that there are three heavens, and that the angels of the third heaven so far excel the angels of the second heaven in love and wisdom—these the angels of the last or ultimate heaven—that they cannot be together because they are distinguished and separated by degrees of love and wisdom* Since there are degrees of love and wisdom, there are also degrees of spiritual heat and light* The atmospheres being receptacles and containers of heat and light, there are necessarily as many degrees of atmospheres as there are degrees of heat and light and of love and wisdom* The science of degrees is the key to the knowledge of the causes of things* Without it the objects and subjects of the natural and spiritual worlds appear so similar that it would seem that there was nothing to learn about them except what is seen by the eye, and yet the things that lie hidden within are in the proportion of one to a thousand or to tens of REASONABLE RELIGION 36 thousands. The interiors, which are concealed, cannot be revealed without a knowledge of degrees, for exteriors pass to interiors, and by these to intimates, through degrees, but through discrete degrees. Continuous degrees grade off from grosser to finer or from denser to rarer, or they may be described as growths or increas- ings from finer to grosser or from rarer to denser, just as the stages of light to darkness or of heat to cold. Discrete degrees, on the other hand, are as things prior, posterior and ultimate, or as end, cause and effect. These degrees Swedenborg calls discrete, because they are separate and not continuous, each degree being by itself, and yet taken together they make one. The atmospheres from the highest to the lowest, e.g,, from the sun to the earth, the ethers and the airs, are segre¬ gated into such degrees ; and they stand as simples and aggregates, and again as aggregates of aggregates, thus forming a composite. Such degrees are called discrete because they exist separately or distinctly, and are called also by Swedenborg degrees of altitude, whilst the continuous degrees, which increase continuously, he calls degrees of latitude. Now, all existing things, both in the spiritual and the natural world, in general and in particular, co-exist simul¬ taneously from both categories of degrees, from degrees of altitude and degrees of latitude. Unless these two kinds of degrees are known, causes cannot be under¬ stood, causes being usually arrived at by induction con¬ tinuous with effects. But causes, Swedenborg maintains, do not produce effects by continuity, but by discreteness; for the cause is one thing, and the effect another. The distinction between the two is the same as the distinction between what is prior and what is posterior, or between the thing that forms and the thing that is formed. Thus, there are threz heavens, and these are distinct one from the other by degrees of altitude; these heavens are one under the other, and can only communicate with each other by emanation or influx, which is effected by the Lord from the highest to the lowest, and not conversely. But each heaven is divided within itself by degrees of LIFE AND CREATION 37 latitude* Those who are in the centre are in the light of wisdom, but those at the circumference are in the shade of wisdom* Wisdom thus gradually decreases to ignorance as light decreases to darkness* It is the same with man* The interiors, or the things in the mind, are distinguished in the same number of degrees as the angelic heavens, one above the other* There are also in man continuous degrees, as in Heaven* The degrees of latitude, or continuous degrees, are like gradations from light to shade, from dense to dilute, and from thick to thin, and these require no special elucidation* But degrees of altitude are less known and not so obvious* It is of course known that end, cause, and effect form an orderly sequence, like prior, posterior, and ultimate, and that the end produces the cause, and through the cause the effect* All things on earth are in three dimensions, all com¬ posites consist of degrees of altitude. Swedenborg illustrates this by showing how every muscle in the body consists of small fibres which are grouped together in bundles forming larger fibres, called motor fibres, and how groups of these form the compound called a muscle* It is the same with nerves, and in all things of the vege¬ table and mineral kingdoms in general and in particular. The case is the same with the organic substances which are the receptacles and dwelling of the thoughts and affections in the brain, with the atmospheres, with heat and light, and with love and wisdom* For the atmo¬ spheres are the receptacles of heat and light, and the latter are the receptacles of love and wisdom* Just as there are degrees of the atmospheres, so there are degrees of heat and light and of love and wisdom* The degrees of each subject and thing are homogeneous* The first degree, by massing of parts, produces the second, and through it the third, and separates each from the other by drawing an envelope round it* It is thus evident that the first degree is principal and singly regnant in the others, and is in all things of the subsequent degrees* From this it follows that the Divine, which is substance in itself—that is to say, single and sole substance—is the REASONABLE RELIGION 38 same of all created things in general and in particular; thus that God is in all things of the universe. Degrees are in two kinds of order, in successive order and in simultaneous order. The successive order being likened to a column divided into three steps, up and down which ascent and descent can be made, while successive order is lateral, or from the centre to the circumference. We have seen that in the spiritual world the Divine Love and Wisdom appear as a sun. That sun is not the Lord Himself but from the Lord; it is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom emanating from Him. The Lord from Eternity—that is, Jehovah—produced from Himself the sun in the spiritual world and out of it created the universe and all things in it. For there are three degrees of altitude in the Lord, infinite and uncreated. The Lord being Love itself and Wisdom itself is also Use itself. Love and wisdom apart from use have no limit or end, and it cannot consequently be predicated of them that they exist unless there be a use in which they are. This theoretical postulate is so evident and logical that it needs no further elaboration. It follows that the Lord created the universe and all things thereof from Himself, for He could not have created it from nothing, ex nihilo nihil fit . All things must have been created out of a substance, and as God alone is substance in itself it follows that the existence of things can be from no other source. But the Lord could not have created the universe without being a man. The conception of the Lord as a man must be separated from purely natural conditions of time and space. The Divine is the same in the first things and in the last, in the greatest things and the least, for the Divine is not in space, but fills all spaces apart from space. The spiritual sun is not the Lord, but is an emanation from His divine love and His divine wisdom. This spiritual sun is thus a sphere or aura like the sphere of affections and thoughts which encompasses every human being. Swedenborg asserts that such spheres are emitted by every angel, and that a society of angels possesses a general sphere ; and he further states that he has acquired LIFE AND CREATION 39 the conviction that a sphere consisting of substances set free and separated from him encompasses every individual, whether in heaven or in helL Spheres also well forth from every single thing in the spiritual world, and the same is true of the natural world, where it has been scientifically established that waves of effluvia are con¬ tinually flowing forth out of man, animals, trees, fruit, and flowers, and even metals and stones* The spiritual sun is such an emanation or sphere about the Lord and from Him, but is not the Lord Him¬ self, consequently the constituents of the spiritual sun are not the Lord Himself, and are therefore not essential life, but are, on the contrary, devoid of life in themselves* According to Swedenborg : There are three things in the Lord which are the Lord, the Divine of Love, the Divine of Wisdom, and the Divine of Use ; and these three are presented in appearance outside the sun of the spiritual world, the Divine of Love by heat, the Divine of Wisdom by light, and the Divine of Use by atmosphere, which is the continent* He elaborates this postulate by showing that love must have something to be loved; this something is use, and is therefore produced by wisdom, hence it follows that love, wisdom, and use succeed in order according to the degrees of altitude, and that the last degree is the complex continent and basis of the prior degrees* * From these things/ he concludes, * it may appear that these three, the Divine of Love, the Divine of Wisdom, and the Divine of Use are in the Lord, and that in essence they are the Lord/ The Lord being omnipresent, cannot make Himself present, as He is in Himself and as He is in His own sun, to any angel or man; He there¬ fore presents Himself as to love through heat, as to wisdom through light, and as to use through atmosphere, the latter being the continent of heat and light, just as use is the continent of love and wisdom* In other words, the light and heat proceeding from the Divine sun cannot pro¬ ceed in a vacuum, but must have a medium or continent, this is supplied by the atmosphere which surrounds the sun* There is thus one only substance from which all things 40 REASONABLE RELIGION are, and that substance is the sun of the spiritual world. This sun, like the Divine, of which it is an emanation, is not in space, but is the same in the greatest and least things. This one only substance, proceeding by means of atmospheres according to continuous degrees (of latitude), and simultaneously according to discrete degrees (of altitude), presents the varieties of all things in the created universe. In both the spiritual and natural (which might for convenience be described as the substantial and material) worlds there are three atmospheres, distinct from each other according to degrees of altitude, and decreasing in their downward progression according to degrees of latitude. As the atmospheres decrease in their down¬ ward progression they become continually more com¬ pressed and inert until they cease to be atmospheres and become substances at rest, and in the natural world fixed substances, like those in the earth which are described as matter. Substance and matter are consequently of three degrees, are held together in mutual connection by the circumambient atmospheres, and are accommodated to the production of all uses in their forms. Let us reflect on what this involves. The primary cause of all things is God-Man, or the Lord. The first emanation from God is the sun of the spiritual world. Atmospheres are the things through which that sun presents or manifests itself in ultimates, as they continually decrease in activity and expansion down to the ultimates; these, when the activity and ex¬ pansion ceases, become substance and matter, but retain from the atmospheres from which they originated an effort or innate endeavour to bring forth uses. Yet there is nothing of the Divine in itself in the substance and matter of the earths. Substance and matter are the ends and terminations of atmospheres, the heat of which has gradually ended in cold, the light in darkness, the activity in inertia; but they have nevertheless brought, by continuation from the substance of the spiritual sun, that which was there from the Divine. From the sphere encompassing the Lord, by continuation from the sun, LIFE AND CREATION 4i by means of the atmospheres, have arisen the substance and matter of which the earths consist* We have thus a clear, logical, consistent, and scientific explanation or solution of the riddle of the universe* There is nothing miraculous or arbitrary in this conception of God's relation to, or creation of, the world; it is, on the contrary, scientific and orderly, the disorder which is sometimes apparent in nature arises from other causes as we shall presently see when we come to deal with the origin of evil* We must, however, guard ourselves against an automatic conception of the universe* The constant Divine action is not only general but particular, it is in small things as well as in great, and, as we shall see when we come to consider the governance of the universe, the Divine Love and Wisdom never rests, but is always in operation govern¬ ing all things, but always in accordance with law and order* Lawlessness and disorder are evil* We will conclude this chapter with a reference to an article by Camille Flammarion in a journal entitled Vers U Unite. He tells us that we inhabit the surface of a globe a thousand times smaller than the planet Jupiter which is a thousand times smaller than the sun which is a thousand times smaller than Sirius which is a thousand times smaller than Canopus* The sun is but one of the stars of the Milky Way. Space is infinite; we might travel for thousands of centuries without ever reaching its limits, for it has no circumference* One of these days we shall die. Will the soul survive the body i If thought be a product of the brain, the answer is No* But it is Yes if dynamics govern matter and the organism is formed by a psychic force* We know to-day that what appears to be matter is composed of infinitely small atoms, in¬ tangible and imponderable, which are directed by an invisible energy, whether it be a question of the stars gravitating in space or of molecules constituting living beings* The materialistic hypothesis is thus increasingly losing its apparent probability* In this connection appearances are as deceptive as they are in the false con¬ ception of the immobility of the earth* If our souls survive, we have an eternity before us* CHAPTER II The Origin of Evil Just as the love of God is the beginning of all wisdom, so in the love of self is the origin of all eviL But how is it, one may ask, that God, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the Creator and Sustainer of the world and of life, can suffer that life of which He is the source to be perverted into evil i We have seen how all things exist from and through God, we have seen that the principle of life is love, and that love is in its essence divine ; how then is it possible that the offspring of the Divine should be suffered to be turned into hate, its opposite i The Christian religion, however, teaches that Christ who descended from Heaven and was made man was crucified* God is crucified every day by the wicked* But how can it be that an omnipotent Creator who is essentially Divine Love should allow evil to exist, should permit human beings to be selfish i Surely it would have been just as easy to create men good { This is the usual superficial way of regarding the problem of the existence and origin of evil* And yet some of the pro- foundest thinkers have been unable to explain the apparent paradox* John Stuart Mill for instance, who was able to perceive and explain the importance of liberty, never¬ theless lacked sufficient insight to comprehend that liberty involved freedom of choice between good and evil* So far was he from seeing what the doctrine of liberty implied that he confessed that it was the existence of evil which was the great stumbling-block in his way, and THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 43 had shaken his faith* He was an atheist because he could not see far enough* Swedenborg teaches that God is not only Divine Love, but also Divine Wisdom* Swedenborg was as great a believer in liberty as J* Stuart Mill, and taught that true liberty meant self-control, whilst to be under the domina¬ tion of evil was to be in a state of bondage and not in liberty* The Divine Wisdom cannot compel men to be good and happy, it can but give them freedom of choice, for compulsory goodness, it is evident, can only lead to rebellion and discontent* If we had been created beings without a self-hood, without free will-power, we should have been animals only, obeying our instincts which might have been good, but could never have grown or developed* St* Paul has said that to be carnally minded is death, and this is obviously true, for it is self-evident that in order not to die but to live a spiritual life, man must be spiritually minded, he must be raised above the carnal things of the material world and have a taste, a desire, for the things of the spiritual world* Indeed, this longing for something else, something more than the good things of the material world, is innate in human nature; it almost amounts to an instinct, and curiously enough, it makes itself perhaps most palpably felt in the case of highly intellectual unbelievers* They seem to be constantly dissatisfied with the emptiness of pure materialism, they feel the shallowness of such a superficial philosophy, and yet they reject impatiently the teachings of religion which they class with the fairy¬ tales of the nursery* Their self-hood, which rebelled at religion, rebels as fiercely against the prospect of extinction* Unconsciously to themselves their sub¬ conscious self refuses to accept materialism, refuses to believe in death, for such a belief is contrary to our self- knowledge* We know that we are , we are taught that matter is indestructible : how then can we believe that our self-consciousness, our spirit, will be destroyed i One of the fundamental instincts in animate nature is the principle of self-preservation* This is innate in 44 REASONABLE RELIGION all animals and it is particularly strong in man; it is the lowest and the most elementary form of self-love* For unless we loved ourselves we would not desire to preserve our lives. It is this love of self, which is implanted in us all, which is the great motive force of human nature. It prompts our ambition, it is the source of the love of glory and the love of fame, it is also the humble and lowest origin, the first principle, of religion. The desire to live happily after death must be admitted to be in its initial stage but a form of self-love. We thus see that the Divine Wisdom works upon the lowest and yet the most fundamental motive of the human soul; it is through the love of self, through the instinct of self-preservation, that we are gradually led to higher and nobler states, until we are able, as Swedenborg tells us the highest angels are, to be so unselfish as to be willing to sacrifice our own happiness and blessedness if by so doing we could bring happiness and blessedness to the wicked. But this may not be, for as a man maketh his bed so shall he lie in it. While the innate love of self is not of itself evil, it may very easily become so if it is suffered to predominate. Swedenborg teaches that the love of self must be kept subordinate to the love of God and the love of the neigh¬ bour, and if it is not thus kept in subjection it speedily takes the upper hand and tramples the love of God under foot. For the love of self leads to conceit and arrogance and from thence to the most dangerous principle of all, the idea of self-derived intelligence, the idea that man is sufficient unto himself, that all his knowledge and all his wisdom is derived from his own efforts, his own mentality, that his life is of his own making, that such success as he achieves is due to his own prudence, that he owes nothing to God, that in short there is no God, and that he is his own creator. When man reaches that state he falls, he is expelled or rather expels himself from the Garden of Eden, and must then acquire goodness and achieve the conquest of himself by the sweat of his brow. This is the immutable law of the Divine Providence, and it is so because it cannot be otherwise. The laws of THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 45 God are what they are because they are the laws of infinite wisdom, and just as it is impossible by taking thought to add a cubit to our stature, so is it impossible to conceive of any other system. There is a school of thought which denies that we have liberty, which maintains that we are predetermined by heredity, race, constitution, temperament, circum¬ stances, climate, the times we live in, and the conditions by which we are surrounded to a certain narrow groove, and that our every action is really involuntary, inevitable, and unalterable. While there is a certain element of truth in this, it must nevertheless be evident to the lowest and least imaginative intelligence that we have always before us, in all the perplexities of life, at least two alternatives. Surely that is sufficient. That our conduct depends very largely, if not always entirely, on our volition is indeed common form; it is the basis of our criminal code, of the system of rewards and punish¬ ments of civil life. Even the absolutely atheistic, such as, for instance, the Russian Bolshevik Communists, recognise human responsibility and administer punish¬ ments as a deterrent. But to return to the origin of evil. The evil that men do is explicable; we can understand crime and wicked¬ ness, What has hitherto been inexplicable is the presence of evil in nature, Voltaire was led to doubt in the existence of a Providence when he contemplated the diseases to which man is subject, and more especially when he heard of the Lisbon earthquake. How could a beneficent omnipotent Being allow such things to occur i Let us examine what Swedenborg teaches concerning such manifestations of evil, and more particularly his theory of the origin of evil. To begin with, we must start from his postulate that the end of the creation of the universe is the existence of a heaven peopled by happy spirits called angels, and as this heaven is from the human race, or man, the peopling of Heaven is the true end of creation. The world is really a vast laboratory in which angelic spirits are crystallised out of very sordid human beings. 46 REASONABLE RELIGION But if the end of creation is an angelic heaven produced out of the human race, and consequently humanity, it follows that all other created things are mediate ends, whose function it is to promote this great end—the salvation of mankind, or the peopling of Heaven* All good things are from God, the Lord, and conse¬ quently all evil things have arisen out of hell* How is this possible i We have seen that the created universe consists of substances and matters which, although indirectly emanating from the Giver of life, contain nothing of the Divine in them, for they are the ends and terminations of atmospheres whose heat has ended in cold, their light in darkness, their activity in inertia; nevertheless they have brought by continuation from the substance of the Spiritual Sun that which was in that sun from the Divine and was the sphere encompassing God-Man, or the Lord* Just as there are emanations from this Spiritual Sun, and just as there is a continual and infinite influx from the Divine both directly and indirectly into the natural material universe, so also is there a constant emanation of evil from hell* As God is the source of all life and every existing thing, we are faced with the paradox that evil must also be from God* But what is evil but the reverse of good, the perversion of goodness i Substance and matter, emanating indirectly from God, become, as it were, the culture-bed in which the human soul is prepared for Heaven; Divine influx is continually radiat¬ ing, as it were, upon the human soul and the conditions surrounding it, constantly preparing it for Heaven* But opposed to these beneficent radiations are the forces of hell* What is hell i Hell is the abode of perverted spirits, of human souls who have preferred darkness to light, who have chosen evil in preference to goodness, and they have gravitated towards human souls who have acquired similar qualities to their own* These evil spirits, banded together in hell, are radiating evil—they cannot help it, it is part of them ; they have perverted the goodness which they received, they have become THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 47 infernal, they have perverted love into hatred, truth into falsity, and use into harmfulness* Everything in nature corresponds to some spiritual truth* A miraculous or arbitrary creation of things is repugnant to the philosophic mind* Every created object must be instinct with wisdom * 1 Hence it follows that there are sermons in stones, and that trees, birds—in fact, nature—are representative of internal and spiritual truths* In this world all things have their uses, and the object of all good uses is, as we have seen, the regeneration of man, this world being a training ground or nursery for Heaven* Evil or noxious things emanate from hell and have their noxious harmfulnesses, for hell is ever striving to increase and to attract human souls* Thus there is a perpetual conflict in nature as well as in the human breast between good and evil* But let us quote from Swedenborg* In his ' Divine Love and Wisdom ' he says : Noxious things are produced on earth through influx from hell, by the same law of permission whereby evils themselves flow in from hell with men* * * ♦ The things that correspond to evil uses, that is, to malign herbs and noxious animals, are cadaverous, putrid ♦ ♦ ♦ and therefore in places where these things are such herbs and such animalcules exist * * * and in the torrid zones, and like things on a larger scale, serpents, basilisks, crocodiles, scorpions, rats and so forth. * * * Everyone knows that swamps, stagnant ponds, dung, fetid bogs are full of such things ; also that noxious insects fill the atmosphere in clouds, and noxious vermin walk the earth in armies and consume herbs to the very roots* That cadaverous and putrid matters concord with these noxious and useless animalcules, and that the two orders of things are homogeneous is evident from experience alone* This may be manifestly seen from the ground of the cause which is that there are similar fetors and stenches in the hells, where such animalcules also appear; and therefore those hells are named accordingly* * * * Swedenborg then proceeds to explain that the evil things in the natural world have not derived their origin 1 We know that the microscope has not yet been invented that could reveal the minute particles of which the various objects of nature consist. REASONABLE RELIGION 48 from the Lord, nor were they created from the beginning, but are from helh How then did hell originate i The origin of evil [says Swedenborg] is from the abuse of the faculities proper to man, namely, rationality and liberty. Rationality is the faculty of understanding what is true and good, and consequently also what is false and evil, liberty is the faculty of doing these things freely. From this rationality and liberty (the intellectual faculty and the voluntary faculty) man derives the power of confirming what he pleases, this is evident. But when man abuses these faculties implanted in him by con¬ firming what is evil and untrue or false, he automatically removes good and truth, until he closes heaven against himself. All the things in which a man confirms himself become part of him, for he acquires them and they become his life, Man inherits from his father, grandfathers and ancestors the hereditary evils that these have thus voluntarily acquired, for he derives his soul from his father. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is an allegory of the regeneration of man. That Adam was not the first man on earth is quite evident from the fact that Cain, his eldest son, called himself a fugitive and vagabond in the earth, and feared that anyone who found him would kill him, for which reason and in order to protect him, Jehovah set a mark upon him, whereupon Cain dwelt in the land of Nod and built a city. Sweden¬ borg has, indeed, explained in detail in his * Arcana Ccelestia t that by Adam and Eve are meant the men of the Most Ancient Church; the creation of Heaven and earth, in the first chapter, is a detailed description of their regeneration or the awakening of spiritual life in man; the Garden of Eden represents the wisdom and intelli¬ gence of that Church, the tree of life was the Lord in man, and man in the Lord ; and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man in his self-hood; the eating of the fruit of this tree means the appropriation of evil. Thus it is evident that the men of the Ancient Church, who in the beginning of that Church were the most wise, and at its end, by reason of the pride of their self-derived intelli¬ gence, the most wicked, were not seduced by any serpent, but by their own self-love, denoted by the head of the THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 49 serpent, which is to be bruised by the seed of the woman, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ* 1 As Swedenborg points out: Who cannot discern on the slightest glance, that Jehovah could never have placed two trees in a garden, one of which might prove a stumbling-block, unless they had some spiritual representation i Or that Adam and Eve were cursed because they ate the fruit of a certain tree, and that the curse adheres to all their posterity, so that the whole human race is subjected to damnation for the fault of one man, in which fault there was no apparent evil of the lust of the flesh or iniquity of heart i Does such a proceeding accord with the Divine justice i May it not reasonably be asked why Jehovah did not remove that fruit out of Adam's reach before he ate of it, and why He did not cast the serpent into hell before it persuaded him to eat i But ♦ * * those two trees, the one of life the other of death, represent man's free determination in spiritual things. The story in Genesis, if true of the Most Ancient, was certainly prophetic of the Christian Church. In Genesis ii. 16-17, we read : And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. It is obvious that here something more is meant than meets the eye, and Swedenborg interprets these words as teaching that, while we may endeavour to obtain knowledge of what is good and true by means of the perceptions derived from the Lord, we are not allowed to do so from our own self-conceit, nor from the point of view of worldliness, nor to inquire into the mysteries of faith by the senses or from material science. A desire to investigate the mysteries of faith by means of the senses and earthly knowledge was the cause of the fall, and has been the cause of the fall of every church, for such 1 ‘ The serpent is evil of every kind : his head is self-love ; the seed of the woman is the Lord : the enmity is between man’s self- love and the Lord, therefore also between man’s self-derived prudence and the Lord’s Divine Providence.’—V. ‘ Divine Providence,’ § 211. 5 o REASONABLE RELIGION desire does not only breed false opinions, but actual evils of life* The worldly and carnally minded man says to himself that if he is not able to understand questions of faith by means of the senses or by means of knowledge, he will not believe them, and he confirms himself in his incre¬ dulity by arguing that natural things cannot be contrary to spiritual facts* Swedenborg postulates that it is impossible to be instructed in what is celestial and divine from what is sensual, and asserts that the more a man desires to grow wise by such a process the more does he blind himself until he at length comes to believe nothing, 1 not even the reality of spiritual existences, or of eternal life/ The man, on the other hand, who desires to grow wise, not from conceit or for the aggrandisement of his own intellect, but from a pious wish to be led by the Lord, starts with the fundamental idea that God must be believed, and that the words of the Bible are true; he then seeks to find support for his belief in rational considerations and scientific investigations* He who seeks to investigate merely the secrets of nature, which are innumerable, with difficulty discovers a single one ; and, as experience proves, in the course of his investigation is liable to fall into many errors* How much more likely then is this to be the case whilst investigating the hidden truths of spiritual and celestial life, where myriads of mysteries exist for one that is to be found in nature ! For the sake of illustrating this point, let us take the following instance* Man of himself cannot act otherwise than wickedly and avert himself from the Lord, yet it is not man who acts thus, but as he is incited by evil spirits who are attendant upon him; nor do the evil spirits so act except from the evil itself which they have appropriated (evil being perverted good); nevertheless man does evil and turns himself away from the Lord, and is in fault; and yet he lives only from the Lord* So, on the other hand, man of himself cannot possibly do good and turn towards the Lord, but by the ministry of angels ; neither can the angels, except from the Lord alone; and yet man may. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 5i as if from himself, do good and turn to the Lord. Neither the senses, nor science, nor philosophy can conceive such truths as these, and if consulted would utterly deny their possibility, although in themselves most certain. And so it is in all similar cases. Those who consult the senses and science respecting what is to be believed, not only precipitate themselves into doubt, but also into denial and thus into darkness and into every concupiscence. For such persons as believe what is false act accordingly, and denying the existence of what is spiritual and celestial, believe only what is corporeal and worldly. Thus they love whatever is of themselves and the world, and a false sentiment removing all restraint over the inclinations of the natural man gives rise to the evils of life. 1 In summing up his explanation of the meaning of the 14th to the 19th verses of the third chapter of Genesis, Swedenborg states very tersely : All these verses then taken in a series, involve that the sensual principle [in man] averted itself from the celestial, that the Lord would come into the world for the purpose of re¬ uniting them, that combats took place in consequence of the external man averting himself from the internal, whence resulted misery, condemnation, and at length hell. These successive states were passed through in that Church from the fourth posterity to the deluge. The third and preceding chapters of Genesis treat of the most ancient people and of their regeneration, primarily of those who have lived like wild beasts, but at length became spiritual men and constituted the Most Ancient Church ; afterwards, of those who fell away and their descendants, detailed in regular order through the first, second, and third posterity and their successors down to the deluge. It must not be supposed that all hereditary evil existing to-day is derived from Adam, for by the first man the Most Ancient Church is meant, and when it is called Adam this means that man was formed from the ground, or that by regeneration from the Lord he was made 1 ‘ Arcana Coelestia,’ vol. i. p. 79, § 233. REASONABLE RELIGION 52 truly a man who was not so previously* Hereditary evil is such that everyone who commits actual sin from it acquires to himself a nature which transmits and implants evil to his children, evil thus becoming hereditary* Heredi¬ tary evil is, however, dissipated, and loses its baneful in¬ fluence in those who allow themselves to be regenerated by the Lord* Put in a nutshell, the origin of evil is selfishness, and more especially conceit, in all their various forms* Selfish¬ ness, according to Swedenborg's philosophy, manifests itself in two distinct forms, in the love of self and in the love of the world, or in other words in evil and falsity; for the love of self is evil and the love of the world is falsity, when these loves become what Pope calls the ruling passion, the dominant love* The love of self is, however, more grievous than the love of the world, just as falsity is less grievous than evil* This position requires some examination, for we have seen that every man must love himself—that is implanted in his nature, it almost amounts to an instinct* As the German philosopher Hegel maintains, it is indispensable to every man to have a healthy egoism (ein gesundes Egoismus ), and if it is healthy and natural to be selfish, to love oneself, it is equally healthy and natural to love the world, to enjoy the good things of life, and to desire to acquire wealth and power. Without these two main¬ springs of action man would lead a very uninteresting and a far from joyous existence, and no thinking man of modern times at least would be prepared to maintain that it is the Divine intention that people should make themselves miserable* That is a mediaeval conception and contrary to a belief in a benevolent Deity* It is by our lowest instincts and desires, by our miser¬ able self-love and our craven fear of future eternal punish¬ ment, by our ambition, our love of aggrandisement and our desire for happiness that our salvation is made possible; moreover, it seems fairly evident that if we did not love ourselves we could not love anybody else* The mischief is caused by the inversion or perversion of these loves* To explain this Swedenborg makes use of a very apt illustra- THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 53 tion. In * The Divine Providence * the following admirable passage occurs : The very delight of a man's life is to love himself and the world above all things ; and this delight cannot be removed in a moment, but only successively* According to the proportion of this delight which remains in a man is the prevalence of evil; and this evil can be removed no otherwise than by making the love of self to become the love of uses (or of being of use) and admitting the love of rule, not for the sake of self, but for the sake of being useful; for so uses constitute the head, the love of self or the love of rule at first constituting the body under the head, and afterwards the feet upon which he walks. Who does not see that goodness constitutes the head, and that when it constitutes the head, the Lord is there, goodness and use being one i Who does not see, that if evil constitutes the head, the devil is there; and that, as civil and moral good, and also spiritual good in its external form, are nevertheless to be received, these then constitute the feet and the soles of the feet and are trampled upon i Since, therefore, the state of a man's life is to be inverted, so that what is above may be placed below, and this conversion cannot be effected in a moment; . . ♦ goodness cannot be introduced by the Lord before evil is removed, or at a more rapid rate than the rate of this removal. To thoughtful minds it now seems hardly necessary to explain what hell is, for it is obvious that hell is the inversion of order, the perversion of goodness to evil, and of truth to falsity. We shall presently see that hell is composed of those members of the human race who could not be happy in Heaven, because they wilfully pre¬ ferred evil to good and resisted the constant efforts of the Divine Providence to lead them towards a better state. In other words they confirmed themselves in their love of themselves and their hatred of God and duty, and would not be regenerated. Herbert Spencer has shown that every human society is an organism; in this he was but copying Swedenborg, who shows that every society, every nation, forms a one, and that Heaven is thus a grand man, constantly growing and increasing: hell is consequently a grand monster, and by the devil this monster, which is hell, is all that is 54 REASONABLE RELIGION meant* We shall come to speak more fully of the future state later on; for the present it is sufficient to explain that the origin of evil being self-love, the men and women, whether of this planet or from others, who have adopted that love as their ruling passion, cannot be happy in Heaven, but in after life, being attracted to each other, coalesce in a place which is really a state of mind, which we call hell, from whence they are constantly endeavouring to influence the external or material plane of existence, which we call nature, and to infest, pervert, and ultimately destroy the world* As everything in nature is in correspondence with the spiritual, and indeed representative of spiritual truths, it follows that conditions may and do arise in nature favour¬ able to the influences of hell, and that whenever possible the evil spirits in hell try to pour out their baneful influence —radiations of evil, as it were—on the natural world, and these efforts are facilitated by the actual attitude of the human beings alive in the world at the time* Thus there is a constant movement, a struggle* Man as we have seen is raised to such heights of goodness and wisdom that he begins to think that this goodness is inherent in him, he begins to eat of the tree of the know¬ ledge of good and evil, and then, by regarding himself as divine, closes the door to Divine influx and exposes him¬ self to the seduction of the serpent, i*e* to evil of every kind, because he has wilfully shut out the love of God* And then the process of regeneration recommences* It is described in the Bible spiritually; let us see how it is described historically by a man whom no one would accuse of mysticism or leanings towards spirituality* Let us take H* Taine's famous ' History of English Literature/ in the introduction to which he classes religion with the great creations of the mind, and describes it as a kind of poem held to be true* In the first book, entitled 'Les Origines/ he describes * Les Saxons * in Chapter L, the blond beast, and shows us what brutes they were, how they lived to kill, and how they scorned the gentle arts* 4 When murder/ he says, 4 has become a trade it becomes a pleasure/ THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 55 See them now in England [he continues] more sedentary and wealthy: do you think they have greatly changed i Changed perhaps, but for the worse, like the Franks, as all barbarians who pass from action to indulgence* . ♦ ♦ Up to the 16th century the body of the nation, says an old historian, consisted only of herdsmen, of men who minded animals for food and wool; up to the end of the 18th, drunkenness was the diversion of the upper class ; it is still that of the lower, and all the refinements of the delicacies and humanity of to-day have not abolished with them the use of the rod or the fist* He admits, however, that under this native barbarism there lurked noble tendencies, and then proceeds to give a most interesting and popular account of Saxon myth¬ ology, which to the student of the science of correspond¬ ences is so full of lofty spiritual teaching. He then shows how this gross, fierce and brutal race gradually developed and grew* It is again like the grain of mustard seed* England has grown into a tree in the branches of which all the birds of the air can find shelter* In the history of our race we can study the processes of the regeneration of man, we can trace the evolution of our virtues and great position* We have, indeed, attained a place in the world unrivalled in history* Let us beware lest we lose it* If we wish to see how an empire can degenerate, we need but study the history of Rome, or even that of Prussia* 1 Perhaps the best illustration of the origin of evil is to be taken from nature. The source of the light and the happiness of the earth is the sun* We think the sun sets and turns itself from us, but what really happens is that the earth turns itself away from the sun* The earth would fall into space if it were not being continually pulled towards itself by the sun* The sun is constantly drawing the earth towards itself, the earth is for ever turning itself away* To sum up this chapter on the origin of evil, we may crystallise Swedenborg's teaching in a syllogism* All evil emanates from hell, hell is peopled by the human race, who chose self-love in preference to the love of God— 1 Shakespeare truly said that ‘ the evil that men do lives after them.’ REASONABLE RELIGION 56 hence all evil has its origin in self-love* That man could not be saved unless he loved himself has been shown* It is by making the love of self and the love of the world the dominant loves, that man turns his face from God and inclines towards hell. It is by reversing the order of his affections that he prepares his own downfall* The orderly state of mind is to place the love of God first, the love of the neighbour second, and the love of self last; for our Lord has Himself told us that there are really only two great commandments : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind* This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself* On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets* (Matthew xxiii. 37-40.) CHAPTER III Ethics All Christian ethics are based on the Ten Commandments, but as stated in the Gospels, the Ten Commandments are reducible to two* In the previous chapter these two commandments are cited, Swedenborg explains this division by showing that the Decalogue contains in its first table a summary of all things relating to the love of God, and in its second a summary of all things relating to love of the neighbour. Here it may be as well to show how Swedenborg interprets the loving of our neighbour. Those [he says] who are unacquainted with the meaning of the word neighbour in its genuine sense are apt to imagine that it is only applicable to a man as an individual, and that love towards our neighbour consists in doing acts of bene¬ ficence towards individuals ; but there is a more extensive signification of the term neighbour, and the love of our neigh¬ bour is much more widely extended, being exalted in proportion to the greater number of men towards whom it is exercised. Who cannot understand that to love a body of men, consisting of many individuals, is a greater instance of love towards our neighbour, than to love a single individual of that body i He then proceeds to show how the performance of our duty in life and the love of church and country come within the scope of the love of the neighbour. However, we must discriminate; we are not enjoined to love evil, hence it follows that what we should love is not the person or the aggregation of persons, but the good which is in them, from whence it follows that good is the real neighbour we should love. 58 REASONABLE RELIGION But the neighbour to be loved in the highest degree is the Lord's Kingdom, and he who loves the Lord's Kingdom loves all those throughout the whole world who acknowledge the Lord and live in faith towards Him and in charity, as well as all the denizens of Heaven* Those who love the Lord's Kingdom love the Lord above all things, and are thus influenced more than others by love to God ; for the church in Heaven and throughout the earth is the Lord's body; the members thereof being in the Lord, and the Lord in them. Love therefore towards the Lord's Kingdom is love towards our neighbour in all its fulness; for those who love His Kingdom not only love the Lord above all things, but also love their neighbour as themselves ; for love towards the Lord is an universal love, and is consequently in all and everything that belongs to spiritual life, as well as in all and everything that belongs to natural life; for that love has its residence in man's supreme or highest principles, and the highest descend by influx into the lower, communicating life to them, just as the will enters into the whole of the intention, and thence descends into action, and as the understanding enters into the whole of the thought, and thence into the speech; therefore the Lord says * Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' (Matthew vi. 33.) 1 Indeed a little reflection will show that this is logically inevitable. If we love God we should love His works. We shall presently see that conduct is organic, and that the Decalogue is far from being a hard and arbitrary code of laws despotically framed by a capricious and exacting task-master, but rather the laws of spiritual hygiene, by the observance of which we promote the organic building up of our soul and keep it sane and immune from evil; for evil is insane, it is a disease and unfits us for Heaven. We know that if we observe certain physical laws and keep our body fit, we are less prone to disease than if we live insanitary and self-indulgent lives ; if we eat too much, drink too much, are slothful and indolent, and do not keep ourselves clean we get indisposed, our system becomes clogged, we lose our energy and health. As the human body is, after all, only an external image of the 1 ‘ The True Christian Religion/ § 416. ETHICS 59 soul, it follows that the soul must be governed by spiritual laws of hygiene, just as the body is governed by physical rules of health, disobedience to which brings about, not punishment, but certain inevitable deleterious conse¬ quences* If we defied the laws of gravitation, for instance, the consequences could not be justly described as a vindictive punishment, but only as the inevitable logical result. Swedenborg tells us (' Arcana Ccelestia/ § 8862) that the Ten Commandments are Truths Divine both for those in Heaven and for those on earth. In his * True Christian Religion * a chapter is devoted to an explana¬ tion of the external and internal sense of the Decalogue. He begins by pointing out that there is no nation through¬ out the world so ignorant as not to know that murder, adultery, theft, and the bearing of false witness are wrong, and that no state of society would be possible without laws against the commission of such evils; nor does it seem credible that the people of Israel were so stupid as to be ignorant of this. Nevertheless, the Ten Com¬ mandments were miraculously promulgated from Mount Sinai by Jehovah as a token that they were not only the laws of civil and moral conduct, but Divine laws as well, and that to contravene them was not only to act against our fellow-citizens and society, but to sin against God. After emphasising the holiness of the Ten Command¬ ments, he proceeds to explain them. He first, however, states that the cause why the law was so full of holiness and power was because it contained the sum and substance of all religion ; for it was written on two tables, one of which contained the sum and substance of all duties relating to God, and the other the sum and substance of all duties relating to man. The first commandment, * Thou shalt have no other gods before me/ while in the first place prohibiting the worship of idols, and consequently also the worship of men, whether dead or alive, signifies further that no one except God, and nothing except what proceeds from God, is to be loved with the chief and governing love 6 o REASONABLE RELIGION described in Matthew xxii. and Luke x. For instance, when a man's main affections are centred on himself or the world these are his god, nor does he in his heart acknowledge any other, he therefore conjoins or unites himself with helL The spiritual meaning of this com¬ mandment is that no other God is to be worshipped than the Lord, who, as we shall presently explain, is our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is Jehovah, who came into the world and accomplished the work of redemption. The celestial meaning of this, the first and fundamental law of the Decalogue, is that Jehovah, the Lord, is infinite, immeasur¬ able, and eternal; that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; that He is the first and the last, the begin¬ ning and the end, * who was and who is and who is to come, the Almighty !' that He is essential love, wisdom, good, and truth, consequently life itself, and thus the only Being from Whom all things are. But He is also described as a * zealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands (of generations) of them that love me and keep my commandments/ What is meant by a zealous God i It means a God as He appears to those who do not love Him, but prefer evil to good; in their eyes the Divine Truth is falsehood, and Divine Good evil. Hence the Lord's zeal, which is inherently love and pity, appears to them as anger. * Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children ' does not mean that chil¬ dren are punished for the iniquity of their fathers, but that the evil which the fathers assimilate is prolific and inherited by the children; but in the spiritual sense fathers here mean evils and sons (children) falsities: thus is conveyed the lesson that falsity is being continually propagated from evil. * And doing mercy to thousands,' on the other hand, means everlasting goodness and truth for those who love God, who receive the good of love; for those who love the Lord do not do so of themselves, but from Him ; for those love the Lord who refrain from evil, whereby they facilitate the influx of good from the Lord, which is continually present from the Lord and ETHICS 61 striving to enter the human soul, but is kept out when the human will is evil and prefers evil to good. The command forbidding the taking of the name of God in vain is, of course, on the face of it an injunction to refrain from swearing and from the abuse of the name of God in common discourse, but should not be inter¬ preted as prohibiting its use in oaths of office or allegiance. That the name of Jehovah, God, is holy appears from the fact that the Jews never dared to use it; and the name of Jesus is likewise holy, for are we not told that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow i But the name of God also means all the Church teaches from the Bible, and all by which He is invoked and worshipped. The name * Jesus Christ ' signifies the all of redemption and doctrine, and consequently the all of salvation. To take this in vain is to be a hypocrite, Swedenborg, in commenting on this commandment, points out that even in this world the term * name ' does not merely mean an appellation, but includes the quality and nature of the person described. It is common form to say that a man acts in a particular manner * for the sake of his name/ or * to acquire a good name/ people are spoken of as having a great name, and it is a general law in all nations that nobody's name may be abused with impunity, for thereby his reputation and character are reflected on. The commandment enjoining the keeping holy of the Sabbath provides for six days to be devoted to man and his labour, whilst the seventh is reserved for the Lord and for man's rest in dependence on Him, The Sabbath represented the Lord to the Israelites, the six days symbolising His labours and conflicts with the hells, and the seventh His victory and rest. When the Lord came into the world, however, that day was made a day of instruction in divine subjects, a day of rest from work and of meditation on salvation and life eternal, and also a day for the exercise of love towards our neighbour. This commandment is, moreover, emblematic of man's regeneration by the Lord, six days of labour signifying man's combats against the various evils and falsities 62 REASONABLE RELIGION which must be resisted and overcome, and the seventh his regeneration. Finally, the commandment may be regarded as a promise of peace and rest and protection from hell after conjunction with the Lord—in other words, of that state of happiness which prevails in Heaven. By being commanded to honour our father and mother, we are not only enjoined to obey our parents, but to behave loyally to the constituted authorities, and to love our country. Spiritually the honouring of father and mother means the reverence and love of God and the Church. In connection with this commandment, Swedenborg says : It is a great truth which should never be forgotten that there is continually proceeding from the Lord a divine sphere of celestial love towards all those who embrace the doctrine of His church and who . . . desire to be instructed by Him. From this celestial sphere originates a natural sphere, which is that of love towards infants and children . . . affecting not only men but likewise birds and beasts ♦ . . and not only animate but inanimate things. For the purpose however of operating on the inanimate parts of creation, as He operates on the spiritual parts, the Lord formed the sun to be in the natural world as a father, while the earth supplies the place of a mother ; for the sun is like a common father and the earth like a common mother, from whose marriage union all the vegetables which adorn the face of the globe are brought forth into being. The injunction not to commit murder refers, of course, primarily to the taking of another person's life; it also in¬ volves a prohibition to inflict any fatal blow or wound or even to maim or mutilate; moreover, it goes further and implies that no injury to the good name or character of another is permissible. Speaking generally, murders signify enmity, hatred, and revenge, hence these are also forbidden by this commandment. Spiritual murder consists in the killing and destruction of souls, undermining religion, and inciting to evil deeds and false ideas. In the celestial sense murder signifies resentment against the Lord, hatred of Him, and a desire to blot out His name, for thereby we crucify Him again. ETHICS 63 The commandment not to commit adultery does not only bear a technical meaning, but includes a prohibition to cherish lustful desires and indulge in wanton thoughts, words, and acts: it is an injunction against self-indulgence generally* Spiritually adulteries mean the adulteration of the goods in the Bible and the falsification of its truths* To deny the holiness of the Bible, and to profane it, is to commit celestial adultery, and this is committed by those who, moreover, make a mockery in their hearts of all things relating to the Church and religion* Swedenborg insists that abstinence from act does not constitute chastity, which should be deliberate where the act is possible* To abstain because indulgence is regarded as sinful is true chastity* Abstention through fear of the law and its penalties, through fear of suffering in honour or reputation, through fear of disease, or for other prudential reasons, or even from a principle of obedience to natural or civil laws, does not mean chastity; on the contrary, persons animated by such motives will be found in the future life to be actually in favour of adultery and whoredom. The commandment making theft a sin has been de¬ scribed by Communists as a bourgeois invention, but while it certainly sanctifies the rights of property it goes much further, and even Communists will join in condemning fraud and deceit of every kind. Those who teach false doctrine, and yet read the Bible, and those who confirm false religion by fallacies are guilty of spiritual theft, whilst in the celestial sense those are thieves who would deprive the Lord of His power and ascribe His merit and righteousness to themselves. Such persons, in spite of their protestations, do not trust God at all, but only themselves, and in fact believe only in their own self-hood and in nothing else. To bear false witness is literally a purely legal crime, but its prohibition extends to lying generally, to all forms of hypocrisy, and to the defamation of the character of others. In the spiritual sense, to bear false witness is to propagate false doctrine and to persuade others that what REASONABLE RELIGION 64 is false is true, and that what is evil is good* But of course no guilt is ascribed to those who thus err from ignorance and conviction and are ignorant of the true nature of good¬ ness and truth* For as our Lord said: * If ye were blind, ye would have no sin ; but now ye say. We see; therefore your sin remaineth*' In the celestial sense, to bear false witness means to blaspheme the Lord and the Word, and thus to expel truth from the Church* Those who speak falsely from deceit or with purpose in a tone of voice that seems to proceed from spiritual affec¬ tion, and especially those who intermix their heresies with truths from the Word, which thus become falsified, were called enchanters by the ancients; they were also called serpents of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and are described in the Word as leopards* The prohibition of covetousness relates to all the pre¬ ceding commandments, and teaches that it is not sufficient to refrain from doing evil but that the lusting after evil is also deleterious to the soul, for this constitutes an act of volition : * Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart*' It is quite unnecessary to dwell upon the danger of encoura¬ ging evil thoughts; these obviously tend to undermine the spiritual health and vigour of the soul* Besides, the moment restraint is removed the cherished lusts of the human heart will find expression in outward acts, and consequently the human soul becomes, as it were, diseased or insane, and would find Heaven torture* In proportion as a human being indulges in lust he becomes a brute and a wild beast, but in proportion as a human being delights in spiritual desires he becomes a man and an angel* To covet is to love self and the world, hence to desire from a love of evil* All covetousness arises from some love, for nothing is coveted unless it is loved; and what an evil love yearns for is evil, but the yearnings of a good love are called desires* Whatever a human being loves he wills ; but covetousness belongs both to the will and the under¬ standing* It is generally believed that thought is the human being; there are, however, two constituents of a ETHICS 65 human being's life—the understanding and the will; to the first belongs the thought, to the second the affection* Thought alone does not constitute anything of life, but thought from affection, thus the understanding from the will* A human being is able to perceive that what it wills is evil or good, and that what it does not will may be good* It is therefore clear that the will is what gives character, and not the thought, except in so far as it is imparted by the will* The things which enter the thought, and not through it into the will, do not defile; but those which enter through the thought into the will do* (See Matthew xv* n, 17-19-) From these considerations it becomes evident that the prohibition against coveteousness implies that heed should be taken lest evil thoughts are assimilated by the will and are thus given effect to and corrupt the soul* A human being is of the quality of his will and remains the same after death, for death is but a continuation of life* The prohibition especially refers to the home, the wife, the man-servant and maid-servant, the ox and the ass of the neighbour as things not to be coveted* These denote all the goods and truths of faith in the aggregate, of which nobody should be deprived, and which must not be in¬ jured* A house means all good in general; a wife, all truth in general; a man-servant, the affection for spiritual truth; a maid-servant, the affection for spiritual good; an ox, the affection for natural good; and an ass, the affection for natural truth* There is no direct injunction of the duties of love and charity in the Decalogue, but only a prohibition of evils* Summed up briefly, the commandments amount to this : Thou shalt have no other gods but me ; thou shalt not take the name of God in vain ; thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery ; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not covet what is thy neighbour's* The fact is that in proportion as a human being shuns evils as sins, the will is influenced by love and charity* The first principle of love to God and of love towards our neighbour is to do no evil, and the second is to do good* 66 REASONABLE RELIGION While the love of willing and doing good is heavenly, its opposite, the love of willing and doing evil, is infernah As we are born hereditarily into evils of every kind, we cannot be admitted into Heaven unless, as our Lord says, we are born again or regenerated, and this is effected by Him in proportion as we strive to keep His commandments and abstain from doing evih All evil is from hell, and all good from Heaven, and as evil is removed and we turn from hell, Heaven is approached* Thus, so far as a person does not worship other gods, among which nature is included, he worships the true God; so far as he does not take the name of God in vain, he loves whatever is from God ; so far as he is unwilling to commit murder or to indulge in hatred and revenge, he bears good will to his neighbour ; so far as he does not wish to commit adultery he desires to live in chastity with his married partner; so far as he does not wish to steal, he lives ac¬ cording to the law of sincerity ; so far as he does not wish to bear false witness, he desires to be truthful; so far as he does not envy others, he wishes them to be happy in the enjoyment of their possessions* Thus it clearly follows that the Decalogue contains all things relating to the love of God and to the love of the neighbour* Swedenborg adds two canons: i* No one can shun evils as sins, and do good which may be good in the sight of God, of himself; but so far as anyone shuns evils as sins, he does what is good, not of himself, but from the Lord* 2 * A man ought to shun evils as sins, and to fight against them as of himself; and if he shuns evils from any other motive than because they are sins, he does not shun them, but only prevents them from appearing in the sight of the world* Human beings should purify themselves from evils and not wait for the Lord to purify them by an immediate act of power* Evil and good, says Swedenborg, cannot abide together, and, in proportion as evil is removed, good is regarded and felt, because in the spiritual world there is exhaled from every individual the sphere of his or her particular love ETHICS 67 which diffuses itself and radiates its influence all round, producing sympathies and antipathies ; and it is by means of such spheres that the good are separated from the evil* The keeping of the commandments is thus analogous to the observation of the laws of hygiene* Just as the body in order to be in health must be kept clean both inwardly and outwardly so must the soul be kept pure by the abstention from evil conduct and evil thoughts* This world is a training ground in which our souls are prepared for their future immortal life, and if during our life here we acquire tendencies and dispositions which unfit us for Heaven we would be miserable there, indeed we would be unable to live in heavenly surroundings, and we should detest the society of the denizens of Heaven* This is so obvious that it needs no elaboration* The Divine intention is that everybody should be saved, but this cannot be effected by a miracle* The regeneration of the human soul is an organic process, virtually unconscious, like the building up of the body by suitable food* But the body must be purged from impurities, and so must the soul* Unless we exercise our volition and deliberately determine to eschew evil and keep the commandments we cannot be prepared for salvation* The case is the same with the body, unless this is kept sweet and clean our blood becomes impure, and our food instead of nourishing us is turned to poison* It has been argued that the commandments are so hard to keep, and that we are by nature so prone to sin, that it is hopeless to make the attempt, and that our only chance of salvation is by some miraculous act of faith* If we believe in the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, that faith will make us whole, and through that faith we shall be protected from evil* This is an idea which, as we shall see when we come to deal with this branch of our sub¬ ject, has arisen from a misunderstanding of the writings of the apostles, more especially St* Paul, and is really an illogical and unphilosophical conception of the ways of God with man* But it is not true that the commandments set up a standard of conduct too high for human nature to attain* 68 REASONABLE RELIGION On the contrary it is universally recognised that no society could exist in which the laws of social morality were not accepted as binding* To murder, steal, and give full rein to our passions, these are obviously anti-social acts* Agnostics and materialists, who either deny the existence of a spiritual world, or maintain that there is no evidence of its existence, and by inference conclude that it does not therefore concern us, nevertheless maintain that social life without ethics is impossible* Their difficulty lies in the discovery of an authoritative and compelling sanction for their indispensable moral code. Yet many unbelievers in revealed religion lead exemplary moral lives. Our Lord Himself said * My yoke is easy and my burden is light/ and He has also promised : * If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love/ Of course, as we have seen, the commandments in all their full spiritual and celestial meaning do set up a standard of perfection which very few can hope to attain, but in their literal sense they surely present no insuperable difficulties* No doubt many people are born with morbid tendencies, with passions which appear too strong for them, and find it almost impossible to restrain or to put away from them¬ selves the evils they are prone to* But this world is a training ground, and all training is slow and gradual* What is expected of us is that we should, in the happy phrase of Lord Beaconsfield, be on the side of the angels* Anyone who has seen a child learning to walk will readily admit that it takes time and patience, the child itself rarely showing much sign of the latter* And so it is with us in our walk through life: at first we do not even wish to walk, but gradually we shall find the desire growing; we shall then better understand the nth and 12th verses of the first chapter of Genesis : And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so* And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw that it was good. Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm : * Yet a little while, and the ETHICS 69 wicked shall not be ; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be/ By refraining from the evil acts prohibited in the commandments, from motives not merely of secular morality, but because it is the Divine injunction, we as it were automatically admit Divine influence into our hearts* It is as though a water-pipe which through neglect had accumulated mud and filth which had choked it up had a small part of this dirt removed; the water, which is always at pressure, would then be able to penetrate through the small passage thus made, and gradually as the pipe was more thoroughly cleansed the volume of water w r ould in¬ crease, the water itself considerably facilitating the process; indeed all that need be done is to loosen the obstruction and break it down and the water pressure will force it out* It is difficult for the finite human mind to conceive of an omnipresent Deity, always, constantly, and consciously, personally active, striving to save and regenerate every individual soul, no matter how refractory or stubborn; but on the other hand any other conception of the Deity would be repugnant to the philosopher, and would be contrary to the Christian religion* Thus God is always, as it were, knocking at the door, asking us for admittance, but not compelling us to open it* It is by turning away from evil that we are able to open the door ; and then for a time we mostly turn back again and close the door* We are thus constantly swinging, as it were, between our desire for goodness—which may, and generally does, take its rise from pure selfishness, from the love of self-preservation—and our hereditary proneness to evil, but gradually the battle is won for us if we do not wilfully keep the door closed* The process, as already stated, partakes of the nature of an organic process, like that of the assimilation of the nutritive properties of our food; we are virtually unconscious of it, but there is nothing miraculous about it* In other words the salvation of the human soul proceeds in con¬ formity with spiritual laws* It is an act of grace, but so is the creation of the world and the birth of every individual in this inscrutable universe* CHAPTER IV Sex * Male and female created he them/ To judge by the attitude of religious fanatics of all countries, by the Christian and pre-Christian ascetics, and by modern fiction, it would appear that this is much to be regretted* Sex being such a fruitful source of every kind of trouble, would it not have been more convenient if we had all been like oysters i In the first chapter of this book the statement is made that * the All-Wise cannot act against His own infinite Wisdom, the laws by which He acts have not been arbi¬ trarily framed* Infinite Wisdom can only act infinitely wisely, hence there is even in the lowest forms of nature an infinity of wisdom, and things are as they are, not because they have been arbitrarily so created, but because they could not be otherwise/ If this is true generally, it must be true particularly, and it must apply to sex as well* What is the philosophic rationale of sex i The super¬ ficial answer, of course, is that the two sexes exist for the propagation of the species* But this is not a philosophic answer* Surely other means of propagating the species could be devised, or, to speak in the language of modern science, might have been evolved* So far we have come across no writer who has ventured to give a reasoned explanation of the phenomenon of sex* It is taken for granted, it is believed to have given rise to many difficult problems, and to have produced some very SEX 7 i deplorable complications; but nobody has explained the real origin of, or reason for, sex except Swedenborg, We propose to attempt to reproduce in a few pages the gist of what that philosopher has taught on this subject. To begin at the beginning, let us first turn to a small work entitled * The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine/ Here we read, under the heading * Good and Truth/ that * all things in the universe, which are accord¬ ing to Divine order, have relation to good and truth/ the reason being that good and truth proceed from the Divine, the source of all things. It is according to Divine order [we are told] that good and truth shall be conjoined, and not separated ; thus that they shall be one and not two, , , , The conjunction of good and truth in Heaven is called the Heavenly Marriage ; for all who are there are in that marriage, ♦ , ♦ All intelligence and wisdom possessed by the angels is from this marriage, ♦ , . Since the conjunction of good and truth is like a marriage, it is clear that good loves truth, and that in turn truth loves good, and that the one longs to be conjoined to the other, ♦ , ♦ As all things in the universe which are according to Divine order have relation to good and truth, so all things which are contrary to Divine order have relation to evil and falsity, and as good loves to be con¬ joined with truth, and conversely truth with good, so also evil loves to be conjoined with falsity, and conversely falsity with evil. The whole question of marriage and sex is exhaustively treated in a work entitled * Deliciae Sapientiae de Amore Conjugiali/ which for some obscure reason has been translated into English as 4 The Delights of Wisdom Relating to Conjugial Love/ It is unfortunate, we think, that the translator should have coined the word ‘conjugial/ In Dr, SmitlTs Latin Dictionary the adjective conjugialis is rendered as belonging to marriage, conjugal, connubial, and the substantive conjugium as a connection, union, and as marriage, wedlock. We understand that objection was raised against the word ‘ conjugal/ because it might be held to have derived from jugum , a yoke ; but its deriva¬ tive jugo means to join, to connect. We shall therefore here give the word its correct spelling. 72 REASONABLE RELIGION In the * Conjugal Love/ when treating of the origin of that love, Swedenborg tells us that Good and Truth are the universals of creation and in all created things according to the form of each* They are the universals of creation because they are in the Lord God the Creator ; indeed they are Himself, for He is Divine Good itself and Divine Truth itself* This will be more clearly understood if we substitute for Good, Love, and for Truth, Wisdom, for these amount to the same. Every created thing conse¬ quently derives something of good and truth from its Creator, All things are for the sake of the human race, in order that from it may be derived an angelic heaven through which creation returns to the Creator from Whom it originated. Hence there is a conjunction of the created universe with the Creator, and by means of this conjunction everlasting preservation. As good and truth are united in the Creator, it follows that they cannot be separated, and that good without truth is not good, nor is truth, separated from good, truth. The importance of this axiom will become evident further on in the chapter devoted to the future life. There is truth derived from good, and there is good derived from this derivative truth. The truth derived from good is masculine, and the good from that truth is feminine. This will be more easily comprehended if we substitute wisdom for truth and love for good. Wisdom cannot exist with man except by means of the love of becoming wise, thus wisdom is a derivative of love, or proceeds from love. When man, from love of it, has acquired wisdom, he begins to love the wisdom thus acquired which he has made part of himself, and conse¬ quently loves himself; but this self-love of his own wisdom is an evil and dangerous thing: it is nothing else but self- conceit, To save man from destruction, it was provided that this love should be taken out of him and transfused into woman in order to transform it into conjugal love, by means of which the integrity of man is restored. Consequently the inmost of the male is love, and its covering, as it were, is wisdom, or in other words the masculine is love veiled by wisdom, the inmost of the SEX 73 female being the wisdom of the male with a covering of love which, however, is feminine love, which is given by the Lord to the wife through the wisdom of the husband ; whereas the masculine love, which is the love of growing wise, is given by the Lord to the husband according to his reception of wisdom. The male is therefore the wisdom of love, and the female the love of that wisdom, and from creation there has been implanted in both the love or desire for union. From this it follows that the male is born intellectual, whilst the female is born voluntary; in other words, the male has an inborn affection for knowing, understanding, and growing wise, and the female has an inborn love or desire to unite or conjoin herself with that affection in the male. This is also why the male and female differ in face, voice, and body, the male having harder features, a harsher voice, and a stronger body and a bearded chin : for the male is masculine in every part of his body and in every idea and affection, and the female is similarly feminine, and as the one cannot be changed into the other they retain their sex after death. There is a universal conjugal sphere which proceeds from the Lord and pervades the universe from its primes to its ultimates, from angels to worms ; it is the sphere of the marriage of good and truth, the sphere of propagation, of prolification and fructification; it promotes the pre¬ servation of the universe by means of successive genera¬ tions. As this universal sphere flows into subjects accord¬ ing to their form, the male receives it in his intellect, because he is an intellectual form, and the female in the will, and as it is also the sphere of prolification it follows that sex love is thence. Conjugal love is thence, for it flows into men and angels. Man is capable of growing in wisdom to the end of his terrestrial life, and afterwards to eternity in Heaven, and in proportion as he grows in wisdom his form is perfected ; but this form does not receive sex love, but the love for one particular individual of the opposite sex, with which it can be united to the inmosts in which Heaven is with its felicities : this union is conjugal love. 74 REASONABLE RELIGION General sex love is an attribute of the natural or external man and is common to every animaL Every man is born corporeal, but in proportion as he loves intelligence he becomes rational, and if he loves wisdom he becomes spiritual. While he thus progresses his mind changes its form, it is opened more and more and conjoins itself more closely with Heaven and through Heaven with the Lord, becoming more and more enamoured of truth and more studious of the good of life. The more perfected a man becomes the more accessible is he to the influx of conjugal love ; he feels and perceives in this love a spiritual delight, full of interior blessedness, and from this a natural delight which is derived from the former. Therefore it follows that the male and female human beings have been so created that out of two they may become, as it were, one, and when they have thus become united they constitute a complete human entity; but without such union they are two, and each is but a divided, or half, human being, Plato taught virtually the same thing. As this desire for, or tendency towards, union lies inmostly latent in every part of the male and female, it follows that mutual and reciprocal sex love remains with human beings after death. In the Gospels our Lord says : * In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven ' (Matthew xxii, 30), And in another Gospel: * When they rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage ; but are as the angels which are in heaven t (Mark xii, 25), and in yet a third there is a more explicit statement: And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage : But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more : for they are equal unto the angels ; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection, (Luke xxi, 34-36,) This has been held to mean that there is no sex in Heaven, Moreover, St, Paul, who was an ascetic, seems SEX 75 to have had rather confused notions regarding marriage. In i Corinthians vii. he says : Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me : It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband, , , , I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, one after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows : It is good for them if they abide even as I, But if they cannot contain, let them marry : for it is better to marry than to burn. Here St. Paul would seem to regard marriage not as a Divine institution, but as a makeshift—what the French would call a pis alter . Yet in i Timothy iv, he would seem to prophesy against himself, for it opens as follows : Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy ; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. In chapter v. of the same epistle he even enjoins Timothy to * Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities *; and in Ephesians v, he strikes the right note : Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. . . ♦ So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church : For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. It would seem that the marriages referred to by the Sadducees and by St. Paul were gross, and what may perhaps be described as worldly and carnal unions, not true conjugal marriages, for there appears to have been little understanding of romantic love in those days. It REASONABLE RELIGION 76 would certainly be better to contract even such a marriage than to burn with roving desire or lust* Swedenborg, however, throws an entirely new and quite unexpected light on the Gospel passages* It must not be forgotten that our Lord was answering the Sad- ducees who, in their utter disbelief of a future life, thought they were putting Him a problem which in itself re¬ duced the whole idea of human survival after death to absurdity* Our Lord concluded His reply with the words : * Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob* For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto him ' (Luke xx.)* Swedenborg points out that the Lord on this occasion taught two things—namely, that man rises after death, and that in Heaven they are not given in marriage* But no other marriage is here referred to, Swedenborg maintains, but the spiritual marriage with the Lord, which is effected on earth* He demonstrates by quotations from numerous texts that to marry is to be conjoined with the Lord, and that to enter into marriage is to be received in Heaven by the Lord* Spiritual nuptials, which are those of goodness and truth, are what is meant by marriage in the Word* These take place on earth and not in the heavens* Thus the five foolish virgins who were invited to the wedding could not enter because they were not in the marriage of good and truth* They had no oil in their lamps* Oil means good, the lamp holding the oil representing truth* We have biblical authority that our Lord generally spoke in parables : this was indeed necessary, to avoid profanation. That every individual soul must be conjoined to the Lord in order to be saved scarcely needs to be stated; it is so obvious* This conjunction is the marriage of good and truth in the individual* In the Word the Lord is repeatedly referred to as the Bridegroom and Husband, and the Church as the bride and wife, and the conjunction of the Lord with the Church is spoken of SEX 77 as a marriage* The Lord is also described as Father and the Church as Mother, and the spiritual offspring or results from this union of the Lord with the Church are truths, perceptions, and thoughts, and goods, love, charity, and affection* Swedenborg is, however, careful to explain that this is because the Lord is good itself, or its essence, and also the very truth, and these essentials of His Being are not two, but form a united whole, and because that whatever proceeds from the Lord must be in Him* Thus the marriage of good and truth proceeds from Him and flows into, and is received by, individuals according to the state of the mind and life of those who are of the Church* Man is constituted of volition and understanding, his will is the receptacle of good, and the understanding the receptacle of truth* Now man, being endowed with reason, appropriates truth as his own, for he thinks it emanates from himself, and to this the Lord adjoins truth* A little reflection on the above statements of Sweden¬ borg, which will appeal to the unbiased as clear and logical, must show that sex and marriage are, as it were, the basis of the universe* They derive direct from the union of love and wisdom in the Creator, and they are the means of bringing the individual creatures back to conjunction with their Creator, whose one aim must be to create beings capable of enjoying happiness, in order that He may bestow the blessing of happiness upon them* When we look round the world we are compelled to admit that there is but very little happiness among human beings; but an honest and impartial examination of human conditions will prove to us that even to the carnal eyes of the purely materially minded man it must be patent that the bulk of human misery is due to human selfishness, whilst to the spiritually minded this is self-evident, for he knows that even the phenomena of nature, which have other than a beneficent influence, owe their existence and force to malign spiritual powers which would be impotent if the selfishness of man did not offer them suitable soil, culture-beds for the propagation of their malevolence. The average sensual man, so happily imagined by REASONABLE RELIGION 78 Matthew Arnold, takes a view of the sex question which is very understandable and even excusable. He says : Here am I, created with strong desires and almost un¬ controllable passions, and yet I am told that if I give way to these desires and passions, which are too strong for me, I offend against the divine commandments of my Creator, and shall be cruelly punished with eternal damnation, that is to say, I shall spend the whole of my life after death in eternal torture* Could anything be more cruel i And yet we are taught that God is love 1 But the case is not quite as bad as it is generally presented, and a study of Swedenborg's teachings on this subject will throw considerable additional light on what, at the first blush and to the purely carnal mind, must appear as a paradox* In Matthew xxiii* our Lord says : The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; All there¬ fore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works : for they say, and do not* For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. How many a young man has not felt the truth of those words i For the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, are still with us, and they are still making the law of God of none effect by their tradition* But Swedenborg is no Pharisee and no hypocrite* If we read his * Conjugal Love ' attentively and with an open mind we shall be struck by the profound wisdom it reveals, the toleration it teaches, and its obvious and logical common sense* We have seen in the last chapter that the Ten Com¬ mandments, far from being arbitrary and vexatious laws propounded by a tyrannical Deity, are nothing more than the fundamental rules of spiritual hygiene* There is no such thing as eternal punishment; hell consists in asso¬ ciation with evil spirits, and if, as Burns says, * Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,' how much more grievous must be the inhumanity or SEX 79 cruelty of devils towards each other i But unfortunately wicked spirits, unhappy as they are, would be still more unhappy in the society of angels* However, it is not in the nature of things that they could be so associated* It is needless to insist that purity of life is in the order of Heaven, and that impure desires and acts are incom¬ patible with an angelic existence* Yet people are born with carnal desires* These, in so far as they are natural, are easily controlled; but unfortunately with these per¬ fectly legitimate and natural desires there are combined evil propensities acquired by heredity* If the object of creation is the population of Heaven, it follows that this world is a training-ground in which the human character is trained for its ultimate destiny—Heaven* This training, which Swedenborg calls regeneration, is performed by the Lord, as we shall see further on* The role of the indi¬ vidual is to suffer himself to be so trained, and for this purpose it is necessary that he should observe the laws of spiritual hygiene laid down for him, so that he may not acquire characteristics which will unfit him for Heaven* But let us carry this analogy between physical and spiritual laws a little further* We all violate the laws of physical hygiene more or less, and although the laws of nature are as immutable as the laws of the spiritual life, yet the recuperative power of the human organism is such that it can throw off the effects of occasional indiscretions* Nobody takes sufficient exercise, for in¬ stance, but the human organism adapts itself to this violation of the laws of nature* Then, again, take drunkenness* People who are not habitual drunkards can and do occasionally get drunk without serious con¬ sequences, but the habitual drunkard inevitably under¬ mines his constitution unless he reforms in time, and the more confirmed he becomes in his habit the more difficult will this reformation be* Let us study Swedenborg's teaching regarding the sex question in the light of the above considerations* We have seen that conjugal love is the basic love, so to speak, of Heaven; consequently its opposite, adulterous love, is infernal. This is indeed universally recognised, 8o REASONABLE RELIGION to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife is the epitome of the carnal man's creed. It is obvious that the man or woman whose delight is to seduce married partners of the opposite sex can have no place in Heaven, In the section of his book on * Conjugal Love' which deals with its opposite, he says : It must first be explained what is meant by the love of forni¬ cation, The love of fornication which precedes marriage is not meant, nor that which follows it after the death of a married partner ; nor the concubinage which is engaged in from legiti¬ mate, just, weighty reasons ; neither are meant the mild kinds of adultery, nor the grievous kinds, which are actually repented of, for the latter do not become opposite, and the former are not opposite, to conjugal love, ♦ ♦ . But by the love of fornica¬ tion, opposite to conjugal love, is here meant the love of adultery, when it is such that adultery is not held to be sin, nor to be evil and wrong against reason, but allowable with reason. This kind of love, Swedenborg says, does not only make conjugal love identical with itself, but even ruins, destroys and eventually nauseates it. With regard to adultery, he says, evil has an analogous love for falsity, and a similar desire to unite itself with it, as good has for truth. Consequently, while the spiritual origin of marriage is the union of good and truth, so the spiritual origin of adultery is the connubial connection of evil and falsity. In the Bible adulteries, whoredoms and harlotry mean falsifications of truth. In what manner what is usually called fornication differs from technical adultery cannot be understood, Swedenborg tells us, by any rational being, unless he takes a clear view of the love of the sex in its degrees and diversities, and, on the one part, of its chaste things, and on the other, of its unchaste things, and divides each part into genera and species, and thus distinguishes; otherwise the difference between what is more and less chaste and between what is more and less unchaste cannot be clearly visible in anyone's idea, and without these distinctions all relation perishes, and therewith clear-sightedness in matters of judgment, and the understanding is involved in such shade SEX 81 that it does not know how to discriminate fornication from adultery, and still less the milder things of fornication from the more grievous ones, and in like manner those of adultery ; thus it mixes evils, and of diverse evils makes one pottage, and of diverse goods one paste. The love of sex is in every man, although it may not always manifest itself. When it manifests itself, before marriage, with a meretricious person, it is called fornica¬ tion ; if it only manifests itself between husband and wife it is called marriage ; but when it manifests itself, after marriage, with a third person, it is called adultery. Thus the love of the sex is like a fountain from which both chaste and unchaste love may flow. The love of sex, and consequently the tendency to fornication, commences at the period when the under¬ standing begins to become rational, to think things out from its own reason ; the instruction received from parents and teachers, which has been retained in the memory, serving as a plane. It is known that the love of the sex follows the commencement of the awakening of the mind, and progresses according to its vigour, and this proves that this love ascends as the mind is uplifted, and descends as the mind is lowered. It is uplifted into wisdom, and lowered into insanity. In a state of wisdom it is restrained, but in the opposite state it is given free rein. If the love of the sex should lead to incontinence, hope should not be abandoned. To think that because continence is found to be difficult, if not impossible, there¬ fore it is useless to practise restraint of any kind or nourish any hope of future chastity, is the counsel of despair. It is too often the result of the unsympathetic attitude of parents, teachers, and ministers of religion, who emulate the Scribes and Pharisees of the Scriptures already referred to. Swedenborg is much more hopeful and much more logical. He enjoins the importance of moderating forni¬ cation from the principles of honour and morality, but warns his readers that the love of sex, which is carnal in its first manifestations, cannot be spiritualised until it becomes conjugal—in other words, until wandering carnal lust gives place to the love of one, and there is Q 8 a REASONABLE RELIGION thus brought about a union of two souls* * In fornica¬ tion/ he tells us, * conjugal love may lie stored up within, as what is spiritual may lie stored up in what is natural, indeed what is spiritual is even actually evolved out of what is natural/ General love of the sex, therefore, precedes spiritual love of one of the opposite sex, and if fornication proceeds from the natural sex love it may, Swedenborg assures us, be wiped away, provided 4 that conjugal love be regarded, wished for, and sought after as the chief good/ The love of adultery, however, Swedenborg describes as 4 libidinous and obscene *—it is opposite to conjugal love, and destructive of it* But care must be taken lest conjugal love be destroyed by the lust of variety or inordinate indulgence, the con¬ sequences of which Swedenborg dwells on very fully* He adds : 4 It is the duty of parents to take care lest these mischiefs happen, for a growing youth strongly excited by lust, cannot as yet from reason impose a restraint on himself/ and he concludes by emphasising that 4 it is better that the torch of love of the sex be first lighted with a wife '—he, however, admits that in some individual cases it is practically impossible to carry out this counsel of perfection, more especially in a state of society where, as he quaintly puts it, matrimonies cannot be contracted by many till the season of youth is past; for appointments must first be obtained, and property acquired for the support of a house and family, and then first a worthy wife must be courted ; and yet in the pre¬ ceding age, the springing fountain of manhood can with but few be kept closed and reserved for a wife* It is indeed better that it should be reserved ; but if this cannot be done on account of the unbridled power of lust, an intermediate means is needed, by which conjugal love may be prevented from perishing in the meantime. To the carnally minded man there is, however, no external difference between marriage and adultery, and consequently, while admitting its social inconvenience, he cannot see any inherent evil in the latter* Why it is evil, and what its dangers, we have already explained* Swedenborg teaches that adulteries are divisible into three SEX 83 categories* There is simple adultery of an unmarried person with a married person ; there is twofold adultery between twx> persons, each married to another ; and finally there is incest* There are, further, four degrees of adultery* In the first degree are adulteries committed from ignorance; in the second are those which are com¬ mitted from lust; in the third are those which are com¬ mitted from reason by persons who argue that they are not sinful; and in the fourth are those which are committed of volition by persons who regard them as allowable and do not attach sufficient importance to them to consult their minds concerning them* It is perhaps unnecessary to point out that offences of the first degree are mild, provided the offenders abstain from them later when they understand that they are sins against God, and offences against the neighbour and society* With regard to offences of the second degree, there is a constant strife in every human soul between the spirit and the flesh, and marriage is of the spirit, whilst adultery is of the flesh* When the lust of the flesh is excited to a heat greater than the spirit can control from reason, it follows that it is no longer master* Offences committed in this degree are more or less grievous in proportion as they are subsequently approved or deplored* Adulteries in the third and fourth degrees are obviously grievous* We do not propose to follow Swedenborg throughout his very profound study of the various kinds of offences in the domain of sex love* Let us turn to the more fragrant subject of marriage* Swedenborg tells us that conjugal love, in its essence and from its derivation, is holy and pure above every other love, and is, as it were, the head of all other loves* True conjugal love is nothing less than the union of love and wisdom, and two married partners who mutually possess this love are an effigy and form of it* Conjugal love might therefore be described as the parent of all other loves, which are, as it were, its offspring* There does not exist any substance without a form, for an unformed REASONABLE RELIGION 84 substance is not anything, because nothing can be pre¬ dicated of it; and a subject without entities is an entity of no reason* Two married partners who are in true conjugal love are consequently actually forms of the marriage of good and truth, or of love and wisdom* That goodness and truth must be married to become effective is demonstrated by nature where the earth, which is a symbol of good, is only rendered fruitful by means of water, which is a symbol of truth* All delights whatsoever which are enjoyed by man spring from conjugal love, for the object of this love is the propagation of the human race and of the angelic heaven; and as this is the supreme end of creation, it follows that all the happiness and pleasure which can possibly be conferred on man are collected in this love* But only those can possess this love who approach the Lord and love the truths of religion, and act accordingly, for monogamous marriages correspond to the marriage of the Lord with the Church* It is impossible for any love to become perfectly pure, either with men or angels, not even conjugal love ; but as the intention is primarily regarded by the Lord, therefore in proportion as a man is in this intention, and perseveres in it, in the same proportion is he initiated into its purity and holiness and advances therein* True conjugal love is chastity itself, for it is the opposite of an unchaste love ; so far as a man is purified of the love of fornication he becomes chaste, but this only applies to monogamous marriages* Moreover, chastity cannot be predicated of those who have taken vows of perpetual celibacy* Those who adopt celibacy for the sake of withdrawing from the world in order to devote themselves to Divine worship are only chaste if the love of a true conjugal life preceded that act or follows and remains* After death, all who have lived in cloisters are freed from their vows and allowed to choose the life they wish to lead* If they elect to lead a conjugal life they are admitted to Heaven, but those who wish to continue an extra-conjugal life join their like who dwell at the sides of Heaven* SEX 8 5 Unlike St* Paul, Swedenborg maintains that the state of marriage is to be preferred to the state of celibacy, because it is the state ordained from creation, and for the reasons which have been adduced above and need not, therefore, be recapitulated* He further points out that by the eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of God (referred to in Matthew ix* 2) are meant spiritual eunuchs who are faithful husbands* The effect of true conjugal love is to unite two souls and two minds, the will of the wife conjoining itself with the understanding of the man, and the understanding of the man conjoining itself with the will of the wife* While the wife is constantly tending to unite her will with the husband's understanding, the man's desire for union is, as it were, intermittent and fluctuating, for the latter is not love, as the wife is, but only its recipient, and his receptivity is not constant, but varies with circumstances* Moreover, the union of the two minds is a gradual pro¬ cess, for the first heat of marriage, which partakes of the carnal nature of sex love, does not conjoin ; it is only when friendship and confidence are conjoined with the first love of marriage that conjugal love sets in* This con¬ junction is inspired by the wife according to her love, and is received by the husband in accordance with his wisdom, the reason being that conjugal love, and even sex love, is inherent in women, but not in men* This conjunction is progressive to eternity with those who are in true conjugal love* Men perceive truths from reason, women from affection. Now, as the understanding is in the nature of light, and love in that of heat, it is obvious, in view of the universal difference between the masculine and the feminine, that the husband cannot possibly possess the wisdom of the wife, and vice versa * Conjugal love leads to states of innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, full confidence, and a heartfelt desire and a general disposition to make all good mutual; hence there arise blessedness, happiness, and pleasure, and from the eternal enjoyment of these is heavenly felicity* It is evident that this must be so, for its origin is from the marriage of good and truth, which 86 REASONABLE RELIGION is from the Lord, who created human beings to be recep¬ tacles of love and wisdom, which proceed from Him, and has infused into them conjugal love for the reception of every species of happiness, which flows in solely from His divine love, through His divine wisdom, together with life* Unfortunately, Swedenborg informs us, true conjugal love is at present rare in this world* We will conclude this chapter, which has already grown to undue proportions, with the following beautiful and poetic extracts from * Conjugal Love ': The Divine providence of the Lord is most particular and most universal in relation to marriages and in marriages, because all the delights of Heaven flow from the delights of conjugal love, as sweet waters from the fountain head ; and on this account it is provided that conjugal pairs be born, and that they be continually educated for marriage under the Lord's auspices, neither the boy nor the girl being conscious of this, and after a certain time, when they have both become fitted for marriage, they meet as by fate, and see each other, and they then instantly know, as by a kind of instinct, that they are consorts, and by a kind of dictate they think inwardly, the young man that the maiden is his and the maiden that the young man is hers ; and when this thought has been seated some time in their minds, they deliberately accost each other and betroth themselves* Swedenborg then explains that it is providentially brought about that affinities should recognise each other* This is commonly called 4 falling in love/ yet it is not quite the same thing. However, even so mundane a novelist as Henry Fielding had a very clear perception of the difference between love and passion. In these days of woman suffrage and female emancipa¬ tion, it is interesting to note that Swedenborg, writing in the eighteenth century, warns married partners not to strive for pre-eminence or command* Conjugal love [he says] has chiefly respect to the union of wills, and freedom of action resulting thence ; both which are cast out from marriage by such striving* While that striving lasts, the spirit of the one meditates violence against the other ♦ ♦ ♦ after one has obtained the victory * ♦ ♦ cold ensues * 1 1 ‘ Conjugial Love/ § 248, p. 223. CHAPTER V The Governance of the World By common consent in all Christian countries the world is acknowledged to be governed by the Divine Providence, but in modern times there has been a tendency to return to the ideas of the Middle Ages, and to regard nature as something autonomous, according to the scientific view, and, in the eyes of religious people, as something hostile to God* In our chapter on the Origin of Evil (Chapter II) we show whence and how such hostility exists* But as the existence of a world presupposes a Creator, it is illogical to assume that Nature, with a capital N, is suffi¬ cient to itself, and entirely independent* Yet this is what the so-called agnostic teaches* He maintains that the laws of nature explain all the phenomena of life, and that, while there may be a God, yet, as He has not thought fit expressly to manifest Himself, His existence or non¬ existence does not concern us* There may indeed be a God, but as we have no direct ponderable and measurable evidence of His existence, it is more than probable that He is but the figment of the superstitious imaginations of our primitive and savage ancestors, whose ignorance of natural science prevented them from accounting for the forces and phenomena they encountered in any other way than by assuming the existence of a Superior Being who had created and who controlled these forces and phenomena* The discovery of the laws of nature has made, so the agnostic argues, such belief unnecessary* Possibly it has never occurred to the modern materialist that to believe in a self-created world requires a far greater 88 REASONABLE RELIGION exercise of faith than to believe in a God, and that it is expecting a great deal from human credulity to ask man¬ kind to suppose that the idea of God was invented by backward and untutored people who were too stupid to account for the existence of themselves and that of the world in any other way* Our own experience of stupid and backward people is that they are generally quite willing to take things as they find them, and are little troubled with philosophic curiosity or introspective thought* However, there is a quaint English proverb to the effect that there is no smoke without fire, which we think fits the case far better than the laboured arguments of learned materialistic philosophers* In our first chapter it was shown that the universe was created from the Divine Love by the Divine Wisdom, and that the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom pro¬ ceed from the Lord in complete union as one substance* There is no substance without form, therefore this union is reproduced in a certain image in every created thing* Hence it is that all things in the universe have relation to goodness and truth, or love and wisdom, or, in the case of perversion, to evil and falsity* Swedenborg points out that * it is acknowledged by many that there is only one substance, which is also the first, from which all things are/ but that this basic and primary substance has not been determined* 4 It is thought to be so simple/ he says, 4 that nothing can be simpler, and that it may be compared to a point which has no dimensions, and that from an infinite number of such points the forms of dimensions exist/ The absurdity of this idea, from a mathematical point of view, requires no elaboration* A true mathematical and indivisible point has neither length, breadth, nor thickness : indeed, it is a mathematical abstraction, and cannot exist, for nothing is so small that it cannot be conceivably divided* The grouping together of such abstractions is like adding together a number of noughts* You cannot produce something by multiplying nothing * 1 Without wasting 1 This atomic theory has of late years been superseded by one more in harmony with Swedenborg’s cosmogony. THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 89 words over this aspect of the idea, Swedenborg proceeds, in a truly scientific spirit, to expose its unsoundness from another. He says : * In proportion as a thing is simple and pure, it is full and complete. It is on this account that the more interiorly any object is inspected, the more wonderful, perfect, and beautiful are the things seen in it/ This, of course, is proved by the microscope, nor should it cause astonishment when we reflect that, as shown in our first chapter, the first substance is from the spiritual sun, which is an emanation from the Lord, and is the one only substance, not being in space, it is all in all, in the least as well as in the greatest things in the created universe; moreover, there are in it infinitely more things than can appear in the substances thence derived. As every created thing is created by the co-operation of Divine Love and Wisdom acting in union, it follows that every so-created thing should reflect this unity, or have an inherent tendency towards such union, as exempli¬ fied in the instance of sex. This union Swedenborg calls the marriage of goodness and truth. He points out that goodness inspired by love must be united to the truth of wisdom before it can become effective, and that the truth of wisdom is only effective in so far as it is united to goodness flowing from love. The Lord is goodness itself and truth itself, and these in Him are one. Consequently these two must also be united in the soul, for an inmost nature without manifestation is a shadowy, unsubstantial thing; nor can there be a manifestation unless there is something to manifest. This can be illustrated by the act of volition. Volition without thought is inconceivable. The will or the affection must have an object, the product of knowledge, perception, and thought. Hence it follows that goodness flowing from love, but not united to the truth of wisdom, is not goodness in itself, but only apparent goodness; and that the truth derived from wisdom, which is not united to goodness flowing from love, is equally unreal. It is contrary to Divine order for things to be divided, and therefore the Lord is constantly separating the chaff 90 REASONABLE RELIGION from the wheat* Things, including the human soul, must be either in goodness and truth or in evil, and simultaneously in falsity* Man, however, during his life on earth can be at once in goodness and in falsity, and also simultaneously in evil and in truth ; indeed, he can at one and the same time be good and evil, and can thus be, as in fact he frequently is, a dual personality* But man was created in the image of God, and such duality and division destroys that image, thus also destroying the man* While the Lord is constantly operating against this duality and division, He, nevertheless, for the sake of man's salvation, permits it* For man's understanding can be elevated into the light of wisdom, in which he can see the highest truths while his love or affections remain below, base and sordid, because he is endowed with the faculties of rationality and liberty, by which alone he can be regener¬ ated and saved* At the same time, the Lord's Divine Providence is continually operating to bring about in man the union of goodness and truth, this union being the Church and Heaven, for it is in the Lord and in every¬ thing proceeding from Him* This union of goodness and truth is provided for by relation, for the quality of goodness can only be recognised by its relation to what is less good, and by opposition to evil. There is variety in everything from its greatest to its least, and also in its opposite from its least to its greatest, and thus an equilibrium is formed, and, accord¬ ing to the degrees in both directions, relation is established and perception or sensation increases or diminishes* The union of goodness and truth is also effected by purifica¬ tion, either through temptation or through fermentation* Spiritual temptations are purely combats against the evils and falsities exhaled from hell; by them man is purified from evils and falsities, goodness being joined to truth and truth to goodness within him* Spiritual fermenta¬ tions are evils and corresponding falsities, which, by being let into societies, act like ferments introduced into meal and certain liquors by means of which heterogeneous things are separated and homogeneous things conjoined, THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 91 purified, and clarified* Hence our Lord compared the Kingdom of Heaven to leaven* It is from the conjunction of evil and falsity that these uses are effected, for even the inhabitants of hell are made to perform uses; the Kingdom of the Lord, which is a kingdom of uses, being not only over Heaven, but also over hell* The Lord did not create the universe for its own sake, but for the sake of those with whom He will dwell in Heaven* It is in the nature of spiritual love to wish to bestow what it has on others, and in proportion as it can give effect to this desire it is in its inmost nature, in its peace and blessedness* As spiritual love derives from Divine Love, it follows that the Divine Providence has for its end a Heaven consisting of men become angels, on whom the Lord can bestow all the beatitudes and felicities proper to love and wisdom out of Himself into them* Nor can He do otherwise, for His image and like¬ ness are in them from creation. His image in them is Wisdom and His likeness in them is Love* Of the things which proceed from the Lord the Divine Providence is primary, for this is continually in the end for which the universe was created* The operation and progression of the end by this means is, Swedenborg tells us, the Divine Providence, and con¬ sequently to act against the laws of the Divine Providence would, for the Lord, be to act against Himself* Indeed, the Lord is Providence, just as God is Order, and the Divine Providence is the Divine Order, primarily respect¬ ing human salvation* Now, there is no order without laws, for laws constitute order, and every law is also order: consequently, as God is Order, He is also the law of His own order ; moreover, as the Lord is His own Providence, He is also the law of His own Providence* Thus the logical conclusion follows that the Lord cannot act against the laws of His Providence, because, if He did, He would be acting against Himself* All operation involves a subject and means* The subject of the Divine Providence is man, the means. Divine truths which impart wisdom, and Divine goods which confer love* By these 92 REASONABLE RELIGION means the Divine Providence operates its end, which is human salvation* This Divine work begins at man's birth, continues throughout his earthly life, and afterwards to eternity* Here, in illustration of this thesis, we feel constrained to quote the following beautiful passage from Swedenborg's * Divine Providence ' (sect* 332) : It was shown above that a Heaven out of the human race is the very end of the creation of the universe ; that this end, in its operation and progression, is the Divine Providence for the salvation of men ; and that all things which are out of man and serve for his use are secondary ends of creation which in the aggregate have relation to all things that exist in the three kingdoms—the animal, vegetable and mineral* When these things constantly proceed according to the laws of Divine order established at their first creation, how can the primary end, which is the salvation of the human race, proceed otherwise than constantly according to the laws of its order, which are the laws of the Divine Providence i Only observe a fruit tree ; does it not first spring from a small seed as a tender germ, afterwards grow successively into a stalk, spread forth its branches, which are then covered with leaves, and afterwards put forth flowers and bear fruit, wherein it deposits new seeds, by which it provides for its perpetuation i It is the same with every shrub and herb of the field* Do not all and everything therein constantly and wonderfully proceed according to the laws of their order from end to end i Why, then, should not the primary end, which is a Heaven out of the human race, do the same i Can anything possibly take place in its progression, which does not most constantly proceed according to the laws of the Divine Providence i ♦ ♦ ♦ A man's infancy may be compared to the tender germ of a tree springing out of the earth from the seed ; his childhood and youth, to that germ increasing to a stem and branches ; natural truths, which every man first imbibes, to the leaves with which its branches are covered * * * a man's initiation into the marriage of good and truth, or the spiritual marriage, to the flowers which that tree produces in the spring-time, spiritual truths being the small leaves of those flowers ; the first fruits of the spiritual marriage, to the beginnings of the fruit; spiritual good, which are the goods of charity, to the fruit * . ♦ the procreations of wisdom from love, to the seeds, THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 93 by means of which procreations a man becomes like a garden and a paradise* A man is also described in the Word by a tree, and his wisdom from love by a garden* Nothing else is signified by the Garden of Eden* A man indeed is an evil tree from the seed ; but yet there is provided an ingrafting or inoculating of branches taken from the tree of life, by which the juices drawn from the old root are converted into such as produce good fruit* This com¬ parison is made, in order that it may be known that when there is so constant a progression of the Divine Providence in the vegetation and regeneration of trees, it must by all means be constant in the reformation and regeneration of men, who are of much more value than trees, according to the words of the Lord* * * * (See Luke xii* 6, 7-25-28.) This passage is so illuminative, that one feels nothing remains to be said concerning this vast subject, the governance of the world* What, indeed, is it all about i What is the riddle of the universe i It is nothing more nor less than the constant effort of God to produce happiness, and to make His creatures eternally blessed* If it were to be put in terms of material science, the resultant idea would be misleading in so far as that it would be wanting in reverence, yet it might serve as an illustration, a pale shadow-picture, of the real and wonderful perpetual miracle of cosmic life* Let us try to express the conception of Divine Providence in scientific language* God is the source of all energy and force, for He is energy and force itself* This energy and force is constantly emanating and being gradually chilled, as it were; the emanation thus ceases to be Divine, and is slowly converted into matter : into this matter, now become a waste-product, as it were, the Divine energy again enters to vivify and regenerate, and thus to rejoin with Himself in Heaven the human beings whom He has created* The Divine purpose is that every being on earth and in the world of spirits should be happy, but happiness can only be enjoyed in freedom* Slavery and compulsion are incompatible with true happiness, hence man must be free* In consequence of that freedom and REASONABLE RELIGION 94 the growth of self-love, which, as has been explained in a former chapter, is an indispensable ingredient in human nature, man has fallen ; he is to-day surrounded by evil spirits, whose perverted energies—for life having been once imparted to them continues and is indestructible even as matter is indestructible—seek to destroy and to bring unhappiness on, not only man and his eternal soul, but the whole created universe, such is the wickedness of self-love when it is made the ruling principle* The Divine Providence, both immediately and medi¬ ately through the agency of Heaven, is perpetually restraining these evil forces from effecting their fell purpose* But occasionally the local conditions, if one may so express oneself, become such as to facilitate the efforts of the powers of hell, or to necessitate calamities in order to destroy the results of their efforts : thus we have occasionally terrible catastrophes, wars, earthquakes, and similar visitations—those do not emanate immediately from the Divine, they are only permitted, not prevented, in order to save the human race ultimately* Some people have argued that it is impossible for God to attend to every detail in the universe, that He has established general laws, but that like an autocrat He entrusts their administration to subordinates, to angels, and moreover, that He cannot be expected to look after every detail—that, in short, while there is a general Providence, there is no particular Providence* This Swedenborg denies : he shows that, whilst God is outside time and space. He is nevertheless everywhere, and His force or energy, even when perverted, in everything* Thus there is a particular Providence over every little thing, and every individual, at the same time as there is a general Providence* Speaking of what we call luck or fortune, he says : Who does not speak of fortune i And who since he speaks of it, and since he knows something of it from experience, does not acknowledge it i Yet who knows what it is i That it is something cannot be denied, for it is real and is ordained ; and nothing can really exist and be ordained without a cause* But the cause of this something, or fortune, is unknown* And lest THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 95 it should be denied, from mere ignorance of the cause, take dice or playing cards, and play ; or consult players. Who of them denies fortune i For they play with it, and it with them, wonderfully. Who can strive against it, if it be obstinate i Does it not then laugh at prudence and wisdom i Is it not, while you shake the dice and shuffle the cards, as if it knew and disposed of the movements and turnings of the joints of the hand, to favour one more than another for some cause i Can there be a cause from elsewhere than the Divine Providence in ultimates, where by means of certainties and uncertainties it deals wonderfully with human prudence, and at the same time conceals itself i It is known that the heathen anciently acknow¬ ledged Fortune (as a god) and built a temple to it, as did also the Italians at Rome. Respecting this Fortune—which as was said is the Divine Providence in ultimates—it has been given to me to know many things that I am not permitted to make public, from which it was evident to me, that it is no illusion of the mind, nor freak of nature ; nor anything without a cause, for this is nothing ; but that it is ocular evidence that the Divine Providence is in the very least particulars of the thoughts of men. Since there is a Divine Providence in the very least particulars of things so trivial and unimportant, why not in the very least particulars of things not trivial and unimportant, such as the affairs of peace and war in the world, and matters pertaining to salvation and life in Heaven i In another passage he explains the occurrence of accidents. Unfortunate accidents occur when the sphere or emanation of evil spirits prevails. These contrive to produce a sphere from which unfortunate circumstances arise as though by chance. But all things, even to the least particulars of the least of all, are directed by the Lord's Providence, but when a sphere antagonistic or contrary thereto prevails misfortunes occur. All evils, even those that occur by accident, come from hell. Of this the infernals are ignorant; they nevertheless burst forth from them. For the inmost and interior Heaven, as media or mediations, dispose and administer the things which are foreseen and provided by God, the Messiah, because they are salutary to the human race. These, with men who trust in themselves and indulge in the loves of self and the world, are 96 REASONABLE RELIGION immediately changed into evils—also into accidents. Thus there is not even the least evil which befalls man which does not break forth from hell. With regard to war, Swedenborg says : It is not from Divine Providence that wars exist; for they are connected with murders, plunderings, acts of violence, cruelties, and other enormous evils which are diametrically opposed to Christian charity. And yet they cannot but be permitted, because the life's love (ruling passion) of men, since the Most Ancient, who are meant by Adam and his wife, has become such that it desires to rule over others, and at length over all, and desires to possess the wealth of the world, and finally all wealth. These two loves cannot be kept in bounds, since it is in accordance with the Divine Providence that every one should be permitted to act from freedom according to reason ; and since without permission man cannot be led by the Lord from evil, thus cannot be reformed and saved. For if evils were not permitted to break out, man would not see them, and so could not be led to resist them. Hence it is that evils cannot be repressed by any Providence ; for thus they would remain shut in, and, like the disease called cancer, and gangrene, would spread and consume all that is vital in man. ... It is for this reason that there are wars, greater and less ; the less between possessors of estates and their neighbours, and the greater between the monarchs of kingdoms and their neigh¬ bours, . . . There are many causes . ♦ . why the greater wars—because they are connected with murders, plunderings, acts of violence and deeds of cruelty—are not repressed by the Lord. . . . Swedenborg then proceeds^ to explain that all wars on earth, however political they may appear, are repre¬ sentative in Heaven of states of the Church. All the wars described in the Bible are thus representative, for the children of Israel represented the Church, and when they transgressed and fell into the evils signified by the Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, Philistines, Syrians, they were punished by the nation representing the particular evil they had committed. It is not known in the world to-day what kingdoms in Christendom represent these nations, yet they are represented. Nor do we know the THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 97 character of the Church on earth, nor the evils into which it is falling on account of which it is punished by wars* But all this is clearly seen in the spiritual world* The spiritual man acknowledges that the wars in the world are governed by Divine Providence, but not so the natural man, who, although he may give outward thanks to God for a victory, and pray for success before going into battle, yet in his heart attributes his victories to his generals and their strategy and tactics* Nevertheless it is usual to talk of the fortune of war, and this, Swedenborg maintains, is the Divine Providence acting through the generals, etc* A general is at full liberty to ascribe his success to his own initiative or ingenuity, but Swedenborg asseverates * that no jot of his plan and deliberation is from himself* It all flows in either from Heaven or from hell—from hell by permission, from Heaven by Providence** And yet it often appears that victory is achieved by human prudence, and that justice is not always trium¬ phant, nor does the character of the general apparently affect the issue* Bad men have been known to be not only brilliant but successful generals* But we are not competent to judge, for we necessarily look at these matters with earthly eyes, nor can we truthfully main¬ tain an absolute impartiality; whilst in Heaven the spiritual point of view is the only one that matters* Who shall say that it may not be better, in some cases, for a nation to be defeated, and thus chastened, than to be victorious i Was it not that great military expert, the Duke of Wellington, who maintained that nothing was so demoralising as a victory, except, perhaps, a defeat i With regard to the vices and virtues of generals the following passage from * The Divine Providence * (sect* 250) will exhibit how Swedenborg regards the somewhat perplexing problem of the apparent prosperity of the wicked in this world* He begins by pointing out that the carnally minded man, * the worshipper of self and of nature/ regards dignities and riches as the only real essential felicities* If he has been brought up religiously he will call them Divine blessings, and worship God and H REASONABLE RELIGION 98 pray for more, but as he advances in the world his devo¬ tion diminishes, until he finally makes no account of God, and even denies Him; even if he incurs losses and misfortune the result is the same* 4 To the wicked, then/ Swedenborg asks, 4 what are dignities and riches but stumbling-blocks i Not so to the good, because they do not place their hearts thereon, but on the uses or goods, for the doing of which dignities and riches serve as means,' He then asserts, what is generally admitted, * that the impious and evil equally with the pious or good can perform uses '; but he emphasises that they do so 4 from a more ardent force, for they have regard to them¬ selves in uses, and regard honours as uses. In the degree, therefore, that the love of self rises, the lust of performing uses for the sake of their own glory is enkindled. There is no such fire with the pious or good, unless it is fomented beneath by honour. The Lord therefore governs the impious in heart who are in dignities through the celebrity of their name, and excites them to perform uses to the state, etc. This is the Lord's government, which is called the Divine Providence, with such. For the Kingdom of the Lord is a kingdom of uses; and when there are but few who perform uses for the sake of uses He causes worshippers of self to be exalted to the more conspicuous offices, in which they are all excited by self- love to do good,' Swedenborg then asks his readers to ascertain how many people who aspire to dignities are not selfish and ambitious, or, as he puts it, * lovers of themselves and the world ' i * Will you find fifty in a thousand,' he asks, 4 who are lovers of God i And among these there are but few who aspire to dignities,' We all know from personal experience that ambition is a curse, and how often have we not heard the regret expressed that So-and-So had not 4 a spice of the devil in him ' i He was too tame, too good to get on. It does not follow that the good man is irresolute, but he does not attach the same importance to worldly advance¬ ment as the selfish man. There is a passage in 4 The Divine Wisdom' on the origin of dignities and riches which we feel constrained to quote : THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 99 Dignities and riches were totally different in the earliest ages from what they afterwards and successively became. Dignities in the most ancient times were no other than such as exist among parents and their children, which were dignities of love full of respect and veneration in the latter for the former, not because they received from them birth, but because the former gave them instruction and wisdom, which is a second birth, in itself spiritual, because it was the birth of their spirit. This was the only dignity in the earliest ages, because then nations, families and houses dwelt separately, and were not formed into kingdoms as in the present day. It was the father of the family in whom dignity resided. Those times were called by the ancients the golden age. After those times, however, the love of governing, from the sole delight of that love, successively crept in; and because enmity and hostility against those who would not submit arose at the same time, therefore nations, families, and houses assembled themselves together, from necessity, and set over themselves one whom at first they called a judge, afterwards a prince, and lastly a king and an emperor. Then also they began to fortify themselves by towers, bulwarks, and walls. From the judge, prince, king or emperor, as from the head into the body, a lust of dominion spread itself like a contagion among many, and thence arose degrees of dignities, with honours conformable to them; and with them self-love, and the pride of self-derived prudence. The case was similar with regard to the love of riches. In the most ancient times, when nations and families dwelt distinctly from each other, there was no other love of riches than that of possessing the necessaries of life, which they procured for them¬ selves by flocks and herds, and by fields, pastures, and gardens from which they derived subsistence. Among their necessaries of life were also reckoned decent houses, furnished with the requisite utensils, and likewise clothing. The care and manage¬ ment of all these things was the business of the parents, children, men-servants, and maid-servants in the house. But after the love of dominion began to prevail, and destroyed this state of society, the love of possessing wealth beyond their necessities also invaded mankind, and grew to such a height as to produce a desire of possessing the wealth of all. These two loves are connected, as it were, by consanguinity ; for he who desires to rule over all, desires also to possess everything, so that everybody may become his servant, and he the sole lord and master. If the Divine Providence governs wars it seems obvious 100 REASONABLE RELIGION that the religions in the world must also be under Divine Providence, yet the existence of a variety of religions has often been a stumbling-block to the pious. The materialist goes further: he says there cannot be any one true religion seeing that there are so many various professions of faith. If there were a God, the materialist argues, surely He would take pains to manifest Himself and to ensure that there was only one true religion which would be confessed by all. Yet our Lord has told us that there are many mansions in Heaven, and if we take an illustration from nature we shall perhaps understand the mystery of the diversity of creeds a little better. All objects obtain their light from the material sun, which is the source of colour, yet the flowers and all natural objects reflect it differently: some flowers are red, some are white, some yellow, and yet these colours are all true colours and are all derived from the sun. We are enjoined to remove the beam from our own eye before we venture to remove the mote from our brother's eye, and everybody who acts within his lights, as we colloquially and correctly express it, is justified in the sight of God. What we must guard against is the perversion of truth, the introduction of error and falsity in religion, and these arise from our own perversity, our own self-hood, our intense self-love which blinds our eyes to the truth and offers culture-beds for the incubation of heresies and false doctrines in our minds which evil spirits, with whom we place ourselves in direct relation when we cherish the phantasies of self-love, are ever ready to propagate. We have nothing from ourselves, not even religion; this is imparted to us, and it is according to our voluntary reception of the religion we receive and the sincerity with which we carry out its teachings in our lives that our salvation is achieved. Again we must quote Swedenborg. He says : The Lord might heal the understanding in every man, and thus cause him not to meditate evil but good. This He might do by various fears, by miracles, by converse with the departed, and by visions and dreams. But to heal the understanding THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD ioi only, is merely to heal man outwardly; for the understanding with its thought is the external of man's life, the internal of his life is the will with its affection* It is the will that has to be healed, and that cannot be effected by sudden miracle, but only by slow training in full freedom; for a compulsory reformation is no reformation at all* Here is another passage from Swedenborg : The angelic heaven before the Lord is as one man, whose soul and life is the Lord* ♦ ♦ . Now it is provided by the Lord that even they to whom the gospel could not come, but only a religion, might also have a place in that Divine man, that is, in heaven—by constituting those parts which are called inte¬ guments, membranes, cartilages, and bones—and that they like the others be in heavenly joy* For it is not a matter of concern whether they are in such joy as is felt by the angels of the highest heaven ; or in such as is felt by the angels of the lowest heaven; for every one who comes into heaven comes into the greatest joy of his heart* A greater joy he could not endure, for he would be suffocated in it* * * * From which it is plain that for the last as well as the first there is heavenly happiness—for each in his degree* So it is also with those who are outside the Christian world, provided they shun evils as sins against God* * . ♦ There are few who are totally ignorant of God. But even these, if they have lived a moral life, are instructed by the angels after death, and receive a spiritual principle into their moral life* So with those who worship the sun and moon and believe God to be there* They know no otherwise ; therefore this is not imputed to them as sin* For the Lord says :—* If ye were blind,' that is if they did not know, * ye should have no sin.' (John ix* 41.) And there are many even in the Christian world who worship idols and graven images. This in truth is idolatrous, but not with all; for there are those to whom graven images serve as a means of awakening thought concerning God. For it is owing to influx from heaven that he who acknowledges God desires to see Him; and as those cannot, like interior spiritual men, lift the mind above sensual things, therefore this is effected by a graven image or picture* They who do this and do not worship the image itself as God, if also from religion they live the precepts of the Decalogue, are saved* From these considerations it is 102 REASONABLE RELIGION clear that, as God wills the salvation of all, He has also provided that every one, if he lives well, may have some place in heaven* The Mahomedan religion may be taken as an illustra¬ tion of the ways of Divine Providence* According to Swedenborg this religion was raised by Divine Providence for the destruction of idolatry, which had become common throughout the whole earth* Before the Lord's advent all churches were representative and their rites symbolical, as in the case, for instance, of the Israelitish Church* The Egyptian hieroglyphics afford an eloquent testimony of this. Gradually, as the knowledge of the meaning of the symbolic rites faded from the grossly material minds of the degenerate descendants, the latter worshipped the things themselves and thus idolatries arose; more¬ over, religions having a reflex action, and being a reflexion of the states of its professors, as men became more material and self-centred, idolatry was the natural outward expression of their internal condition* Thus it has been noticed in our own times that so-called atheists are prone to superstition* In order to extirpate this universal idolatry, the Divine Providence brought about the appear¬ ance of a new religion adapted to the Oriental mentality, which should contain some of the teachings of the Old and New Testaments, and should teach that the Lord came into the world, and was the greatest Prophet, the wisest of men, and the Son of God. This was accomplished through Mahomet* The Christian religion, which existed at first in Europe only, would not have been received by the Orientals, who, for one thing, had been polygamists for ages* The Protestant religion is another instance of Divine permission* We are told by Swedenborg that it was the result of the action of the Roman Catholic Church, which practically prohibited the reading of the Bible* Swedenborg shows that dissensions and heresies are inevitable, because many statements and records in the Bible are appearances of truth, and not naked truths* Many are written from the point of view of the natural, THE GOVERNANCE OF THE WORLD 103 and even the sensual man, but in such a manner that they can be understood by the meanest intelligence, whilst the intellectual can understand them intellectually, and the wise can understand their wisdom* Conse¬ quently appearances of truths, which are truths clothed, can be taken for naked truths which, when they are con¬ firmed, become errors or falsities* Such perversion of truth is, of course, effected only by people whose strong egotism leads them to take a pride in their own intellect* Hence heresies arise. But, Swedenborg is careful to ex¬ plain, heresies do not of themselves condemn ; it is an evil life confirmed by heresies from the Bible and by reason¬ ings from natural desires which condemn* Heresies are more prevalent when a church attaches importance to doctrine rather than to life, for then man is in darkness and stumbles into pitfalls* For the understanding must be led by life and love to think, speak and act, and vice versa —that is to say, the will should not be led by the understanding, otherwise evil desires might seize upon whatever impressed it through the senses, and enjoin the will to do it* We will conclude this chapter with another quotation : The Divine Providence [says Swedenborg] operates invisibly and incomprehensibly in order that man may be able to ascribe [whatever occurs] freely either to Providence or to chance* For if Providence were to act visibly and compre¬ hensibly, there would be danger that a man might after believing a thing to be providential come into the opposite belief. Truth and falsity would thus be joined in the interior man, and the truth would be profaned. ♦ ♦ ♦ Such a man is therefore rather kept in unbelief, than that he should once be in faith and then recede from it* * . ♦ And hence it is that at this day no miracles are wrought; for these, like all visible and comprehensible things, would constrain men to believe, and whatever constrains takes away freedom; whereas all reformation and regeneration of man is effected in his freedom* Whatever is not implanted in freedom does not remain. ♦ ♦ ♦ That at this day man is expected to believe what he does not see is shown by the Lord's words to Thomas, in John :— * Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed ; blessed are they that do not see, and yet believe.' (xx. 29*) CHAPTER VI Revelation If the purpose of creation is to people Heaven with human souls in order to make them eternally happy, it follows that there must be some means by which human souls can be drawn to God and can be instructed in truth* In other words, it is inconceivable that God in His solicitude for the eternal welfare of His creatures should not have revealed Himself to them. We are all taught as children that this revelation has indeed been effected, and that the Bible is a Divinely inspired book containing such revelation. But as we grow older difficulties present themselves. We find it difficult to believe that the universe was created in six days, and that after it had been thus created God should have rested on the seventh day. The story of the Garden of Eden, with its talking serpent and its two trees, is also difficult to believe, but when we come to Cain, the only surviving son of the first pair, and are told that after murdering his brother and being rebuked and cursed by the Lord, he went and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, took to himself a wife and had children by her, we feel that this book is self-contradictory. Further, we are told that the sun stood still for Joshua, when we know that it is the earth which revolves round the sun, and that the rising and the setting of the sun is but an illusion of the senses. Such obvious impossibilities dispose the modern reader to regard the Bible as a collection of myths, a sort of folk-lore. He may agree with Professor Huxley, the founder of agnosticism, in thinking it the most beautiful REVELATION 105 piece of literature in existence, but he will have difficulty in disproving the Professor's contention that it is obviously uninspired* How are we to explain King David, for instance, who is held up to our admiration i how justify the brutal massacres in which the Israelites indulged { These are just a few of the stumbling-blocks we encounter ; we need not, for instance, dwell on the prophets; indeed Voltaire regarded Habakkuk as * capable of anything*' The question as to how far the Bible is literally in¬ spired would appear, in the face of these numerous difficulties, to be of but minor importance, although we believe the Church of England has gone so far as to give up the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures altogether* What must be our surprise, therefore, to read in Swedenborg's * True Christian Religion ' the following passage ! The style of the Word is of such a nature as to contain what is holy in every verse, in every word, and, in some cases, in every letter ; and hence the Word conjoins man with the Lord, and opens heaven* * * * But it is well to observe that only those receive life from the Word who read it with this end and design, viz*, to draw divine truths from it,— in order to carry them out in their lives ; to read the Word for purposes of profit or worldly advancement has a baneful effect* How are we to reconcile the difficulties referred to with the statement just quoted { Or, rather, why is it that God should choose a method of revelation so obscure, so difficult i Why not tell us plainly and simply what He wants us to know i There is a very significant passage in Matthew xiii* 34 : * All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables ; and without a parable spake He not unto them*' Swedenborg says that the reason why the spiritual sense of the Word was not revealed before is that the Church would have profaned it* But he solemnly assures us * that Jehovah the Lord, who is God of Heaven and earth, spoke the Word by Moses and the prophets, and 106 REASONABLE RELIGION that consequently it must be Divine truth; for what Jehovah the Lord Himself speaks can be nothing else/ If the Bible be Divine truth, and nothing else, and is yet full of obvious contradictions and statements that are in direct conflict with our knowledge of scientific facts, then there must be some method of reconciling these contradictions* Before proceeding further with Swedenborg's ex¬ planation—revelation would indeed be the better word to use—of the true meaning of the Bible, let us pause to consider for one moment the true meaning of the world—the world and its scientific facts* We know that the ground is called earth ; we know what the atmosphere is composed of; we know that certain trees bear fruit; we know that there are minerals in the bowels of the earth* Unless there was an abundance of water, we know that life would be impossible* We know all these things, and many more, but we do not know the reason for them* There is a school of scientific thought who persist in regarding the world and all that is in it as a fortuitous accident; who can see nothing in the starry heavens but a series of masses of radiating bodies on which it is highly improbable that the accident which we call life should have been repeated* Their outlook, it must be confessed, is rather dull and uninteresting* The Christian regards the world and everything in it as having been Divinely created. The Divine Creator of the universe must be omniscient, He must be the essence of Wisdom, as He must also be the essence of Love. The idea of a Deity is otherwise inconceivable. Now, if God is Infinite Wisdom, it follows that everything created by Him must bear the stamp of His wisdom. Every object, consequently, in the created universe must have a meaning, must have an interior meaning, must be representative of some truth, must have a message, must correspond to some inner spiritual order, or it could not exist; to every reflective mind that must be obvious* The idea of a fortuitous, arbitrary creation is as unphilosophical and as repugnant to reason as the idea of the fortuitous accidental origin and existence of the REVELATION 107 world* Even in our popular songs this feeling is voiced : * Every little flower has a meaning of its own/ But our misfortune is that we do not know this meaning* Swedenborg asserts that in remote ages the science of correspondences as he calls it, was known, as evinced, e*g*, by the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but that it has been lost* Now in the Bible it is the internal sense, the spirit, which giveth life; the letter, as we have been told by our Lord Himself, on the other hand, killeth* In his * Heaven and Hell/ Swedenborg shows that all things in nature, both in general and in particular, correspond to spiritual things, and that even the human body, with every component part and everything in it, is representative* He avers, in his * True Christian Religion/ that the science of correspondences was familiar to men of the most ancient times, * who esteemed it the science of sciences and cultivated it so universally that all their books and treatises were written by correspond¬ ences/ The mythologies were founded on the same science, and all the ancient churches were representative in their rites, ordination, and articles of belief* This also applies to the Jewish Church with its various sacrifices and offerings* The tabernacle was representative with everything it contained* Here follows a sentence remarkable for its condensation and lucidity: Now, as Divine things fix their existence in external nature in correspondences, therefore the Word was written by mere correspondences; and for the same reason the Lord, speaking as He did from the Divine, spoke in correspondences ; for whatever proceeds from the Divine, when it comes into external nature, manifests itself in such external things as correspond with what is divine, which external things thus become the repositories of Divine things, otherwise called celestial and spiritual, which lie concealed within them* The Word, [he says,] is like a garden which may be called a heavenly paradise, containing delicacies and delights of every kind, delicacies of fruits and delights of flowers, in the midst of which are^trees of life, and beside them fountains of living water, and forest trees round about the garden* Whoever is principled in divine truths, by virtue of doctrine, is in the io8 REASONABLE RELIGION midst of the garden, among the trees of life, and in the actual enjoyment of its delicacies and delights* When a man is not principled in truths by virtue of doctrine, but only from the literal sense, he abides in the boundaries of the garden, and sees nothing but forest scenery; but when a man is in the doctrine of a false religion, and has confirmed its errors in his mind, he is not even in the forest, but in a sandy plain without, where there is not even grass. In its literal sense the Word is compared by Sweden¬ borg to— a cabinet which contains precious stones, pearls, and diadems, arranged in exact order; and where a man accounts the Word holy, and reads it for the sake of its uses in respect to life, the thoughts of his mind may be compared with a person who takes such a cabinet in his hand, and sends it up towards Heaven, when lo ! it flies open in its ascent, and its precious contents are displayed to the sight of the angels, who are penetrated with delight in beholding and examining them. This delight of the angels is communicated to the man, producing consociation, and likewise a communication of perceptions, Swedenborg further likens the spiritual sense con¬ tained in the Word to the soul in the human body. This spiritual sense does not break forth as light out of the literal sense when a person is studying and explaining the Word with a view to establishing some particular tenet of the Church, Indeed, the spiritual sense does not appear in the literal sense at all, for it is within it, as the soul in the body, or the thought of the mind or understanding in the eye, or the affection of love in the countenance. The style in which the Word is written, although it appears ordinary, is never¬ theless the repository of all Divine and angelic wisdom. For the Word of the Lord, which is natural in its last or external sense, is spiritual in its interior sense, and celestial in its inmost sense, and in all three it is Divine : thus it is adapted to angels and men. Seeing that the spiritual and celestial senses are contained within the literal sense, it follows that the Divine Truth in that external literal sense of the Word is in its fulness, its sanctity, and its power. REVELATION 109 The Word in its glory was represented in the person of the Lord at His transfiguration, in the presence of Peter, James and John* In Matthew xvii* 1-5 it is said : * His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was as the light; and there appeared Moses and Elias talking with him; and a bright cloud overshadowed them : and a voice was heard out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son; hear ye him/ Swedenborg states that he was informed that the Lord on this occa¬ sion represented the Word; His face, which shone as the sun, represented the divine good of His divine love; His raiment, which was as the light, the divine truth of His divine wisdom; Moses and Elias the historical and prophetical Word; the bright cloud which overshadowed the disciples, the Word in its literal sense* Here it may be convenient to refer to Swedenborg's statement that during the Lord's abode in the world He fulfilled all things contained in the Word*' Thus, we are told in John i*: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God* The same was in the beginning with God* All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life ; and the life was the light of men* And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not* * * * And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. From this passage it is legitimate to conclude that there has always been a revelation, a Word. It is not, therefore, surprising to learn from Swedenborg that there was a Word among the ancients, written by pure corre¬ spondence, but that it has been lost on earth, though it is still preserved by them in Heaven* That Word was full of correspondences remotely signifying celestial and spiritual things, but was ultimately falsified by many, and consequently through the Divine Providence of the Lord this was in process of time finally lost, when another Word was given through the Israelite prophets which was written by correspondences less remote* In Numbers, no REASONABLE RELIGION for instance, reference is made to this ancient Word, where it is called the Wars of Jehovah , and the poetical parts are referred to as Enunciations * The reason why the science of correspondences, which is the key to the spiritual sense of the Word, was not discovered to later ages, was because the Christians of the primitive church were men of such simplicity that they would not have understood it* After those first ages of Christianity there arose thick clouds of darkness, which overspread the whole Christian world; first in consequence of the propagation of many heresies in the church, and soon after in consequence of the decrees and decisions of the Council of Nice* The spiritual sense has now been revealed through Swedenborg, because the Divine truths of the church are now coming to light, and of these the spiritual sense of the Word consists; while these are in man, the literal sense of the Word cannot be perverted* But hereafter the spiritual sense of the Word treats solely of the Lord and His kingdom* This sense man can violate if he has a know¬ ledge of correspondences, and desires thereby to explore this sense under the influence of his own self-derived intelligence, for he may in this way pervert the spiritual sense and confirm error from it, thus offering violence to Divine truth, and consequently to Heaven ; therefore. Heaven is closed against him, and he either loses all con¬ ception of truth or becomes spiritually insane* Moreover, the Lord instructs every individual by means of the Word, and bases his instruction on what man already knows, but does not impart fresh knowledge immediately; therefore, if a man is not principled in Divine truths, or is only in a few truths and at the same time in errors, he may falsify truths by errors, as is done by every heretic in respect of the literal sense* In order, therefore, to prevent such a perversion of genuine truth, the Lord sets guards, which are signified in the Word by cherubs* We have seen that the Word is in its fulness, holiness and power, in its literal sense; the Lord is consequently eminently present there, and thence instructs and enlightens mankind* Yet without doctrine the Word is REVELATION hi unintelligible* Let us take a few instances to make this clear* Thus we are told in one passage * that Jehovah repenteth,' and in others ' that Jehovah doth not repent*' In one passage we are told that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation; and in another that fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers; but that every man shall be put to death for his own sin* Without doctrine it might be, and indeed has been, assumed that heaven was for the poor and not for the rich, but it is the poor in spirit who are meant, for the Lord says, in another place: ‘ Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven/ Then, again, the Lord says : * Be ye not called teacher, for one is your teacher, even Christ; and call no man your father upon earth, for one is your Father in Heaven ; neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ/ On this Swedenborg comments : * These words, unex¬ plained by doctrine, would seem to imply that it is not lawful to call anyone teacher, father, or master; whereas by doctrine we learn that this is lawful in a natural sense, though it is unlawful in a spiritual sense/ Here is another difficult passage, quoted from Matthew xix*, where Jesus says to His disciples : * When the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel*' But as nobody can judge any person, this saying is explained by doctrine as implying that the Lord alone, who is omniscient and knows all hearts, will sit in judgment, and is able to judge; and that by His twelve disciples is meant the Church in respect of all the truths and goods it has from the Lord by means of the Word; and that everyone will be judged by those truths and goods, according to the words of the Lord in John iii* 16-21 : God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life* For God sent not his Son to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved* He that believeth in him is not condemned : but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the 112 REASONABLE RELIGION name of the only begotten Son of God* And this is the con¬ demnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil* For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God, And in the same Gospel, chap, xii, 47-48, our Lord says : And if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. These illustrations will suffice to show that to read the Word unguided by doctrine is apt to cause mis¬ apprehension and error. That we read and explain the Word according to doctrine is evidenced by the practice of all Christian churches, e.g. the Protestant, the Roman Catholic, and the Greek, whilst the Jews do the same. Where the doctrine is erroneous, men see falsely, and give false interpretations, but where the doctrine is true, the interpretation is in accordance. Of course, doctrine must be drawn from the literal sense: the outward covering of the interior truths. We will now turn to the Bible itself and endeavour to give some idea of its interior meaning. We have seen that it has been given us for our instruction; it is a means of drawing us to Heaven, In that case, it must obviously be a repository of wisdom, it must contain truths suited for every state of mind and for every human soul. It should teach us all that we are capable of knowing of God, of the future life, of the Church on earth, and our own salvation, the state of our soul, and how we are to proceed to achieve that salvation. All these things are there, all the mysteries of Heaven and earth are in that casket of truth, for is it not the living word of God i Heaven and earth may pass away, but His Word is infinite—it cannot pass away. Let us begin at the beginning. The first chapters of REVELATION 113 Genesis are obviously not what they purport to be* They cannot, in the light at least of our present limited scientific knowledge, be accepted as a literal description of the creation of the world* Moreover, if that was all they were, they would be of but little spiritual value* If we are to read the Word for our edification, it is but reasonable to expect to find something more in it than a bare record of facts without any further bearing on the things that matter* We are all the more justified in our assumption that these statements in the Book of Genesis are not quite what on the surface they would seem to be by St* Paul, who tells us that they are allegorical* And now Swedenborg has given us the key to this allegory* In the first volume of his * Arcana Ccelestia/ in a preface to the Book of Genesis, the following sentence occurs : the first chapter of Genesis, in its internal sense, treats of the new creation of man, or of his regeneration in general, and specifically of the Most Ancient Church; and this in such a manner that there is not a single syllable which does not represent, signify, and involve something spiritual. The six days in which the world was created are the six stages of man's regeneration* The first stage is one of emptiness and darkness, a void in which the Spirit of God moves upon the surface of the waters* The Spirit of God here means the Divine mercy, and the waters are the knowledge of truth and good, which do not come to light until externals are devastated or removed* In the second state, externals are separated from the internal remnants which are stored in the mind by the Lord. The third state is one of repentance, when good works are performed, but as these are then ascribed by man to his own merit, they are inanimate—at first the tender herb, then the herb yielding seed, and sub¬ sequently the tree bearing fruit* In the fourth state man is affected by love and enlightened by faith—these are the two luminaries* If he then proceeds to the fifth state he talks from faith and confirms himself thereby in truth and good* He now produces living results—the REASONABLE RELIGION 114 fishes of the sea and the birds of the heavens* By fish scientifics are meant, and birds signify things rational and intellectual* His next, or sixth state, is when man utters truths and does good from faith and consequently from love* He now produces the living soul and the beast, and becomes a spiritual man—an image* His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by his knowledge of faith and his works of charity—these are his meat* But his natural life is equally delighted and sustained by the things of the body and the senses, hence arises conflict until love reigns supreme and he becomes a celestial man —the seventh state* Swedenborg adds that this stage is not attained by all the regenerate—indeed, in these days the majority reach the first state only, and the successive stages in a diminishing proportion, very few reaching the sixth and scarcely any the seventh, which is that of the celestial man when, love having finally conquered, all conflict is at an end, and the Lord therefore rests, having completed His work and evolved by slow and laborious stages a celestial man out of a carnally minded human animal* The story of the Garden of Eden and the fall, as it is called, has been touched upon in Chapter II, * The Origin of Evil*' We now come to the Flood* The sixth chapter of Genesis describes the state of mankind and the Church just before the Flood* In the 4 Arcana Coelestia ' (Vol* 8, No* 560) Swedenborg explains that at that time it resembled in general its successors, such as, for instance, the Jewish Church before the Advent of our Lord, and the Christian Church which corrupted and adulterated the true faith* The members of this antediluvian Church immersed the goods and truths of their faith in their own lusts, for, owing mainly to their intense self-love, they regarded themselves as gods; and they thus suffo¬ cated the remnants of goodness which, as we have seen, God stores up in every human soul* There was con¬ sequently no perception of good and truth left, wherefore we are told that * it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart*' But, REVELATION 115 of course, Jehovah never repents, because He foresees all things, in general and in particular, from eternity* The repentance of the Lord was but an appearance* It is His mercy that is here meant, and this is beyond our comprehension, seeing that it infinitely transcends all human understanding; but we know what human mercy is, we know what repentance and grief are, therefore these human feelings are attributed to God in order that man might thus be instructed* Human properties are thus frequently attributed to God, who is represented as being angry, punishing, destroying and leading into temptation* This is contrary to a philosophical con¬ ception of the Deity, and indeed God cannot be supposed to possess human weakness, and to fall into a passion and act violently and inconsiderately* Yet it appears to be so to us* Swedenborg points out that— if a man in simplicity believes that the Lord is angry, punishes, repents and grieves, and is thereby restrained from evil and led to do good, it does not at all hurt him, because he believes also that the Lord sees all things in general and in particular; and being in such a faith, he is enlightened afterwards in other things, in another life, if not before. It is different with those who are self-persuaded from pre-conceived principles through the pernicious love of self and the world. The Flood was thus nothing else but a self-induced inundation of evil and error or falsity, which extinguished all truth and good* Indeed, an influx of delusions and lust from evil spirits is not unlike a flood or inundation, and is consequently described as such in various parts of the Word* The Most Ancient Church having been destroyed, it became necessary, for the salvation of mankind, to found a New Church, and this is typified by Noah* The Most Ancient Church had a perception of good, and thence of truth from the Lord, whilst the Ancient Church of Noah possessed a conscience of what was good and true* But let us quote from Swedenborg: The subject now treated of [he says] is the formation of the New Church, which is named Noah ; and its formation is n6 REASONABLE RELIGION described by the ark, into which living things of every kind were received* But before that New Church could exist, the man of the Church, as is usual, must needs endure many temptations, which are described by the elevation, fluctuation and continuance of that ark on the waters of the flood* And at length, his becoming a truly spiritual man, and being set at liberty, is described by the cessation of the waters, and many things which follow* It is impossible for anyone to see these spiritual contents who adheres solely to the letter; and here especially, because all these things have been connected in the manner of a history, and present to view an idea such as that of a history of events* But the style of writing at that time, most pleasing to these ancient people, was such that all things were involved in types ; and these types were disposed and adjusted after the manner of a history ; and the more perfectly these historical things cohered in a series, the more it was in accordance with their genius* For in those ancient times they did not apply themselves so much to sciences as men at the present day, but to profound thoughts, of which such were the offspring* This was the wisdom of the ancients* That the flood, the ark, and the things described concerning the flood and the ark, signify regeneration, and also the temptations which precede it is known in some measure to the learned at this day* ♦ ♦ ♦ To this we will add another extract from the ' Arcana Coelestia/ in which Swedenborg makes a general state¬ ment concerning the Bible* He says : The Word was given to unite Heaven and earth, or angels with men ; wherefore it is so written that it may be understood spiritually by the angels when it is understood naturally by men, and that thus what is holy may flow in through the angels, by means of which, union is brought about* Such is the Word, both in the historical parts, and in the prophetical; but the internal sense is less apparent in the historical than in the pro¬ phetical parts, because the latter are written in a different style, although still in significatives* The historical parts are given on this account, that children and young people may be initiated thereby into the reading of the Word; for these parts are delightful, and gain a place in the minds of the young, whereby communication is thus given them with the heavens, which communication is grateful, because they are in a state of innocence and mutual charity ; this is the reason why the Word REVELATION 117 is historic. The reason why the Word is prophetic is, because when it is read it is not understood by man except obscurely ; and when it is understood obscurely by man, such as he is at the present day, it is clearly perceived by the angels. In this connection it is of interest to note that the Apocalypse, which is a prophetic work, does not treat of the fate of the nations of kingdoms of this world. From beginning to end it treats of the last state of the Church in Heaven and on earth; and of the last judgment; and after this of the New Church, which is the New Jeru¬ salem. Swedenborg has written a full explanation of this book in his * Apocalypse Revealed/ We must now say something about the Jewish sacri¬ fices, the significance of which has been so generally misinterpreted. At these sacrifices the animals offered were oxen, bullocks, he-goats, rams, she-goats, male-kids, lambs, ewe-lambs, and kids of the she-goats. Now all animals are representative in general of human thoughts and affections, and hence of truths and goods, and con¬ sequently of faith and love. Man himself is nothing but an animal outwardly, it is by his internal that he can be elevated to Heaven and God, and receive faith and love. This is why beasts were sacrificed, for these burnt-offerings and sacrifices in general symbolised the regeneration of man, and, in the highest sense, the glorification of the Lord's Humanity. The whole of worship was repre¬ sented by these rites, for all things of worship should have reference to purification from evils and errors, and to the grafting of truth and good and their union, and thus to regeneration, for by these three processes is man's re¬ generation effected. Sacrifices and burnt-offerings were consequently exacted for every sin and guilt, and thus all offences were expiated and pardoned. Pardoning, expiation, propitiation and redemption are simply no more nor less than the processes above enumerated of purification from evil and error, engrafting good and truth, and their union, which is regeneration. By the sacrifice and burnt-offering of the bullock, the ox, and the he-goat, the purification and regeneration of the natural or external man was represented ; by those of the n8 REASONABLE RELIGION ram, she-goat, male-kid, the same process with regard to the spiritual man, whilst the regeneration of the celestial man was represented by the sacrifice and burnt-offering of the he-lamb, the ewe-lamb and the kid of the she- goats. In the highest sense these rites of the Jewish Church symbolised the glorification of the Lord's Humanity, seeing that all the rites of the Israelites and Jewish nation had reference to the Lord alone ; moreover the regeneration of man is effected solely by the Lord, and consequently whenever the regeneration of man is men¬ tioned in the Word it refers, in the highest sense, to the glorification of the Lord's Humanity, of which man's regeneration is an image. To glorify the human was to make the same Divine, and to regenerate man is to make him heavenly, so that the Lord may dwell in him. There is a wide-spread belief that there are lucky and unlucky numbers; the reader will therefore not be surprised to learn that numbers in the Word have a spiritual meaning, and that numbers and measures refer to the quality of the subject treated of. Swedenborg explains that spiritual things are neither numbered nor measured, but fall into numbers and measures as they descend out of the spiritual world, or out of Heaven, into the natural world amongst men. The simple or primary numbers are two, three, five, and seven. The number two signifies union, and is predicated of good ; the number three signifies fulness and is predicated of truths ; the number five signifies much and some; and the number seven signifies what is holy. From the number two proceed the numbers 4, 8, 16, 400, 800, 1,600, 4,000, 8,000, 16,000 ; which have a signification similar to number two, because they proceed from that simple number multiplied by itself and by ten. From the number three proceed 6, 12, 24, 72, 144, 1,440, 144,000; which numbers being the product of the simple number multiplied have a similar signification to three. From the number five proceed 10, 50, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000; which have a similar signification to five for the same reason. From the number seven proceed 14, 70, 700, 7,000, 70,000 ; which are in the REVELATION 119 same relation to seven. The number twelve signifies com¬ pleteness, all things, or all persons, since it is derived from three which means fulness of completeness, and it is predicated of truths from goods because it is produced by three, which is predicated of truths, and is multiplied by four which is predicated of good. Thus there were twelve tribes of Israel, each tribe representing an essential and universal principle of the Church, and 12,000 out of every tribe were sealed, by which figure all were meant. The number twelve occurs so frequently in the Bible that everybody must feel it has a spiritual significance. The half and the double of a number imply a similar meaning, and the meaning of compound numbers can be ascertained from the simple numbers of the multi¬ plication of which they are the product* Twelve corresponds with all things of faith, seven with things that are holy, and ten and five with goods and truths stored up by the Lord in the interior mind of man. That all numbers have a spiritual meaning is evident from Ezekiel, where the new earth, the new city and the new temple, which the angel measured, are described, as well as from the measurements in Revelation of the New Jerusalem, the New Church descending from Heaven, Weights and measures in the Word have all a spiritual significance. For a complete study of the spiritual and celestial meaning of the Bible the reader is referred to the * Arcana Ccelestia/ The subject is too vast to be treated adequately within the compass of this work. It may be said however that the interpretation of the internal sense of the Bible is not arbitrary but in accordance with the science of correspondences, by which all interpretations of the Word can be tested. One illustration may suffice. We are told that our Lord washed His disciples' feet, and explained that so long as their feet were washed their whole body would be clean. Now walking is representa¬ tive of conduct, and it is with our feet that we walk. We wash with water, which is representative of truth; con¬ sequently so long as our conduct is truthful, sincere and honest—that is to say, clean, and has been purified in the 120 REASONABLE RELIGION light of truth—we need not trouble ourselves much about non-essentials* 1 Let us take another illustration* Bread is good, water truth* In nature bread will not grow without water, and good is nothing without truth—it cannot exist* Every¬ thing in nature has a spiritual correspondence* The Psalms are also full of spiritual meaning* Whilst apparently only the bloodthirsty war-songs of vindictive tribal Kings, they represent the conflicts of the Church, the triumphs of our Lord, and more particularly the trials of each individual soul* Take for instance Psalm xxxvii, where the Psalmist gives us hope and confidence in the ultimate removal of our own evils, for he says that though he had seen the wicked in great power, yet after a little while there was no trace of him left* Is not this an indication that our own evils, which seem so irresistible, will in time cease to trouble us i And is it not consoling to be told that a little that a righteous man possesses is * better than the riches of many wicked/ and to read : * I have been young and now am old ; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread * i Here it may be well to note that when riches and poverty are mentioned in the Bible spiritual not worldly riches and poverty are meant* The rich men are conceited men, the men conscious of their own merit* We meet these in our daily life, they are the images of rectitude, they are incapable of doing or even thinking anything wrong, and they are generally insufferable prigs, who despise their less fortunate fellows, the sinners and the publicans. It is not easy for the self-righteous to humble themselves to enter the Kingdom of Heaven* But the poor are the poor in spirit, the people who possibly have committed many sins, who are painfully aware of their own shortcomings, who are penitent, humble and diffident; some have even lost confidence in their ability to reform, 1 It was recently pointed out in a medical paper that in primitive countries this was even literally true, as in a healthy person the body was kept clean by the perspiration from the pores of the skin, and it was only the feet that ever got really dirty. Of course in civilised countries these natural conditions no longer obtain. REVELATION 121 they feel impotent, they cannot bestir themselves to walk to the pool with the healing waters, but the Lord comes to them and saves them* The diversity and wealth of spiritual teaching and invigoration to be obtained from a perusal of the Bible cannot even be hinted at* It is an inexhaustible mine, full of precious stones, and gold and silver* But just as in the case of a mine, to the untrained and careless it presents nothing but what is gross and even valueless, to the properly attuned mind, on the other hand, it abounds in treasure* To each individual it brings a special illumina¬ tion adapted to his particular state* How many people have not repeated with Charles I that wonderful last verse of Psalm xliii i —‘ Why art thou cast down, O my soul i and why art thou disquieted within me i hope in God : for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God/ Swedenborg tells us that when the Word is read by a person who loves it and lives in charity, or by someone even who in his simplicity of heart believes every word he reads, but who has formed no principles contrary to the truth of the internal sense, this latter is displayed by the Lord to the angels in such beauty and pleasantness— with representatives also in ineffable variety according to the various states in which they are—that the least particulars are seen by them as living* This is the life which is in the Word, and from which the Word had birth* The angels understand the internal sense better and more fully when it is read by children, than when it is read by adults who are not in the faith of charity* For children are in mutual love and innocence, and are thus extremely tender, almost celestial, vessels capable, although unconsciously, of direct Divine disposal* The angels describe the Word as a dead letter which is vivified^ by the Word according to the capacity and life of the reader* There can obviously be no conjunction with Heaven unless there be somewhere on earth a Church which has the Word and knows the Lord through it* For with¬ out Him there can be no salvation* Nevertheless it is 122 REASONABLE RELIGION sufficient that there be such a Church, no matter how few its members* This is explained in the following manner* The universal Heaven is as one man before the Lord, and so is the Church* The Church in which the Word is read and the Lord is known is as the heart and the lungs in that man* And as the human body is kept alive by these two functions of life, so also are all those in every part of the world with whom there is some kind of religion, who worship one God, live a good life, and thus form part of that man* In view of all that has preceded, it will cause no surprise to learn that, according to Swedenborg, the Word is in Heaven, where it is read by angels and spirits* A copy of the Word written by angels under the Lord's inspiration is kept by every considerable society in a sacred repository appointed for that purpose, lest it should suffer alteration, and the angels confess that they derive all their wisdom from this source* After this, what importance attaches to the higher criticism i What does it matter who the so-called authors of the various books may be i Swedenborg has given us a key, or a test, in his * Arcana Coelestia * and his * Apocalypse Revealed/ by means of which it is easy to determine whether they are merely old folk-lore or genuinely inspired writings* That key is the internal sense. The Word contains within it the marriage of goodness and truth, and must therefore be instinct with wisdom* The human intermediary, the often uncon¬ scious messenger, is unimportant* CHAPTER VII Prayer One of the most difficult and perplexing problems of religious men is the question of prayer* Worship and adoration are not inexplicable* That people should assemble together and offer up praise to their Maker strikes nobody as incongruous* To a cynic like Douglas Jerrold, it might offer occasion for a sneer; and we all know Defoe's lines : When God erects Himself a house of prayer The Devil always builds a chapel there. And 'twill be found upon examination The latter has the larger congregation. No doubt the jibe is deserved* Too many people when worshipping at church are animated by the same feelings which our Lord reprehended in the Pharisee* They consider that they are ingratiating themselves with God by their piety, and thus establishing their superiority over those who are less assiduous, less constant in their devotions, and less confident in their own righteousness. But, on general lines, praise and worship should offer no real difficulties to the religious man, or even to the irreligious—it is not contrary to common sense, it is not repugnant to reason* But when we come to prayer for material benefits, such as prayer for victory in war, prayer for recovery from sickness, prayer for rain, prayer for success in some worldly enterprise, then we are on very different ground. In John xv* 13-14, our Lord, speaking to His disciples, 124 REASONABLE RELIGION says : * And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son, If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it/ That is a clear and definite promise. Moreover, in Luke xi, we have the following : And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him i And he from within shall answer and say. Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed ; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you. Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone i or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent i Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion i If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children : how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him i From this passage it would, however, seem to appear that the benefits to be expected to be derived from prayer are spiritual rather than material. And yet we find prayers said in church for material things, and in the Roman Catholic Church we have even masses for the souls of the departed, by means of which the rich, who can afford it, can get their relatives and friends out of purgatory more quickly than the poor, who have not the wherewithal to pay. The case thus put makes religion seem rather sordid. But all creeds encourage prayer in warfare. We know that when the Normans invaded England they spent the night before the battle of Hastings in prayer, whilst the English spent it in carousing, feast¬ ing, and merriment. The result has always been taken as an object-lesson and an illustration of the efficacy of prayer. But when both opposing forces are equally pious the position becomes somewhat puzding. PRAYER 125 Then it must, on reflection, seem rather childish to suppose that the Allwise Governor of the Universe, that an Almighty God, could be affected by the self-interested prayers of His creatures* We know God to be infinite Love and Wisdom, and yet we imagine that that infinite Love and Wisdom can be deflected from an infinitely wise and benevolent purpose by the petitions of his fallible, selfish, and short-sighted creatures ! The whole question is difficult* Its difficulties are best illustrated by two irreverent stories* One is of a little girl, the daughter of a doctor, who prayed that her father and mother might be kept in good health, but that there might be much sickness in the neighbourhood so that her father might have many patients. The other is that of the American trapper who found himself face to face with a bear and prayed to the Almighty, beseeching Him, in this terrible moment, if He could not see His way to help him to get the better of the bear, at least not to favour the latter. The materialist, of course, regards prayer as an absurdity, and even a believer in the existence of a Deity must have his doubts as to whether the whole idea was not childish* A medical man in Russia, in pre-revolution days, when favours could only be obtained by patronage and by soliciting the support and influence of those possessed of power, claimed great merit for never having importuned the Deity, who must, as it is, be overwhelmed by petitioners ! This, again, is childish* But, as already observed, the whole idea of prayer is childish* We are, indeed, enjoined in the Gospels to approach God as little children, otherwise we cannot hope to enter the Kingdom of Heaven* That, indeed, is the whole object of creation, the peopling of the Kingdom of Heaven* If we regard life from this angle, we shall necessarily take a very different view of prayer* To the gross, carnally minded, average sensual man, the success of his undertakings on earth, his material comfort and prosperity, are far more important than the visionary and illusive question of his spiritual welfare. Nor is it in the Divine scheme of things that 126 REASONABLE RELIGION man should take a gloomy view of this temporal world, should be always thinking of his immortal soul, and should regard the pleasures of life with morbid abhorrence* God wants man to be happy and cheerful in this life as well as in the next* But we must never lose sight of the fact that this earth is not our abiding city, and that pleasant as the good things of this world may be, they turn to dust, like Dead Sea fruit, if we fix our whole affections on them* We are told to seek first the Lord and His righteousness, and that then * all these things shall be added unto us/ And prayer is one of the means by which we may obtain the power or strength to turn our backs, so to speak, on our own self-will, and to open the door for the admission of the Lord and His righteousness* We must come to God like little children, and when in that state it need cause no surprise if we are childish in our prayers* Now let us see what light Swedenborg throws on this perplexing problem of prayer* Prayer [he says] in itself considered is discourse with God; and there is then a certain internal intuition of those things which are objects of prayer corresponding to which there is something like influx into the perception or thoughts of the mind of the person who prays ; so that there is a kind of open¬ ing of man's interiors towards God. But this varies according to the person's state and according to the essence of the thing which is the object of prayer* If it be from love and faith, and only for celestial and spiritual things that the prayers are said, then there exists something which resembles revelation in the prayer, and this is manifested in the affection in the person who prays, in respect to hope, consolation, or some internal joy* Hence it is that prayer in the internal sense signifies revelation* Elsewhere he explains that in the Bible alms represent in the universal sense all the good a person does and intends or desires to do, while prayer similarly represents the truth spoken and manifested* To do alms and pray in secret is to act and pray from love or affection, hence, for the sake of the Lord and not from self-love or love PRAYER 127 of the world, and will be rewarded by the Father in the Heavens openly* (Matt* vi* 4-6*) Indeed, he explains that worship does not consist in prayers and outward devotion, but in a life of charity. Prayers are only the externals which proceed from the mouth* Humble attitudes, genuflexions, and sighs are merely outward things* According to the quality of the affections such is the prayer, and therefore the primary part of worship is a life of charity, and prayer is secondary. Those who place all Divine worship in oral piety only, and not in piety exhibited by a good life, are in great error* Real piety consists in acting in every department of life, in work and play, from sincerity and rectitude, according to justice and equity, because this is commanded by the Lord in the Word* Thus David said in Psalm Ixvi*: * If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear* Verily God hath heard ; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer/ When a man is in the life of charity he may be said to be in a state of continuous prayer, for whatever pertains to a man's love is, even though unconsciously, ever present in his thought. 8$. Nevertheless, it is well to practise external worship, for by external worship internal things are awakened, and external things are kept by external worship in a state of sanctity, so as to admit of the flowing in of the internal* Moreover, man is thus caused to imbibe knowledge and prepared to receive celestial things, that he may be endowed unconsciously with states of sanctity, which are preserved by the Lord for him, for in the next world all man's states of life return to him* It is essential that there should be humiliation in all worship, otherwise there is no adoration, and con¬ sequently there can be no real heartfelt worship* in the degree to which man humbles himself in his heart, self- love and the evils derived from it cease, and charity and faith flow in from the Lord* For self-love closes the door to charity and faith because it contains within it contempt of others in comparison with oneself, and hatred and revenge towards those who do not bow to us* Swedenborg says, somewhat severely : 128 REASONABLE RELIGION The worship of God at this day means principally the worship of the lips in a temple morning and evening* But [he adds] the worship of God does not consist essentially in this, but in a useful life. This is worship according to the order of Heaven. The worship of the lips is also worship, but it is absolutely unavailing without the worship of life ; for the latter is worship from the heart, or will, and the former in order to be genuine worship must proceed from the latter. When we are in course of purification from evils and errors, and in goodness and truth, then only are we in genuine worship. Purification from evils and errors is effected by desisting from them, and finally holding them in aversion. Goodness and truth are implanted by think¬ ing and purposing what is good and true, and speaking and doing the same. By joining these two there is life from them, for when goodness and truth are united in us we obtain a new will and a new understanding, and therefore new life. When we become of such a character, then there is Divine worship in every work we do, for we then look to God in everything, venerate Him, love Him, and consequently worship Him. Such a state is a state of genuine Divine worship. The belief generally prevailing in the world is that prayer and worship originate with man because they are produced by his thoughts and affections. But Sweden¬ borg declares that the worship which is from man is not true worship at all, and that consequently all the confes¬ sions, adorations, and prayers that originate from ourselves are empty and void and are not received. Our worship must be from the Lord in us. Of this the Church is fully aware, for it teaches that no good proceeds from man, but that all good is from Heaven, or from God in Heaven. This is why the Church prays that God may be present and lead the thoughts and prayers of the congregation. Swedenborg explains the exact process. When man is in genuine worship, the Lord flows into the goodness and truth that are in him and raises them up to Himself together with the man, according to the degree and manner in which he is in goodness and truth. Of this man is not aware unless he be in the genuine PRAYER 129 affection of goodness and truth and in the knowledge, acknowledgment and faith, that all goodness comes from the Lord. Nevertheless, man should not wait for influx, for this would be to act the part of a lifeless image. He ought still to think, purpose, and act as from himself, but yet ascribe to the Lord every thought of truth and every good effort; thereby there is implanted in him by the Lord the ability to receive Him and His influx. The essence of Divine love is like the love of parents for their children, who do good to the latter for love of them, and not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the children. This is exemplified in the love of a mother for infants. Because the Lord should be adored, wor¬ shipped, and glorified, we must not conclude that this should be done because He loves to be thus adored, worshipped, and glorified for His own sake. He loves this for man's sake, because by means of such worship man comes into a state which enables the Divine to flow into him, and be perceived by him. For, when in a state of genuine worship, man automatically removes his self-love, which had prevented this influx and perception, for his self-love hardens and closes his heart. By acknow¬ ledging that nothing but evil comes from himself he removes his self-love, softens his heart and humiliates himself, with a resultant outpouring of adoration and worship. The use therefore which the Lord derives from man's worship is the ability to do him good from love, and as this is what the Lord loves to do, man's reception of His influx is the joy of His love. The Lord does not, however, derive any such joy from mere lip service. He has His abode only with those who do His commandments, and thus perform uses, though even those are at best but unprofitable servants. Having thus explained the object of prayer and the state we should be in, if our worship is to be genuine— and no other is of any value—let us consider what form our spoken prayer should take. This is a very simple matter, seeing that our Lord has Himself left us a form of prayer which He enjoined His disciples to use. For 130 REASONABLE RELIGION He told them : * When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do : for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. After this manner, therefore, pray ye ': and He then formulated what has come to be known as the Lord's Prayer, and is said to-day wherever the Christian religion is professed. It is the most marvellous prayer in the whole annals of worship. It is short, it contains everything, it is instinct with wisdom, every word bears the imprimatur of its Divine origin. To the average simple-minded believer it appeals as strongly and is as full of comfort and promise as it is full of wisdom and spiritual meaning to the wise. Emanating, as it does, immediately from the mouth of the Lord, it is full of spiritual lessons comprised within an extraordinarily small compass. If the ordinary text of the Bible is divinely inspired, and full of spiritual truths and internal meaning, how much more profound and instinct with wisdom must not be these simple but beautiful words of our Lord i The prayer is, in the first part, an act of faith ; it is addressed to our Father in the Heavens, whose Kingdom, we pray, may come, and whose will should be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven, and whose name is holy. All we are enjoined to ask for is our daily bread, and we must be as much in a state of charity as we should be in one of faith, for we are enjoined to ask for the forgiveness of our sins in the same degree only, and to but the same extent, as we forgive our enemies. We are also told to pray for exemption from temptation and deliverance from evil; but in doing so we must acknowledge that this can only be effected through the power of God, and that the glory of our salvation is His also, not merely here on earth, but to all eternity, for it is by His mercy that we are not consumed. This is a brief and superficial survey of the Lord's Prayer, Let us examine it in the light of Swedenborg's teachings, and endeavour to discover at least some of the PRAYER 131 innumerable truths which lie encased, as it were, in these beautiful and pregnant words* 1 God is Jehovah in Hebrew, in Revelations we are told He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last* In the Greek alphabet this is literally the case, Alpha being the first and Omega the last letter* Now we are told by Swedenborg that each letter in the alphabet signifies something in the spiritual world, and each vowel signifies something of affection* God is Divine Love and Wisdom, Alpha and Omega, Jehovah ; it is easy to see that Alpha stands for Divine Love, and Omega for Divine Wisdom* Now, the Lord's Prayer is addressed directly to the Father, Vater, Pater, Otyetz (pronounced Ahtyztz). In Russian we see how the wisdom of the 0 frequently loses its identity and is pronounced a, is merged into love* Thus our prayers are to be said to the Divine Love, beneficently operating, as typified by being in the heavens—it is the Divine Good in the Divine Truth* Swedenborg states that the Lord's Prayer is daily read in Heaven, as it is by men on earth, and that the angels do not then think of God, the Father, because He is invisible; but they think of Him in His Divine Human, because in this He is visible* In this Human form He is not called by them Christ, but Lord ; and thus the Lord is their Father in Heaven* In another passage, speaking of the Lord's Prayer, he says : In this prayer all things follow in such a series that they constitute as it were a column increasing from the highest part to the lowest* In the interiors of this are those things which pre¬ cede in the series ; what is first (or highest) is inmost and what follows in order adds itself in succession to the inmost, and thus it increases* What is inmost governs universally in those things which surround it, that is in each and all things, for hence is the essential of the existence of all* This somewhat obscure passage is elucidated by another, in which we are told : 1 For a more elaborate examination we refer the reader to a work entitled ‘ The Kensington New Church Pulpit : Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer,’ by the Rev. Thos. Child. London. 132 REASONABLE RELIGION That there are innumerable things within the ideas of thought, and that they are within them in order from the interiors, has been evident to me when in the morning and evening I have been reading the Lord's Prayer. The ideas of my thoughts were then constantly opened towards Heaven, and innumerable things flowed in, so that I clearly observed that the ideas of thought received from the contents of the Prayer were made full from Heaven. And such things were poured in too, as cannot be uttered, and such also as I could not comprehend ; I was also sensible of the general affection thence resulting. And it is wonderful that the things which flowed in were varied every day. From this it was given me to know that there are more things in the contents of that Prayer than the universal heaven has capacity to comprehend ; and that to man there are more things in it in proportion as his thought is more opened towards heaven ; and on the other hand that there are fewer things in it in proportion as his thought is more closed. To those indeed whose thought is closed nothing more appears therein than the sense of the letter, or the sense which is nearest to the words. After this it sounds like presumption to endeavour to expound some of the meaning of the internal sense of the Lord's Prayer; fortunately, however, such an attempt has been made in the work of the Rev. Thos. Child, and of this we propose to give a very brief abstract, as the space at our command will not permit of our doing more. Mr. Child begins with the two existent conceptions of prayer—the one that God's will can be influenced by us, and that, to put it shortly, we are our own providence because God is pledged to do what we ask ; the other is that the only value of prayer is its self-humiliating effect on ourselves ; and then proceeds to show what is the real object of prayer—as this has been fully explained above we need not recapitulate it here. But he draws attention to the fact that we are enjoined to pray in secret. What can that mean { Is it a prohibition of all public worship i This would put an end to church services, and clearly cannot be the meaning. No, but when we pray we must mentally retire into the inner secret place of the soul, where the internal good of our soul is stored. We are to shut the door and shut out all world- PRAYER 133 liness and all love of self, all evil passions and earthly desires. We should address our prayer to * Our Father Who art in Heaven/ the Divine Good in the Divine Truth, Our Father is the Lord Himself, the Person, the Divine Human made visible. The Divine Humanity is indeed the Father of our humanity. In the chapter on the Deity this will be more fully explained. Having invoked God, we are to acknowledge that His name should be kept holy—should be hallowed. In the chapter on Ethics, in which we have briefly examined the meaning of the Commandments, we dwelt upon the significance of the Name of God, The Name of God is that by which, according to the Scriptures, we are to be saved. Obviously this must signify the instilment into our own souls of the living and Divine force proceeding from God, We are impotent to hallow or sanctify the Name of God : what can therefore be meant by this injunction that we should in our prayers tell God that His Name should be hallowed i Surely the qualities of God are holy already ! But by hallowing the Name of God, we make it holy in ourselves, we think of Him as holy, we believe in Him as holy, as the Divine Love and Wisdom, as all goodness and truth. Thus, by expressing the desire that God's Name be hallowed, we are offering up a prayer that our souls may be attuned to receive the Divine influx, and so become images of our Maker, * Thy Kingdom come ' follows immediately after this prayer, and it must be so. If we are to hallow God's Name we must pray for this rule to be established in our hearts. It is not a worldly or material kingdom that is here prayed for in the first instance, yet if we reflect on the effect of the rule of Divine Love and Wisdom firmly seated in our hearts, we must acknowledge that such internal spiritual dominion would extend to material and worldly things, and that the establishment of God's Kingdom in us would mean the millennium on earth. It is the wicked who refuse to carry out God's will, together with the grossly material and ignorant, who regard this world as being in the realm of nature, and REASONABLE RELIGION 134 therefore totally unrelated and unconnected with God : it is these who are the obstacles, the retarding factors, who prevent the coming of God's Kingdom. But there is another way in which God's Kingdom can come ; it can come into every individual soul, and there where God's rule is admitted, His laws are obeyed—thus is that soul saved. Our Lord said that His Kingdom was not of this world ; it is a spiritual kingdom founded on Divine Truth, and it is by means of the principles of truth that it is governed. Here we must let Mr. Child speak in his own words : When we pray then * Thy Kingdom come ' what is it we should be understanding^ praying for i We pray, or should be praying, that there shall be a real perception of the Lord's relation to His people and to the world in that Kingdom— that He alone is the governing power, the King of men ; that all truths applicable to our natural life shall be taken from the Scriptures and not from the mere decisions of conventional appearances, which have grown up independently of, and con¬ trary to, any such truth ; that the spiritual truth of the Scrip¬ tures must be appealed to at every step ; that the fundamental truth of the Kingdom shall be that of the Love and Wisdom of the governing Lord ; and that the principle flowing immediately from that as the practical basis of the Lord's Kingdom, may be the brotherhood of man. God's Kingdom is obviously the Kingdom of Heaven, and this, our Lord told us, should be within us—hence we are enjoined to pray that it may come there. But, if we wish to have the Kingdom of God within us, we must bow to the will of God ; we must mortify our own desires, we must renounce our self-love, and we must add to the prayer for the advent of God's Kingdom in our souls, the further prayer contained in the words * Thy will be done.' It is not sufficient to believe in God ; we must do His will, and not only in the higher or interior regions of the intellect, but even on the material plane. Every man on earth has the possibilities of Heaven PRAYER i35 within him* Just as he has faculties for all things of this world, and the ability to acquire knowledge con¬ cerning nature and worldly matters, to perceive facts outside himself, so also has he the ability or faculty of receiving spiritually the laws of spiritual truth, so that as the will of the Lord is done in the heaven within him, it may also be done in the earth within him ; moreover, he must know and believe that any good he may do is not from himself, it is the Divine Will working within him which he is doing* As Mr* Child puts it, this prayer therefore means : Lord, let Thy will that is now being done in and through me as a denizen of Heaven be done also in and through me as a denizen of the earth* As I try to gather up and obey the laws of this heavenly life received from Heaven, let me develop into a conscious spiritual mind* But as there are higher things in me as yet scarcely dreamed of, not only thoughts and truths, but desires and affections, * * * let me daily persevere in this upward way* The opening of these degrees of my mind con¬ stituted the opening of Heaven in me, and means, step by step, the descent of the corresponding Divine influx into it * * . I would that * * * as Thy Will is done in Heaven in me it may also be done in the earth of my natural mind* It is only by bringing our natural desires and wishes into harmony with the laws of God, as manifested to us in His commandments, that we can attain happiness and peace* We must do God's will on earth, as we know it is done in Heaven* We can achieve states in which we can intellectually and spiritually concur in the spiritual application and enforcement of God's will in the intel¬ lectual and spiritual regions of our mind, but when it comes to applying it to natural life, then we are beset with difficulties* But if we of set purpose deliberately determine to use our best endeavours to carry out in our lives the Will of God, we shall find gradually that this was not so difficult as it seemed, and that if we take the Lord's yoke upon us we shall feel it easy and His burden light* Then we shall find ourselves ascending to the spiritual life of the kingdom, which has now come to us, even to the celestial life of the hallowing of God's REASONABLE RELIGION 136 Name* But God's will must be done on earth, even as it is in Heaven* It is not the accomplishment of our wishes that we are thus enjoined to pray for—no, we are told to pray that God's will may be done, not our own ; and, indeed, we may at first be not too anxious for this to be effected within us, we may be quite content to go on as we have been going on, leading probably a self-indulgent life* We might like to have a few things added to our happiness : who, indeed, is content i But we have very often a strange shrinking and aversion to spiritual experience, to self-improvement, and to advancement in the heavenly graces, while we are on earth at least. But the injunction is clear and unmistakable : * After this manner pray ye,' and then the disciples are told to pray that God's will may be done, as in Heaven, so upon earth* There is no question of asking for personal earthly benefits, but a direct command to humble ourselves before God and to submit to His will. To some this may seem arbitrary* Why should God want us to forgo our own wishes, and to pray only that His will may be done, that we should so far renounce our own individuality, deny ourselves, and ignore our immediate wants, as to make our souls and minds vehicles only for the Divine will i In the first instance, it is because God wills to save our souls—that is the all-important object of the Divine will, the saving of men's souls : we should not oppose that, we should wish that it might be carried out, that we should be regenerated throughout, so that God's will may be done within us as in Heaven so upon earth* Moreover, God's will is not arbitrary, it is essentially wise in its benevolence* God is order ; in Heaven there must be Divine order ; it is for us to endeavour to establish that order on earth, so as to be happy ourselves and diffuse happiness around us* Yet, although we are thus enjoined to pray that God's will may be done, we are also instructed to pray for our own needs, for our daily bread* In the French version of the Lord's Prayer this is rendered as * pain quotidien *' PRAYER 137 Now, quotidien means, literally , 4 daily recurring': hence it is the bread that we need every day, and is what is meant in the original Greek; in other words, this is a prayer for our recurring necessities. Let us probe a little deeper. We have seen in the chapter on 4 Revelation ' that the first six days mentioned in the Book of Genesis refer to states in the human soul which is in process of regeneration. Consequently, daily bread must refer to the needs of the state in which we may be at the time. We know that our Lord always spoke in parables. What, then, did He mean by bread i Bread is the product of corn grown in the earth (external goodness, also the Church), a growth stimulated by water (truth). That corn has to be reaped by man, ground by man, baked by man before it becomes bread, which we then eat and assimilate, and nourish our system with. If w T e refer to Swedenborg's * Arcana Ccelestia' we find, in the Index, bread defined as follows : Bread denotes all food in general. Bread denotes every¬ thing celestial and spiritual. Bread denotes the primary principle which nourishes the soul. The bread on the table in the tabernacle represented celestial and spiritual love, and in it the Lord Himself, Bread, in the Holy Supper, signifies the Lord, consequently it also signifies His love towards the human race and the reciprocal love from man. Might we not put it thus : bread is produced in external goodness stimulated by truth, and the finished product represents a series of laborious processes of the human soul, of which that soul may be quite unconscious. Then this is what we are instructed to pray for: that we may love God to the extent needful to our state of spiritual progress at the time of asking, for unless we love God, and are thus able to receive His love, our soul will be starved. Further, and more obviously, the prayer for our daily bread, * Give us this day our daily bread,' implies our entire trust and dependence on the Lord for all our needs, whether natural or spiritual. He is the source of all good, and this we should daily acknowledge. But this does not mean that we should do nothing ourselves— REASONABLE RELIGION 138 only trust in the Lord* No, we must prove our trust in God by our work* We must produce our daily bread by our own labour; but we can do nothing without God's help, therefore we must pray to God to give us that help* The following passage, from a work entitled * Com¬ mentary on the Gospel according to St* Matthew,' by the Rev* W* Bruce (London, 1867), puts it, we think, very clearly : But in using this petition, what do we not pray for, when the Lord Himself is the bread of life, the true bread that came down from Heaven to give life unto the world i He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. Daily should we look up to Him as the source and the substance of all good for our needful supply* And knowing that He still comes down from Heaven as the bread of life that we may eat and not die, causing His love and truth to descend upon our hearts, as the manna descended upon the wilderness around the camp of Israel, let us gather it, and gather it daily, that we may go on by the strength of this angels' food in our journey to the promised land* After praying for our daily bread we are to ask for the forgiveness of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us* Now God is infinite love, there¬ fore we cannot assume that He cherishes any anger against us for our offences, for we are told that He pities us as a father pitieth his children. If He is not angry with us, why ask Him to cease to be angry i Then there is the other aspect of the Deity, according to which He is infinite justice* We have a conception of justice as something that involves punishment* Infinite justice must be inflexible ; it cannot be deflected from its stern purpose by our petition* There is nothing in this prayer about the merit or the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, of His having atoned for our sins, and of having washed them away with His blood* This is surely a difficult prayer to understand ; besides, why are our sins to be forgiven in proportion as we forgive those who have offended us i What has that to do with it i Yet our Lord tells us : 4 Judge not, that ye be not judged* For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged : PRAYER 139 and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again/ A little reflection will show us that the whole essence of this prayer is subjective, God is not a vindictive God. He has forgiven us our sins before we have even thought of asking His forgiveness. He stands at the door and knocks, but the unrepentant sinner will not open it for Him, but has turned himself away from God, immersed himself in his own ego, in his uncharitableness and hardness of heart. He must humble himself before God ; he must strike his breast as the publican did, acknowledge his sinfulness and call on God to have mercy upon him, a sinner ; he must have charity in his heart; he must have no vindictive feelings towards his real or imaginary enemies; he must be humble and sincerely penitent. But he cannot attain to such a state unless he has pre¬ viously prayed to his Father Who is in Heaven, that he may hallow within himself His Name, the Divine qualities, that God's Kingdom may descend in his soul that he may do God's will, and that he may be capable of receiving his daily bread from that universal source of life who is indeed his Father. We must of ourselves determine to put away our sins from us, and then God will give us strength to do so. And then when we have reached a state in which we can sincerely offer up this prayer, we are confronted with temptation. 4 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' Does God ever 4 lead us into temptation ' i Every human being on the journey from the cradle to the grave has to work out his or her salvation, and in that process temptation plays a part. Even the Saviour Himself was * in all points tempted as we are.' It has been suggested that a better rendering of the original Greek would be : 4 Let us not be led into the tempter's snare.' Temptation does not arise either from God or man, but from the tempter, and we are told to pray that we may not be led into it, that we be not seduced into falling in with the tempter's purpose, which means that we may be preserved from such conditions or states 140 REASONABLE RELIGION in which we would be ready to agree with the tempter and succumb to his influence* We must assuredly have made considerable advance in our spiritual journey before we can sincerely express such a wish* Indeed, no evil man is ever tempted* Temptation arises in the first place only when man's natural impulses act or react against his better desires descending from his spiritual interior* But no real temptation is produced by the internecine combat of natural impulses ; it is always the result of a combat between the self on the one hand and spiritual aspirations on the other* Temptation also arises when the Lord intensifies our conscience and makes us feel that there is a higher life towards which we should strive, but for which we have as yet little inclination* Harmony in the soul can only be attained by the subjugation of our evil desires and tendencies, and this cannot be accomplished by other means than by temptation* But God does not implant these evil desires in our hearts* They have been acquired hereditarily through countless generations ; they put us in relation with evil spirits whose object it is to capture and corrupt our souls. God, however, protects those who turn to Him, and expels these evil spirits, subjugates them for us ; and then we have attained our object in this life, we have not succumbed to temptation, but we have been delivered from evil* Through no merit of our own has this work of redemption been accomplished* The Kingdom, the power and the glory are our Lord's, the Saviour, Who in His Divine Humanity took upon Himself all our infirmities and subdued them, thus making a way for us to follow* The Kingdom of God is now within us, and the power as well as the glory of it are the Lord's* The Kingdom is the truth, the truth in action, and the glory is the good resulting from that action* We have carefully analysed the Lord's Prayer, and found in it nothing but spiritual truths, as was indeed to be expected* Our worldly needs, our selfish desires, all the things that we actually pray for to-day, not only in our homes, but in our churches, these are ignored* There PRAYER 141 is no reference to material things at all, unless the prayer for our daily bread be regarded in that light* But the Lord said to His disciples, * All things whatso¬ ever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive/ By these words, however, Swedenborg says, the power of those who are in the Lord is described* They desire nothing, and so ask nothing, but from the Lord, and whatsoever they desire and ask from the Lord the same is done* The angels in Heaven have such power that if they only desire a thing, they obtain it; but they do not desire anything but what is of use, and they desire it as if of themselves but yet from the Lord* Mr* Bruce explains this promise in the following way: Here we see the order according to which regeneration proceeds—the bad must be cast out before the good can be appropriated* * ♦ ♦ We must receive the Spirit of God before we can remove the spirit of evil; but the Spirit of God does not obtain undisputed possession of the heart till the spirit of evil has been dislodged from it* Regeneration consists therefore of two parts—the removal of evil by good and the substitution of good for evil* Christ casts out demons, and then restores us to a sound mind by Himself dwelling where demons had been* So when faith has cast out the mountain of evil and withered the fig tree of falsity up from its roots, then all things are given in confiding prayer* True prayer springs from good in the heart, and is directed by truth in the understanding* Such prayer asks only what is consistent with the will of God, and the welfare of the suppliant* It is wild enthusiasm to suppose that, ask what we will, if we only believe, we shall receive it* Every true prayer comes from God, and therefore ascends to Him again* It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do His good pleasure, it is He also that worketh in us to desire and ask according to His good pleasure* Prayer is the incense that ascends to God from the altar of a renewed heart, and the fire that burns upon it is kindled from heaven, being the Lord's love dwelling in the affections* It is enough for the largest legitimate desire, that whatsoever we ask in faith shall be granted us* Let us only have the faith of God, and we shall receive whatever that faith embraces in its petitions* From all that has preceded it follows that we must humble ourselves before God, and that when we wish REASONABLE RELIGION 142 to pray to Him we must approach Him as little children, and in that state of humility and innocence we can un¬ burden our hearts to Him* Our Lord has indeed said : Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God* Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them* There are many cases on record where such simple childlike faith and trust have been justified in prayer, but in no single instance was the prayer for a selfish object* CHAPTER VIII The Sacraments If the question of prayer has presented many difficulties to honest doubters, how much more so the problem of the sacraments i To relegate these to the realm of ancient superstition is not quite logical, seeing that as far as we know there were no pre-Christian sacraments. There were rites which almost assumed the sanctity of sacraments, like the Jewish rite of circumcision, for instance, which, the Bible teaches us, was Divinely instituted ; but, then, these rites had a hygienic as well as a religious side to them. Yet baptism and the Holy Supper, whether it be called High Mass or Communion, do not come under the purview of sanitation—according to some medical opinions, they are even a source of disease, or at least a means of spreading infection and contagion. Sacraments are peculiar to the Christian Church, and the Holy Supper was regarded* by pagans as a convivial entertainment at which the early Christians were reported to get drunk and to indulge in obscene practices. Gibbon, who was prejudiced against Chris¬ tianity, represents the early Christians in a strong and extremely unpleasant light, basing his statements on unimpeachable pagan records. To-day the honest doubter looks upon this whole business of administering the Sacraments as a farce, a sort of mumbo-jumbo, but an ingenious device, among which the confessional is included, for maintaining the authority and power of the clergy. How is it possible for a plain man of common sense to believe that when he was 144 REASONABLE RELIGION baptised the Holy Ghost descended on him and sealed him for Heaven, or that when we are swallowing a piece of bread and sipping a drop of wine, over which the officiating clergyman has mumbled a few words of prayer, we are assimilating the body and blood of Christ i That there must be something in baptism and the Holy Supper seems obvious, for John baptised our Lord, and our Lord instituted the Holy Supper; only it should be observed that when He asked His disciples to eat bread and drink wine with Him at the Feast of the Pass- over, the incident is recorded almost identically in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, He used these words (we quote from Matthew xxvi♦ 26) : And as they were eating Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Thus we see that our Lord, who had not yet been crucified, was present in His body when He offered His disciples bread and wine and pronounced the words quoted above. The disciples could not have imagined that they were eating their Master's real body and drinking His real blood while He was amongst them whole and sound. But they knew that He always spoke in parables. What the early Christians did in the catacombs of Rome, and whether the charges brought against them and re¬ peated by Gibbon were true, can only affect the reputation of these same early Christians. We are dealing with the Holy Supper as instituted by our Lord, which as we saw was but a continuation of, or substitution for, the Passover. Here there was no unseemly levity. Our Lord knew that on leaving the supper-chamber and proceeding to the Mount of Olives to pray He would be betrayed by Judas Iscariot, and would undergo His last and final temptation and achieve His last earthly triumph. At this stage it may perhaps be as well to see what light Swedenborg throws on the Passover. He says the THE SACRAMENTS 145 Passover was instituted on account of the deliverance from Egypt* Now Egypt represents the scientific principles of the mind which hold the spiritual in bondage, hence the deliverance from Egypt denotes the Lord's presence and deliverance of the human soul from damnation, or hell* The Paschal Supper represented angelic consociations as to goods and truths ; and the statutes concerning strangers, settlers, hirelings, and sojourners, who are here treated of in the spiritual sense, define who might be consociated and who might not* Hence it is that eating signifies to be with them, or to be consociated, and not eating, the reverse* Thus we begin to see that this sacrament of the Holy Supper is not quite such a magical observance as had been supposed, but that it conveys a profound spiritual lesson* It does more* In * The True Christian Religion ' Swedenborg has very fully explained the meaning and the uses of the Holy Supper* He shows by many passages in different parts of the Word that blood signifies the Divine Truth of the Lord, which is also the Divine Truth of the Word. The angels in Heaven, he tells us, cannot think of any blood, or of the Lord's passion, but of Divine Truth* Flesh signifies the good of charity, and so does bread, which is the goodness produced by charity from essential good. In Ezekiel the following passage occurs: * Assemble yourselves to a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood ; and ye shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth till ye be drunken ; and I will set my glory among the heathen*' The prophet here speaks of the Church which the Lord was about to institute among the Gentiles, and the blood in this passage consequently means Divine Truth to be revealed to the Gentiles* Swedenborg also quotes numerous passages from the Old and New Testaments to show that wine, which is spoken of in Genesis xlix* n as the blood of grapes, also signifies Divine Truth. He then proceeds : From what has been said it may now plainly appear what is meant by the Lord's flesh and blood, and by bread and wine in their triple sense, natural, spiritual and celestial. Everyone REASONABLE RELIGION 146 who has been born in a Christian country, and educated under a sense of religion, may know, or if he does not know, may learn, that there are both natural nourishment and spiritual, and that natural nourishment is for the body, and spiritual for the soul; for Jehovah the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy viii. 3, * Man doth not live by bread alone ; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live/ Now, as the body dies, and as it is the soul which lives after death, it follows, that spiritual nourishment is for eternal salvation* Who cannot hence discern, that these two kinds of nourishment ought not to be confounded together i For where this is the case a man cannot form any ideas of the Lord's flesh and blood, and of the bread and wine, than such as are natural and sensual, which are material, corporeal and carnal; and these must suffocate all spiritual ideas on this most holy sacrament* If, however, there be anyone so simple that he cannot think of anything with his understanding but what he sees with his eyes, I would advise him when he comes to the Holy Supper and receives the bread and wine and hears them called the body and blood of Christ, to think within himself, that it is the most holy act of worship, and then to reflect upon the sufferings of Christ, and His love for man's salvation ; for He says : 4 Do this in remembrance of me ' (Luke xxii. 19), and again, * The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many' (Matthew xx* 28; Mark x. 45) ; 4 I lay down my life for the sheep' (John x* 15. W)‘ Thus the Lord Himself is in the Holy Supper, flesh and bread are the Divine good resultant from love, and the blood and wine are the Divine truth, the product of wisdom ; so there is, as it were, a Trinity involved in the Holy Supper, viz * the Lord, His Divine Goodness, and His Divine Truth* The Holy Supper will thus be seen to include and contain the universal of Heaven and the Church, and consequently all their individual deri¬ vatives* The three essentials of the Church are God, charity, and faith, and all things in the Church have reference to these* In the Holy Supper these three are present, for good resultant from love is charity, and the truth, which is the product of wisdom, is faith* Every human being possesses these three essentials also—the soul, the will, and the understanding—and these act as receptacles; the soul receives the Lord, and as the will THE SACRAMENTS I 47 accepts charity and the understanding embraces faith, these are carried out into life, become functional and organic, Swedenborg teaches that the Lord is entirely present in the Holy Supper, * both as to His glorified humanity and the Divinity from which His humanity proceeded/ For His Divinity can no more be separated from His Humanity than the soul can be separated from the body. He goes on to say : Now since the Lord's flesh signifies the Divine good of His love, and His blood the Divine truth of His wisdom, it is evident that the Lord, both as to His Divinity and His glorified Humanity, is entirely omnipresent in the Holy Supper, and that consequently it is a spiritual eating and drinking , (The italics are our own.) It follows from this that the Lord's redemption is present in the Holy Supper, for where the Lord is entirely present His redemption must be present also. The Lord, as to His Humanity, is the Redeemer. For which reason all those who worthily approach the Lord's Supper become His redeemed, seeing that redemption means deliverance from hell, conjunction with the Lord and salvation ; but these fruits of the Holy Supper are produced in man only to the degree of his reception, not in the degree the Lord wills, for man must be a free agent. But the effects and fruits of the Lord's redemption are renewed to those who worthily approach the Holy Supper. Every person of sound mind possesses the faculty of receiving wisdom from the Lord as well as love, that is, of increasing the truths from which wisdom is formed, and of being fruitful in the goodness from which love is formed, to eternity. The Lord is present with both the worthy and the unworthy, for He is omnipresent in Heaven, in hell, and in the world. With the good He is present both univer¬ sally and particularly, for He is in them, and they in Him. Heaven constitutes the Lord's body; therefore to be in His body is to be in Heaven. In the case of those, how¬ ever, who approach unworthily, the Lord is only present REASONABLE RELIGION 148 universally, and not particularly, or externally and not interiorly. Nevertheless, Heaven is not closed against those who thus approach Him unworthily—and to approach Him unworthily is to refuse obedience to the goodness and truth which the person in question is capable of understanding—not by the Lord at least, it is they themselves who turn away from Heaven, and, as it were, close the door in their own souls against it. But of those who approach Him worthily the Lord says : * He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him/ On this Swedenborg comments : How plain it is to see that bread and wine cannot effect this conjunction but that it is effected by the good of love which is signified by bread, and by the truth of faith which is signified by wine, both of which, as they are the Lord's own, proceed and are communicated from Him alone ! All conjunction, moreover, is effected by love, and love without confidence is not love. But those who believe that the bread is flesh and the wine blood, and cannot raise their thoughts to anything spiritual, must remain in that belief; but then it should be accompanied with the conviction that there is something in the rite most holy and effective of conjunction with the Lord, which is communicated and appropriate to man as his own, though it always continues to be the Lord's. The Holy Supper to worthy receivers is a signature and seal that they are the sons of God, * It is,' says Swedenborg, * with the Holy Supper as with a covenant, which, after settling the articles of agreement, is drawn up and then signed and sealed.' In further explanation of the import of this sacrament we will quote a few sentences from the work by the Rev, W. Bruce referred to in the previous chapter 1 : The Holy Supper, the most sacred solemnity of worship, was instituted as a perpetual remembrance of the Lord's mercy in our redemption, and as a representative and a means of His giving Himself to His people for their regeneration and salva- 1 ‘ Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew,’ by the Rev. W. Bruce. London : Frederick Pitman, Paternoster Row. 1867, pp. 606-7. THE SACRAMENTS 149 tion. It was instituted instead of the Passover* By the Holy Supper we are to understand the same thing as by the paschal supper, bread and wine being received in the one instead of the lamb and herbs of the other* In instituting the Supper, the Lord called the bread His body and the wine His blood* But what are the body and blood of the Saviour i They cannot be material; and if they were they could not be received by the soul, nor could they, if their reception were possible, support its spiritual life* Nor are the Lord's body and blood mere figures of speech* His Humanity is no longer material, having been glorified and made Divine* But it has in it Divine principles corresponding to the flesh and blood of the material body which He had upon earth* These Divine principles are goodness itself and truth itself* These constitute the very humanity of the Lord, the body and blood which the Christian can eat and drink and without eating and drinking which he has no life in him. Of these Divine principles in the Lord's humanity, the bread and wine used in the Holy Supper are the symbols. As bread and wine nourish the body, Divine good¬ ness and truth nourish the soul. Bread signifies the same as flesh, or the body, and wine the same as blood. It was for this reason that the Lord used these, and appointed their use as the elements of the Holy Supper. But what connection is there between the natural reception of bread and wine in the outward ordinance, and the spiritual reception of goodness and truth from the Lord in the inward operation of His spirit i There is a connection by correspondence* By correspondence earth is connected with Heaven, and natural things with spiritual, and men with angels, and the body with the soul, and all with the Lord* When we devoutly and intelligently partake of the Holy Supper, assuming that our devotion rests upon holi¬ ness, without which there can be no true worship, we come into more immediate connection with the Lord and Heaven, and more perfectly into the capacity of receiving the Divine and heavenly principles to which the bread and wine correspond* The external man comes also into more perfect correspondence with the internal; and in these circumstances, what affects the lower disposes it to receive corresponding impressions from the higher* Thus is the devout recipient of the Holy Supper brought into a state in which the true bread which cometh down from Heaven can enter into and strengthen his heart* From these general views let us turn to the Divine narrative before us* When the Lord took the bread and blessed it He performed an act that signified in respect to Himself the elevation of His 150 REASONABLE RELIGION Humanity into union with His Divinity, by which it was sanctified ; and when He brake the bread and gave it to the disciples, He performed acts which meant that His sanctified Humanity is accommodated to the varying wants and capacities of His children, and imparted to them for their salvation* The Lord, therefore, said of the bread, 4 This is my body/ The form of this Divine sacrament thus represented both the ascent and descent of the Son of man—the glorification of the Humanity, and its descent as the Holy Spirit into the minds of men. The Lord's body and the bread signify the Humanity as to Divine good, which is the principle received by the human will; and His asking the disciples to take and eat teaches what we have to do to realise the proffered good. The Lord gave the bread to the disciples but they had to take it. We have to co-operate with the Lord by freely and actively receiving what He freely gives. We have also to eat to appropriate or make His good our own. As earthly food must be eaten, that it may enter into the body for its support, so must heavenly food be appropriated or made our own by use, that it may enter into the soul, and nourish it unto eternal life. When the Lord had given the bread. He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament , which is shed for many for the remission of sins . The same acts here have the same signification. We need only notice what in this is peculiar. Mention is here made of the Lord taking the cup, not the wine. It is true that the wine is understood. But the cup, as a vessel containing the wine, signified the external in which is the internal. In reference to the Lord, it implies that in the Humanity the very recipient vessels of the truth were made Divine ; but in relation to the Word, it implies that the Lord never instructs His Church and people by the internal sense immediately or alone, but gives them the spirit in and by the letter. As the Lord called the bread His flesh, so He calls the wine His blood. And although the wine is considered the symbol of His blood, yet both terms are symbolical, and each has a distinct though similar meaning. The wine is the symbol of spiritual truth, and the blood of celestial truth ; and the same may be said of bread and body. And this duality is introduced, that the Holy Supper might represent the Lord's love to the whole human race, both celestial and spiritual, and the reciprocal love of man towards Him. The Lord, therefore, calls His blood 4 the blood of the new testament' ♦ ♦ ♦ The shedding of His blood upon the cross, as being the last of His sufferings, is put for the whole, THE SACRAMENTS 151 and is an expressive and compendious phrase for all that He endured for His creatures' sakes. The Lord's sufferings were, in the first place, the means of overcoming the powers of dark¬ ness and perfecting His humanity ; and in the second place, are the means of perfecting His creatures, for He was tempted that He might succour them that are tempted* It is said that His blood cleanseth from all sin, and that the saints wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb* This is figurative language* So far as it may be understood of the Lord's material blood, it cleanses by enabling us, through the Lord's sufferings and death * * * to pass triumphantly through the sufferings of temptation and the death of sin, by which sin is removed or remitted* * . * But the Lord's blood has a spiritual meaning* The blood of His material body was the symbol of the Divine truth of His glorified body* This is the blood of the Son of man which the disciples must drink that they may live, and which cleanses from all sin. . * . The shed¬ ding of His blood on the cross was the necessary precursor and means of shedding forth the Spirit on the day of Pentecost —as necessary as it was for Him to suffer those things, and to enter into His glory. * * * The many for whom the Lord's blood is shed are those on whose hearts it is shed abroad ; and this number is determined, not by a Divine decree, but by human choice. * * . God wills that all men should be saved. * ♦ ♦ The Lord's will towards the whole human race may be expressed in His words to the disciples, * Drink ye all of it.' This fairly exhaustive examination of the meaning and uses of the Holy Supper will demonstrate that it is a sacrament full of spiritual teaching, a fundamental, symbolic, and representative rite of the Church, and as far removed from magic and superstition as the Lord's Prayer is from the praying-machine of Thibet* And now let us turn to the sacrament with which we should properly have commenced this chapter, for it came first in our lives* To the man who is unacquainted with the internal meaning of the Bible, baptism is simply the pouring of water on the head of an infant, and what can that have to do with salvation i Yet that baptism is of Divine institution is evident from John's baptising in Jordan, when we are told there * went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, 152 REASONABLE RELIGION and were baptised of him in Jordan, confessing their sins/ Moreover, our Lord, who was Himself baptised by John, commanded His disciples to baptise all nations* The Israelites were enjoined to wash* Aaron was obliged to wash before he put on his vestments and before he approached the altar, to say nothing of the Levites ; moreover, sinners removed the uncleanness of their sins, and were sanctified by washing* This and several similar ordinances were, according to Swedenborg, commanded, because the Jewish Church was a repre¬ sentative Church, prefiguring the Christian Church* Our Lord, when He came into the world, abrogated these external ceremonials, which were called the Law, and instituted an internal Church, retaining only two such ceremonial observances, namely, baptism instead of washing, and the Holy Supper instead of the lamb which was sacrificed daily, and particularly at the Feast of the Passover* Thus, when the disciples ate bread with unwashed hands, and the Pharisees and Scribes found fault with them, the Lord delivered that remarkable speech {vide Mark vii*) in which He told the latter what hypocrites they were, and how they rejected the commandment of God—as, indeed, so many do to-day—that they might keep their own tradition. * This people/ He said, * honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me/ But Isaiah cries: * Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil'—which makes it quite clear that the washing of the body was but representative of the purification of the spirit* What man of sound reason [Swedenborg asks] cannot see that the washing of the face, hands and feet, and all the limbs, indeed of the whole body in a bath, effects nothing more than to wash away the dirt, so that the outward form may appear clean in the sight of men { And who cannot understand that no amount of such washing can possibly enter the spirit and make that clean as well i For a thief, a robber, and an assassin can wash themselves even till their skin shines, but that would not wash away their criminal dispositions. THE SACRAMENTS i53 He points out that it is in accordance with nature and order for the internal to flow into the external, but not vice versa; indeed, that would be impossible. Consequently, unless the internal man is purified of evil and error, washing is of no more avail than the cleansing of the outside of the platter. The primary rite which distinguished the Jewish Church from other Asiatic Churches, and afterwards from the Christian, was circumcision; and as all the external ordinances of the Jewish Church were figures or symbols of all things in the Christian Church, the primary signs of the two Churches were similar, for circumcision signified the rejection of the lusts of the flesh, and, inferentially, purification from evil, and the same is also signified by baptism. But baptism is a little more than this. We cannot do better than again to quote Swedenborg: 4 Baptism [he says] is an introduction into the Christian Church/ it was * instituted in the place of circumcision' which was a sign and badge of the Jewish Church, * so baptism is a sign that the persons baptised are of the Christian Church . . . and a sign answers no other purpose than as a mark of distinc¬ tion. It is only a sign of introduction into the Church, as is evident from the baptising of infants before they come to the use of reason, and while they are as incapable of receiving any¬ thing relative to faith as the young shoots of a tree. Not only are infants baptised, but all converted to the Christian religion whether they be young or old, and this before they have been instructed, if they but confess themselves desirous of embracing Christianity—John baptised all who came to him from Judea and Jerusalem in the river Jordan . . . because the entrance into the land of Canaan was through that river, and this land signified the Church ... in consequence—Jordan signified introduction into the Church. . . . Thus it is upon earth ; but in Heaven infants are introduced by baptism into the Christian heaven, and angels are there assigned them by the Lord to take care of them. . . . The second use of baptism, which is to know the Lord the Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus Christ, inseparably attends the first, which is introduction into the Christian Church and insertion among Christians in the Spiritual World ... to bear the name of a Christian ♦ . . i54 REASONABLE RELIGION and yet not to follow and acknowledge Him, which consists in living according to His commandments, is a vain and empty thing* * * * In the Word the name of the Lord Jesus Christ signifies an acknowledgment of Him and a life according to His commandments* The reason why His name signifies these things may be seen in the explanation of the second com¬ mandment in the Decalogue, ** Thou shalt not take his name in vain*” * . , The very essential use intended by baptism is * * ♦ its final use *; that the man may be regenerated, * because a true Christian knows and acknowledges the Lord the Redeemer Jesus Christ, Who, as He is the Redeemer, is also the Regener¬ ator * * * a Christian is in possession of the Word, where the means of regeneration stand fully described, and are declared to be faith in the Lord and charity towards our neighbour/ This is the same as what was said of the Lord, * He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire/ The Holy Spirit means the Divine truth of faith, and fire, the Divine good of love or charity, each proceeding from the Lord* * * * The Lord Himself was baptised by John that He might not only institute baptism as a rite to be observed in the future, and establish it by His own example, but also because He glorified His humanity and made it Divine, as He regenerates a man and makes him spiritual* Moreover, as water is representative of truth the symbolism of the rite is apparent* The three uses of baptism cohere together, for the first use of baptism is that a person may have the name of Christian, and, as name implies quality, the second use is the imparting, as a consequence, the knowledge that the Lord is the Redeemer, Regenerator, and Saviour of the soul, which must receive heartfelt recognition, and the third use is regeneration, and when this is effected the soul is redeemed and saved* Swedenborg informs us that in the minds of the angels these three uses or ideas cohere as one; consequently, when baptism is performed, read of in the Word, or referred to, the angels who are present with us at the time think only of regeneration* In the Word it is said that the Lord * baptiseth with the Holy Spirit and with fire/ by which is meant that the Lord regenerates man by the Divine truth of faith, and the Divine good of love or charity* The baptism of John represented THE SACRAMENTS i55 the cleansing of the external man, but the baptism of Christ administered among Christians represents the cleansing of the internal man, which is regeneration* That is why John baptised with water, but the Lord with the Holy Spirit and with fire* There is a very instructive comment on John the Baptist in the work of Mr* Bruce, to which frequent reference has already been made, and in which the teachings and interpretations of Swedenborg are focussed and very ably expounded* He introduces his subject by pointing out how epoch-making in the history of Christianity was the preaching of John, which may be regarded as its actual commencement* It was thirty years since the infant Saviour had been visited at Bethlehem by the shepherds and the wise men of the East* And now there was heard a voice in the wilderness, calling to repentance, as the means of preparing the way for the Lord* Unless this had been done, unless a way had been prepared, the Lord's presence would have had a catastrophic effect, not only on the Jews, but on the whole human race* Baptism acted representatively, for, as we have seen, the Jewish was a representative Church and was connected with Heaven by its symbolic rites rather than by the spirituality of the lives of its worshippers* They had to be called to repentance by baptism with water, viz* by the application of truth and sincerity to their lives, before the Lord could come amongst them without destroying them* The Lord was the Word made flesh, the Eternal Wisdom carried into human conduct, into active goodness on earth, clothed in human nature* The wilderness in which John's voice was heard was the Jewish Church, which was void of goodness and truth, of charity and faith* The two latter must be united ; when they are divorced in the Church all spiritual life ceases—there can be no more propagation of truth* Mr* Bruce here points out that this preaching of the Baptist is still continued, that God never leaves Himself without a witness, and that the mind of every unregenerate man is a wilderness, and to every man there comes the call to repent, to avoid evil as a sin against REASONABLE RELIGION 156 God♦ The world may restrain but it cannot convert* John is described as having his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle round his loins, while his meat was locusts and wild honey* When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness he was, like the prophets of old, a sign unto the children of Judah; his abode, his raiment, his meat, all spoke, in the symbolic language with which the Jews were acquainted, of the state of the Church among them. The literal and the spiritual senses of the Word, like the natural and the spiritual worlds, and the body and soul, are united by correspondence; this is the girdle which John wore about his loins to keep his raiment together on his body. This raiment was of camel's hair, for the camel on land, like the whale in the sea, is the symbol of that general kind of truth expressed in the letter of the Word. A camel cannot go through the eye of a needle, nor can the mere literalist discern spiritual truth, for the letter killeth, it is the spirit that giveth life. Moreover, John's meat was locusts and wild honey. The locust was among the lowest kind of winged creatures which were permitted to be eaten by the * holy people,' and signifies food for the intellect. Honey is what is spiritually delightful, but wild honey only what is delightful to the natural mind. John's food was thus typical of the spiritual nourishment afforded by the Jewish Church at that time. John came to rouse the carnal Jews from this state, a state from which the Word of God is ever striving to awaken the sinner. All in whom there is anything spiritual, any aspiration for better things, go out to John at the sound of his voice crying in the wilderness of their souls, and calling on them to repent. Even the Pharisees and the Sadducees respectively, the ritualists and the rationalists of the Jewish Church, may be taken as the symbols of the will and understanding of the natural man, full of self-righteousness and in¬ tellectual pride. They were not well received, and truthfully characterised as a generation of vipers, for the serpent tribe produce arguments in favour of self and the world, but they were nevertheless enjoined to bring THE SACRAMENTS 157 forth fruits meet for repentance* The purpose of the heart must be expressed in act, we must cease to do evil* Jesus who had lived hitherto an obscure and secluded life now at the age of thirty came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptised of John* The Lord, the Word Incarnate, came to the representative of the written Word* He came from Galilee to Jordan to symbolise the progression of state from goodness to the truth which has power, power to subdue* * But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me i ' But although the Lord had no sin, He had taken on Himself the fallen human nature of His mother with all her inherited evil tendencies, for the removal of which He was presently to undergo temptation, and as a preparation or fortification for this these had to be purified by the waters of Jordan, otherwise, the Truths of the Word* But if John represented the written Word, how could he be in need of purification { The Word is pure and holy in itself, but in the Jewish Church, and in the minds of the unregenerate, it is polluted by impure perversions and the sanction of what is wrong, which is consequently derived from it* The Lord therefore replied : * Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness/ For He came to fulfil the whole law of righteousness and thereby to become Righteousness, He thus became, as to His humanity, the Word itself* The immediate results foreshadow the glory He was to attain* Jesus coming out of the water represented His resurrection and glorification* The opening of Heaven is one of the blessed results of emerging from the flood which has not overflowed the soul* The Holy Spirit appeared as a dove, an emblem of pure and holy affections and thoughts, and, in reference to God, of Divine affections and thoughts, which are those of Divine love and wisdom* A voice was also heard saying, * This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased*' This, Mr* Bruce points out, could not have been the Father's own voice, just as the dove could not have been the Spirit's own shape* Our Lord Himself declared, subsequently, that no man had heard the Father's voice at any time, nor seen His shape* Both REASONABLE RELIGION 158 were representative and intended to teach us, repre¬ sentatively, that the Lord coming out of His temptations, brought down to Himself, as the Man made perfect through suffering, a measure of Divine love. There is yet another Christian sacrament, the sacra¬ ment of marriage, but this has been treated of in the chapter on Sex* CHAPTER IX The Church History would appear to confirm the belief that there has always existed some form of organised religion* Even the French Revolution established a religion of Reason, and constituted a notorious woman of the town its goddess* The absolute necessity of religion has nowhere been more remarkably demonstrated than in Russia where the Soviet Government abolished it, and where, nevertheless, the people throng the churches more than ever before* Yet all organised religion is held in contempt by a certain type of educated people* They look upon all public worship and religious ceremonies as priestcraft invented for the subjugation of the masses* They invite us to cast our eyes over the pages of history and ask us what we find i We shall find, they say, that what are called the Dark Ages synchronised with the domination of the priesthood, who separated the life of business and affairs from the life of religion* The religious fled from this wicked world and its allurements and shut themselves up in cloistered seclusion to spend their days in prayer and fasting* The clergy were the only possessors of learning, thus a clerk, originally a man in holy orders, came to mean a person who could read and write* The men of the world digged and delved, and worked at their trades, or fought and robbed, according to their station* Such is at least the popular picture of the state of society in the Middle Ages* Needless to say, grossly exaggerated, for nothing is ever quite as bad as it is painted* Then came the Renaissance, 160 REASONABLE RELIGION to be followed by the invention of printing, which broke down the monopoly of scholarship which the clergy had hitherto held. At Strasburg there is a statue to Gutenberg bearing the inscription 'And there was light/ Gutenberg, who claimed to be the inventor of printing, died towards the end of the fifteenth century (c. 1468), having vindicated his title to his invention in the Stras¬ burg Law Courts in 1439. It was the invention of printing which facilitated the circulation of Luther's translation of the Bible about a century later, and it was for want of printing that Luther's precursor Wycliffe, who translated the Vulgate and the Gospels between 1360 and 1382 and founded the sect of the Lollards, was less successful. The whole of this movement, taking a general view, was directed against ecclesiasticism and the Roman Catholic Church. But the Renaissance meant a little more than that, it meant a revival of the study of pagan literature and art, the re-discovery of the beauty of man. It was called humanism, and it meant a revolt against monasticism, sacerdotalism, and all those reactionary non-progressive factors described by the single word obscuranticism. In the following lines : Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Pope, himself a Papist, all unwittingly epitomised that Renaissance, of the later form of which he was so graceful an exponent. With the awakening of the intellect, the consequent rise of rationalism, there commenced that concerted attack on religion which, starting from the region of pure imagination and fancy, has gradually, with the aid of science and philosophy, brought us to materialism and the negation of everything, for we are just on the verge of losing even our faith in matter. / All unknown to the protagonists of the Renaissance, their humanism was a distinct advance on the mentality of their models. The Christianity they secretly despised nevertheless coloured their ideas of right and wrong. Out of this movement, this revival of paganism, there THE CHURCH 161 grew a new movement, based on a theory of liberty totally d fferent from the classic conception* To the Greeks and Romans slavery was a necessary institution, and while the Christian had abolished it and had pro¬ claimed the brotherhood of man, the feudal system, which was accepted by the Church, had virtually reinstated it, with its villeinage and serfdom* This is best illustrated by the case of Russia, where the peasants were all called Christians, Krestiani> and the population of a village or rural district was enumerated in souls, yet these Christian souls, who were frequently addressed as brothers, Bratzi , were nevertheless Krepost - nuye, attached or * fastened 9 to the soil, and serfs* With the spread of the Bible in vernacular translations and the advent of the Reformation, feudalism received its first severe shock* The trend of modern culture has been towards emancipation, freedom from restraint, and the institution of an earthly, material paradise* This movement towards freedom and culture has been most firmly opposed by the clergy, hence clericalism and all that it stands for has been regarded as the enemy* Galileo, for instance, was forced by the Inquisition to abjure the Copernican theory in 1633* Generally speaking, what we call progress originated in scepticism and culminated in anarchy, as exemplified by the French Revolution in the eighteenth century and Bolshevism in the twentieth* The negation of religion must inevitably lead to disaster, and yet it is obvious that there must be progress, and that the dead hand of clericalism cannot be allowed to stop the march of intellect* The position seems paradoxical* Let us see what light Swedenborg can throw on this world-problem. In his remarkable review of Ranke's * History of the Popes/ Macaulay lays down that a natural theology is not a progressive science, and then proceeds to say: But neither is revealed religion of the nature of a progressive science* All Divine truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant Churches, recorded in certain books. It is equally open to all who, in any age, can read those books ; nor can all the discoveries of all the philosophers in the world add a single M REASONABLE RELIGION 162 verse to any of those books. It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology and navigation. He then devotes several pages to an elaboration, with his usual volubility, of his thesis. With this dictum all argument is closed. Religion, according to Macaulay, is a stagnant pool in which there can be no currents, no changes : it is a tideless sea. But surely history teaches the very reverse. We have the Jewish Church, the Christian Church, and later Protestantism, and before these the various pagan religions or mythologies. In the * Arcana Coelestia * Swedenborg states that * the first three chapters of Genesis treat in general of the Most Ancient Church, which is called Man, from its beginning to its end, when it perished/ The consumma¬ tion or end of this Church is described by the Flood. The second Church, the Ancient, was in Asia and part of Africa. This was consummated and destroyed by idola¬ tries. The third Church was the Israelitish, which began with the promulgation of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai, and continued through the Word written by Moses and the prophets, and was consummated or ended by the profanation of the Word : the fullness of which profana¬ tion was at the time when the Lord came into the world, and Who, being the Word Incarnate, was crucified. The fourth Church is the Christian, established by the Lord through the evangelists and apostles. Of this there have been two epochs : one from the time of the Lord to the Council of Nice, and the other from that Council to the present day. But in its progress this Church was divided into three parts—the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the Reformed. They are all, however, called Christian. In the Most Ancient times men were informed con¬ cerning heavenly things, or the things which related to eternal life, by immediate intercourse with the angels of Heaven. For Heaven then acted as one with the men of that Church, for it flowed in through their interior mind into the external, whence they were not only enlightened and given perception, but were able to converse with THE CHURCH 163 angels. This period was called the Golden Age, because men were then in the good of love to the Lord, which is signified by gold. These conditions are also described by the Garden of Eden, Later, knowledge concerning Heaven and the eternal life was obtained by what are called correspondences and representatives, the science of which had been handed down from the Most Ancient men. Heaven then flowed into these things with them and enlightened them ; for correspondences and representa¬ tives are external forms of heavenly things. Men were thus enlightened in proportion as they were in the good of love and charity, for all Divine influx from Heaven is into the goodness in man, and through that into truth. This later period, when the men in the Church were in spiritual good, which in its essence is truth, was called the Silver Age, for silver is representative of such good. But when the science of correspondences and repre¬ sentatives was turned into magic, that Church perished, and was succeeded by a third in which these were retained, though their signification had been lost. This was the Jewish Church. As the men of this Church, having lost the science of correspondences, could no longer be taught by heavenly influx, angels spoke to some of such things by word of mouth, and instructed them in externals, but very little in internals, because they would not have been able to understand them. Those who were in natural good received this instruction devoutly, and this period was consequently called the Bronze or Brass Age, because brass signifies such good. But when not even natural good remained with the men of the Church, the Lord came into the world and reduced all things in Heaven and hell to order with the object that man might be able to receive influx from Him out of Heaven, and be enlightened, and that hell should be prevented from obstructing and infusing thick darkness. This led to the formation of the fourth Church, the Christian. In the Christian Church the Bible is the only means of instruction, and through this man has influx and enlightenment. For the Word was written by pure REASONABLE RELIGION 164 correspondences and representatives signifying heavenly ideas, and the angels, so to speak, enter them when the Word is read* A conjunction of Heaven with the Church is thus effected, but only with those of the Church who are in the goodness of love and charity* The men of this Church have, however, largely extinguished this goodness, and are therefore incapable of receiving influx except with regard to truths unconnected with goodness* Hence this period is called the Iron Age, for iron denotes truth in the ultimate, or most external form of order. Truth of this quality will not adhere to man, even as iron will not mix with clay* (See Daniel ii. 43.) Thus we see how revelations have succeeded one another from the Most Ancient times down to the present, and that to-day revelation is only given through the Word* Genuine revelation, however, is only with those who are in the love of truth for its own sake, and not for the sake of honour or gain* For, as the Lord is the Word itself, seeing that it is Divine truth, those who love Divine truth for its own sake love the Lord, and those who love the Lord receive Heaven into their souls and are thereby enlightened. But it is obvious that those who love Divine truth for the sake of honour or gain turn them¬ selves away from the Lord, and are therefore incapable of receiving such influx* These, fixing their minds on the letter, interpret its meaning to suit their own desire and inclination, because they are intent solely upon their own fame and glory* When the end of a Church is at hand, it is provided by the Lord that a new Church shall succeed, because without a Church in which the Word is, and in which the Lord is known, the world could not subsist, for Heaven could not be conjoined to the human race nor consequently could Divine truth proceeding from the Lord flow in with new life; man would therefore cease to be a man and become a beast. Nevertheless, the Lord's spiritual Church is not limited to those who have the Word, but is also with people who may be in entire ignorance of the Lord and destitute of any of the truths of faith, for among these there are many who THE CHURCH 165 have, in the light of reason, convinced themselves of the existence of a God, the creator and preserver of all things, and the source of all goodness and truth, and that it is the duty of everybody to endeavour to attain similitude with Him, and to do good and be honest and sincere, and that that way blessedness lies* If such people carry out these ideas in their lives they live in love to God and charity to the neighbour* Thus it is made clear that the Church of the Lord is universal, although it is specifically where the Lord is acknowledged and the Word read* In short, the Church on earth is like the heart and lungs ; and they that are outside the Church are like the body which is sustained and kept alive by the heart and lungs* But the Church is one thing, and religion another* The Church is called a Church from doctrine, but religion is from life according to doctrine* Where there is doc¬ trine, but no life in accordance with it, there is neither Church nor religion, for doctrine looks to life as one with itself, as truth looks to goodness, faith to charity, wisdom to love, and understanding to will: thus there must be a marriage of love and wisdom in every true Church, and hence the Church is called the Bride of the Lord* Swedenborg adds that there is a Church in Heaven as well as on earth, for the Word is in Heaven, and there are temples and preachings there, and ministerial and priestly offices* For all the angels have been human beings, and their life in Heaven is only a continuation of their mortal life* They are consequently perfected in love and wisdom, according to the degree of affection for goodness and truth which they may have brought with them* The Church among them is meant by the woman in Revelation xii* 1, clothed with the sun, who had upon her head a crown of twelve stars* As the Church cannot subsist in Heaven without a Church on earth which is its concordant in love and wisdom, and as this was about to be, therefore the moon was seen under the woman's feet, typifying the faith of the present day, by means of which there is no conjunction. The reason why the Church in Heaven cannot exist without a Church on earth is because the two act as one, like a REASONABLE RELIGION 166 soul and body* The internal man cannot exist without having an external, otherwise he is like a house without a foundation, or a cause without an effect* Swedenborg, as we thus see, insists on the necessity of an organised Church on earth; moreover, he has some very interesting things to say about priesthood and the priestly office* He is no anarchist, but states plainly that: There are two categories of affairs among men which must be in order. Those that belong to Heaven are called ecclesiastical, and those that are of the world are called civil. . . * Rulers over those affairs among men [he says], which belong to Heaven, or over ecclesiastical affairs, are called priests and their office is called the priesthood . * * priests should teach men the way to Heaven and also lead them ; they should teach them accord¬ ing to the doctrine of their Church, from the Word, and should lead them to live according to it. Priests who teach truths and by them lead to the good life, and so to the Lord, are good shepherds . * . and those who teach and do not lead to the good of life, and so to the Lord, are bad shepherds* Priests should not claim for themselves any power over the souls of men, for they do not know in what state the interiors of men are* Still less should they claim the power of opening and shutting Heaven ; for that power belongs to the Lord alone. Here it may be as well to interpolate what Swedenborg has to say about Peter. In his preface to the twenty- second chapter of Genesis in the * Arcana Ccelestia ' he writes : Into what heresies they fall who abide in the literal sense (of the Bible) alone without searching out the internal sense from other passages in the Word where it is explained, may appear manifestly from the number of heresies which exist, each of which confirms its respective dogma from the literal sense of the Word ; especially from that great heresy which the insane and infernal love of self and of the world has confirmed from the Lord's words to Peter : * I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in the heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in the heavens.' (Matt. xvi. 15-19.) Those who strain the literal sense, suppose THE CHURCH 167 that these words were spoken of Peter, and that he had this great power given him ; although they knew that Peter was a simple man, and that he never exercised such power, and that to exercise it is contrary to the Divine* * * * The internal sense of those words is, that Faith itself in the Lord, which exists with those only who are in a state of love to the Lord, and of charity to the neighbour, has that power, and yet not even faith, but the Lord from whom faith is* By the rock is here meant that faith, as everywhere else in the Word ; on that the church is built, and against that the gates of hell do'not prevail ; and to that faith belong the keys of the kingdom of the heavens ; that faith shuts heaven, to prevent the entrance of evils and falsities, and it opens heaven for goods and truths. This is the internal sense of the above words. The twelve apostles, like the twelve tribes of Israel, represented the things of such a faith. Although Swedenborg is no sacerdotalist in the ordinary sense, he nevertheless maintains that: Priests should have dignity and honour on account of the holy things which they administer ; but those who are wise render the honour to the Lord, from whom these holy things are, and not to themselves, but those who are not wise attribute the honour to themselves. These rob the Lord. They who attribute honour to themselves on account of the holy things they administer, prefer honour and gain to the salvation of the souls which they should care for ; but they who render the honour to the Lord . . ♦ prefer the salvation of souls before honour and gain. No honour of any function is in the person but it is adjoined to him according to the dignity of the thing which he administers. What is adjoined does not belong to the person himself; and is also separated from him with the function. Honour in the person is honour of wisdom and of the fear of the Lord. Here is another significant passage : The priesthood is representative of the Lord as to the work of salvation. . . . The priesthood is one of the representa¬ tives that exist even at the present day. . . . All priests, whoever or whatever they are, by the priestly office itself represent the Lord. ♦ ♦ . The priestly office is in itself holy, whatever the character of him who ministers. Hence it is that the Word when read by a wicked man is equally holy, the REASONABLE RELIGION 168 same applies to the Sacrament of Baptism, the Holy Supper, etc* From this it also follows that no priest should arrogate to himself any of the holiness of his priesthood* In so far as he does this, or attributes any of it to himself, he becomes a spiritual thief* In so far as he commits evil and acts contrary to justice and equity, and contrary to good and truth, he casts off 4 the repre¬ sentation of the holy priesthood, and represents the opposite*' Swedenborg also explains the ordination of the laying on of hands. * Communication, translations, and also reception are signified by the laying on of hands* The reason ... is that the hands signify power.' As man's faculties are in his head, and the body should act in obedience to the understanding and the will, the hand is placed on the head, thus conveying a blessing and potency to these. But Swedenborg has not a good word to say for the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession ; this he characterises as an invention of self-love, and the love of domination thence derived, as is also the supposed translation of the Holy Spirit from man to man. * The holy effluence,' he says, ' which is meant by the Holy Spirit, is not transferred from man to man, but from the Lord through man to man*' The Divine effluence [he says in another passage], which is called the Holy Spirit, proceeding from God by His humanity passes through the angelic heaven, and through this into the world ; thus through angels into men. Thence, through man to man, and in the Church especially through the clergy to the laity ; what is holy is given continually, but recedes if the Lord be not approached. ♦ * . It proceeds, he continues, * from the Lord, through the clergy to the laity by preachings, according to reception of . ♦ . truth ♦ ♦ ♦ and by the Holy Supper, according to repentance before it*' We learn, further, that reformation, regeneration, renovation, vivification, sanctification, justification, puri¬ fication, the remission of sins, and finally salvation, flow THE CHURCH 169 in from the Lord with the clergy as well as the laity; and are received by those who are in the Lord and the Lord in them* With the clergy there is in particular illustration and instruction, because these belong to their office, and inaugura¬ tion carries them with it. In the degree in which a priest desires from affection to effect the salvation of souls, to teach the way to Heaven, and to lead those who are taught, he acquires the truths he should preach and by which he should lead. While priests should instruct their flock and lead them by truths along the path of righteousness, yet should they not use com¬ pulsion, for no one can by compulsion be made to believe what he does not in his heart consider to be true. He who believes differently from the priest should be left in peace as long as he behaves quietly, but should he make a disturbance he must be removed for the sake of order. We now, having prepared the way, so to speak, will find it more easy to attack the problem raised at the beginning of this chapter. Perhaps the best course will be to let Swedenborg again speak in his own words, for it is impossible to improve on his admirable and lucid style : The Christian Church [he says in 1 The True Christian Religion '], from the time of the Lord, has passed through the several periods from infancy to extreme old age. Its infancy was during the time in which the Apostles lived, and preached to the whole world repentance and faith in the Lord God, the Saviour. ♦ , ♦ (Acts xx. 21.) He then continues that the Church at this day has been brought to such a state of consummation that scarcely any remains of it are left. This he attributes to the separation of the Divine Trinity into three Persons, each God and Lord. The whole system of theology, as well as the Christian Church, have been infected by a mental derangement amounting to delirium in conse¬ quence, because people have been left in doubt as to whether there was one God or three. While confessing one God with their lips, they entertain the idea of three Gods in their minds, so that their words and their thoughts REASONABLE RELIGION 170 are not in unison, with the result that they end by denying the existence of a God altogether* This, Swedenborg avers, is the true source of modern monism, which is called naturalism by some and materialism by others. From its earliest infancy the Christian Church began to be infested and * rent asunder by schisms and heresies/ and in process of time was torn and mangled much like the man we read of who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped and wounded him and left him half dead (Luke x, 30), Hence has come about the consummation and devastation foretold by Daniel (ix. 27) and referred to by our Lord (Matthew xxiv, 14-15), After showing how the Church was tossed and torn, from ecclesiastical history, and mentioning the various dis¬ turbers of true doctrine, he points out that the Apostolic Church had no idea of a trinity of three persons existing from eternity, as is evident from the Apostles' Creed in which no mention is made of a Son born from eternity, but in which Jesus Christ is correctly described as God the Father Almighty's * only Son our Lord, Who was con¬ ceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, etc,' This Apostolic Church was of considerable magnitude and extended to three-quarters of the globe, as appears from the territory of the Empire of Constantine the Great, who, Swedenborg states, was not only a Christian in name, but zealous in favour of religion. At the instance of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, he called a Council to assemble at the imperial palace at Nice for the purpose of refuting authoritatively the heresy of Arius, who denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ, This Council, composed of bishops, decided that from eternity there had been three persons. The result of that Council was the perpetration, first of the Nicene Creed, and later of the Athanasian, As Swedenborg quaintly puts it, according to this creed * it is allowable to acknowledge three gods and three lords, but not to say there are three gods or three lords; and the reason assigned in the latter case is because re¬ ligion forbids it, and in the former because verity of truth dictates it,' Unfortunate as the consequences of the Council of Nice THE CHURCH 171 were, it was right of Constantine to call it with the view of scotching the Arian heresy, for a Christian Church which did not recognise the divinity of Christ would have re¬ sembled a tombstone with Hie jacet l inscribed on it rather than a Church* Swedenborg compares the Apostolic Church to the Garden of Eden, Arius is the serpent, and the Council of Nice, Eve* The nakedness of Adam and Eve signifies innocence, and fig-leaves the truths of the natural man which were successively falsified, and he adds : The primitive or apostolic church could never have conceived that a Church would follow, which would worship several gods with the heart and one with the lips ; which would separate charity from faith, the remission of sins from repentance and the leading of a new life ; and which would exhibit absolute impotence in spiritual matters ; and least of all, that an Arius would lift up his head, and when dead become resuscitated, and reign, though unavowedly, to the end. The Roman Catholic Church is described by Sweden¬ borg in his * Apocalypse Explained/ The Roman Catho¬ lics, by whom Babylon is meant, are thus spoken of: Under the pretence of the keys being given to Peter, they have transferred to themselves all the Divine power of the Lord —having locked up Divine Truth from the people by taking away the Word—and have attributed to the dictates of the Pope a sanctity equal, yea, actually superior to the sanctity of the Word. They also teach but little, if anything, of the fear and worship of God ; but the fear and worship of themselves, and also the worship of holy things for the sake of themselves. Hence it is evident that Babylon in its end is the Church void and empty of all the good of love towards the neighbour, and consequently of all truth. Whence it is no longer a Church but an idolatry. . * . Wherefore also after death those idolaters come amongst the pagans, and no longer amongst Christians. But from those who have not worshipped the Pope, nor the saints and graven images, but the Lord, a new Church is collected by Him. This sufficiently explains how it is that the progress of the human race during the last sixteen hundred years or so has been effected in spite of the Church, and has been 172 REASONABLE RELIGION on the lines of the negation of established religion ; for it has been a revolt against the organised hypocrisy of the Church, a Church which, while preaching religion with its lips, was at heart worldly, seeking power and possessions, and secretly scoffing at the religion it pretended to teach* Man must have liberty, and had to emancipate himself from the thraldom of licentious hypocrites* It is sufficient to name Pope Alexander VI and Cardinal Richelieu, or to point to the infamous cruelties of the Inquisition, to show what we mean* The Dark Ages were well named, they represented the reign of obscurantism and mystery-mon- gering, when the people were kept in mental bondage and were not allowed to think* That bondage has been thrown off, but to-day we can say with Mary : 4 They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him ' (John xx* 2)* For the Protestant religion, although it set free the Word, has made confusion worse confounded by separating faith from charity, and by the doctrine of the Atonement* The Protestant attitude is severely summarised by Swedenborg in * The True Christian Religion/ as follows: What doctrine more abounds in the books of the orthodox at this day, or what is more zealously taught and insisted on in the schools of divinity, or more constantly preached and cried up in the pulpit, than this, that God the Father, being full of wrath against mankind, not only separated them from Himself, but also sentenced them to universal damnation ; and thus excommunicated them from His favour; but that being gracious and merciful, persuaded or excited His Son to descend, and take upon Himself the determined curse, and so to appease the wrath of His Father, and that thus only could the Father be prevailed upon to restore mankind to grace i That this was moreover effected by the Son by His taking upon Himself the curse pronounced on men, by submitting to be scourged, spat upon and finally to be crucified as the accursed of God, and that thus the Father was satisfied, and, from love to His Son, revoked the sentence of damnation, but only in favour of those for whom the Son might intercede, the Son thus becoming a perpetual Mediator in the presence of His Father i ♦ ♦ ♦ But whosoever has his reason enlightened, and is restored to sanity by the Word, must see that God is mercy and clemency itself. THE CHURCH 173 for He is love itself and goodness itself, and these constitute His essence; consequently it is a contradiction to say that mercy itself, or goodness itself, could behold a man with an angry eye, sentence him to damnation, and still abide in His own Divine essence. Such dispositions cannot be ascribed to a good man or to an angel of Heaven, but are only conceivable of a wicked man and a spirit of hell; it is therefore blasphemy to ascribe them to God, He explains that these errors have arisen through men mistaking the passion of the cross for redemption itself, Isaiah said truly, * The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they stumble in judgment; all tables are full of vomit and filthiness/ (xxviii, 7-8.) * From this idea of God and redemption/ Swedenborg continues, * the whole system of theology has lost its spirituality, and is become in the lowest degree material/ He then shows how the form of prayer which prevails to-day throughout Christendom, according to which men are enjoined to pray to God the Father to remit their sins for the sake of the cross and blood of His Son, and to God the Son to intercede for them, and to the Holy Ghost to justify and sanctify them, involves appeals to three distinct gods in turn. How [he asks] can the notion which the mind forms of the Divine government differ from that of an aristocratic or hierarchic government, or from that of the ancient triumvirate of Rome i . , ♦ And in such a government what is easier than for the devil to put in practice the old maxim divide et impera; namely to distract men's minds, and excite rebellion sometimes against one God and sometimes against another, as has been his practice since the time of Arius to this day , , ♦ i How necessary for the salvation of mankind to sweep such man-made, hell-inspired, superstitions away ! But how to accomplish the destruction of heresies which have taken so deep a root i They must be torn out by those very roots. There used to be a pleasant theory that the use of the huge prehistoric monsters, of which fossilised remains have from time to time been discovered, was to destroy the primeval forests, with which this planet was REASONABLE RELIGION 174 covered, by tearing out the trees by the roots in certain parts, in order to provide dwelling-places suitable for man* It is only by minds not much inferior in ferocity to such animals, that the growth of dark and umbrageous pseudo¬ religious falsities can be removed* The work has indeed already been very thoroughly done ; we need only mention Voltaire to make our meaning clear* He has had many successors* But we are approaching a time when con¬ structive work must follow destruction* The tabula rasa has been made, what shall be put in the place of the former obstructions which made the territory uninhabit¬ able i It seems obvious that a new Church on earth can be effectually instituted only by a Second Advent, and this is what Swedenborg teaches, this it was his mission to proclaim* We have seen that there have already been four Churches in this world—one before the Flood, one after the Flood, then the Jewish, and lastly the Christian* All Churches should be founded on the knowledge and acknowledgment of one God, with whom their members could have conjunction, but notone of these four Churches has preserved that truth* The Most Ancient Church worshipped the invisible God, with whom there can be no conjunction, and the same is true of the Ancient Church* The Jewish Church worshipped Jehovah in human form represented by certain angels who appeared to the prophets—to Abraham, Moses, and many others* This Church was not a spiritual Church at all, but a repre¬ sentative one preparatory for the Christian* Thus the angel who appeared to the patriarchs and the prophets was representative of our Lord, the prophets foretold the advent of the Messiah, and all the rites and sacrifices of that Church were representative, and abrogated at the coming of our Lord* The fourth Church, called the Christian Church, acknowledged one God with the lips, but confused three gods in the mind* This Church has also come to an end, for it has lost touch with life, and is even in oppo¬ sition to the facts of life* Now, one of Swedenborg's THE CHURCH 175 most often quoted obiter dicta is that * all religion has relation to life/ to which he added that the religion of life was to do good* Thus we see how religion has been slowly and laboriously evolved, for the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small* And now, Swedenborg proclaims, there is to succeed a new Church, which is to endure for ages, and is destined to become the crown of all the Churches which have preceded it* He quotes innumerable passages from the prophets, notably from Daniel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, to show that this Church was foretold by them* Before describing this new Church, we must state what Swedenborg has to say about the Second Advent and the Day of Judgment* It is the prevailing opinion at this day in every church [he writes in his last published work, * The True Christian Religion *] that the Lord, when He comes to the last judgment, will appear in the clouds of Heaven with angels and the sound of trumpets ; that He will gather together all who may then be living on the earth, as well as all who are deceased, and will separate the evil from the good, as a shepherd separates the goats from the sheep, that then He will cast the evil, or the goats, into hell, and raise up the good, or the sheep, into Heaven; and further, that He will at the same time create a new visible heaven and a new habitable earth, and that on the latter He will cause a city to descend, which is to be called the New Jerusalem, and is to be built according to the description given in Revelations (chap* xxi.) * * * and that all the elect are to be gathered together in this city, both those who may then be alive, and those who have died since the beginning of the world ; and that the latter will then return into their bodies and enjoy everlasting bliss in that magnificent city* * * * In regard to the state of souls after death, both universally and particularly, it is the common belief at this day, that human souls after death are mere aerial beings, of which it is impossible to form any idea but as a vapour of exhalation * * * but on these points there are various opinions * * * the general supposition is that they are reserved till the time when the whole firmament together with the terraqueous globe will be destroyed, and that this is to be effected by fire either bursting from the centre of the earth, or cast down from Heaven in an universal REASONABLE RELIGION 176 blaze of lightning; that then the graves will be opened, and the souls that were reserved will be clothed again with their bodies and translated into that holy city, Jerusalem. ♦ ♦ * When a clergyman or layman is asked whether he firmly believes that the antediluvians . . . with Adam and Eve . ♦ . and ♦ ♦ ♦ Noah with his sons—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets and apostles, are, in like manner . ♦ ♦ still reserved in the middle of the earth, or flying about in the ether or air ; and also whether he believes that their souls will be again clothed with their bodies, and again enter into connection with carcases eaten by worms, by mice, fish, or ... by men, and with skeletons parched in the sun and reduced to powder ; and further whether he believes that the stars of heaven will fall upon the earth, which yet is smaller than any of them ♦ ♦ . Some of them will make no reply ; some will insist that such points are matters of faith, to which the understanding must be kept in obedience ; some again will argue that not only those things, but also many others, which are beyond the comprehension of reason, are works of Divine omnipotence ; and when they mention faith and omnipotence, sound reason is banished. ♦ . ♦ But the Second Coming of the Lord is not for the destruction of the material universe. It is, Swedenborg assures us, for the purpose of forming a new heaven of those who have believed in the Lord, and to establish a new Church of those who shall hereafter believe in Him. In this work the statement has repeatedly been made that the end of creation was the formation of an angelic heaven composed of human beings, and for this purpose a Church on earth is necessary, for man's road to Heaven is via the Church. The Lord is continually present with every being, whether evil or good, for without His presence no man could live, but His coming is only with those who receive Him, and who do His commandments. It is the continual presence of the Lord which is the efficient cause of man's rationality and his ability to become spiritual, for it is an effect of the light of the spiritual sun which, as we have seen in our first chapter, proceeds from the Lord. This light, like the light of the natural sun, must be joined to heat to produce any¬ thing useful. It is the same with the soil of the human THE CHURCH 177 mind: unless we desire to do good, unless we have the affection for truth and join it to our minds by work, by effort in the direction of goodness, we cannot produce* There is thus a parallelism between the spiritual things of the soul and the natural things of the body* We have seen why the Lord could not come to the Christian Church* That Church had no love for Him; moreover, it separated faith from charity, consequently no marriage of that Church with the Lord was possible, seeing that the heavenly marriage is the union of love and wisdom, and therefore of faith and charity* Yet the Church is described as the Bride of the Lord, and indeed this is what she should be for reasons so obvious that we need not expatiate upon them* Let us, however, quote one illustration from Swedenborg : Man considered in the compound or aggregate is a church consisting of several members ; and man considered as an individual or a component part is a church in each of these* It is according to Divine order that there be general things in common and particular things, and that both be together in every created being, the component parts existing and subsist¬ ing in no other way* Thus in the case of man no part within him could exist or subsist, unless it were enclosed, as it were, in a common bond* After illustrating this from anatomy and by the example of musical instruments, he proceeds : These instances are adduced for the sake of illustration, to show that the Church has its general principles which are in common, and its particulars, and likewise its universal or most common principles, and that it is on this ground that four churches have proceeded in regular order, from which progres¬ sion the most general or universal principle of the Church has arisen, and in process of time what is general and particular in each church* * * * The two most general forms in the human body are the heart and lungs ; and in the soul, the will and the understanding, on which all things of life depend both in general and in particular : without them man would decline and die* The same would happen to the whole angelic Heaven, and the whole race of mankind, indeed, to the whole created universe, unless all things in general and everything in parti¬ cular were sustained by God, His love and wisdom* N REASONABLE RELIGION 178 The successive states of the Church, both in general and in particular, are described in the Word by the four seasons of the year—spring, summer, autumn, winter— and by the four periods of the day—morning, noon, evening, and night* The Christian Church, having turned itself away from the Lord, has therefore reached its fourth state, that of winter and night* It follows from this that the morning of a fresh day must be at hand* We have stated that the Second Coming of the Messiah had been foretold by the prophets ; we have shown that it could not logically be effected in the manner supposed by tradition* There can be no burning up of the universe, no rehabilitation of the corpses of the countless numbers of human beings that have lived on earth* How, then, is the Second Advent to be effected i Swedenborg shows that in the Bible the announcement is made in many places that the Lord will come in the clouds of Heaven* But what is meant by the clouds of Heaven i Meteorologists can tell us that we must not expect the Deity to descend upon us from the nebulae of the sky* Swedenborg, however, explains that the clouds of Heaven are the Word in its literal sense, whilst the spiritual sense is meant by the power and glory in which the Lord is to come* Swedenborg then continues : Now since the spiritual sense of the Word has been opened to me by the Lord, and it has been granted to me to be with angels and spirits in their world as one of themselves, it has been revealed to me that the clouds of heaven signify the Word in its natural sense, and the glory the Word in its spiritual sense, whilst the power is the effectual (or actual) operation of the Lord by (means of) the Word* He then proceeds to show by quotation from various passages in the Word that the clouds of Heaven have this signification, and explains that the Word in its literal sense was represented by the cloud in which Jehovah descended on Mount Sinai, In the 4 Arcana Ccelestia/ in his comments on * the pillar of a cloud ' which was to lead the Israelites by day, he says : THE CHURCH 179 Throughout the Word it is said that Jehovah appeared in a cloud, and that He was girded with a cloud, also that there was a cloud beneath His feet; in which passage a cloud means an obscuration of the Word, specifically, in the literal sense, for this sense, in respect to the internal sense, is an obscuration of the truth. ♦ ♦ ♦ The internal sense, which is called glory, cannot be understood by an unregenerate person. ♦ . . For if the internal sense were presented to such a person in its glory, it would be like thick darkness in which he could see nothing, he would consequently be blinded, and believe nothing. Thus we see that the Lord coming * in clouds descending' must mean that He will not appear in person, but in the Word. He cannot appear in person, because He is in His glorified humanity, which is invisible to men unless their eyes are opened, as was the case with the disciples (Luke xxiv. 31). This opening of the eyes cannot be effected in those who have confirmed themselves in evils, and the errors thence derived. Here follows a passage which must be quoted in full : Since the Lord [Swedenborg says] cannot manifest Him¬ self in person (to the world) . . . and yet has foretold that He would come and establish a New Church which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He will effect this by the instru¬ mentality of a man capable not only of receiving the doctrines of that church in his understanding but also of making them known by the press. That the Lord manifested Himself before me, his servant, that He sent me on this office, and afterwards opened the sight of my spirit, and so let me into the spiritual world, permitting me to see the heavens and the hells, and also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now continually for many years, I attest in truth ; and further, that from the first day of my call to this office, I have never received anything relating to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone, while I was reading the Word. With regard to this New Church thus ordained and foretold, Swedenborg explains that it is agreeable to Divine order for a new heaven to be formed first, because the internal must be formed before the external, which is then formed from the internal. In proportion, therefore, i8o REASONABLE RELIGION as this new heaven increases, the descent of the New Jerusalem is facilitated and the New Church enlarged* This cannot be effected instantaneously, but is a slow process, because it can only be carried out in proportion as the errors of the former Church are removed* New wine cannot be poured into old bottles (or skins), lest the bottles (or skins) break and the wine runs out* 4 Wine is spiritual truth/ By putting new wine into new bottles both are preserved* The same truth is illustrated in the parable of the sower, where the wheat are the truths and goods of the New Church, tares the falses and evils of the old, and the harvest or consummation of the age, the end of the Church* We will conclude this chapter with the following extracts from Swedenborg's preface to 4 The Apocalypse Revealed*' Not a few [he says] have laboured in explaining the Apocalypse, but as the spiritual sense of the Word had hitherto been unknown, they could not see the mysteries which are hidden within it, for those can only be unfolded by the spiritual sense* Expositors have therefore formed various conjectures, most of them applying its contents to the affairs of empires, blending them at the same time with ecclesiastical matters* The Apocalypse, however, like the rest of the Word, in its spiritual sense, treats not of mundane, but of heavenly matters, thus not of empires and kingdoms, but of Heaven and the Church * * * Anyone may see that the Apocalypse could not possibly be explained but by the Lord alone, since every word of it contains mysteries which never could be known without some special enlightenment and consequent revelation ; wherefore it has pleased the Lord to open the sight of my spirit, and to teach me* Think not, therefore, that anything here given is from myself, or from any angel, it is from the Lord alone* More¬ over the Lord said by an angel to John : 4 Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book * (chap* xxii* io); by which is understood that they are to be made manifest* f The Apocalypse Revealed,' in one volume, and his more elaborate posthumous work, 4 The Apocalypse Explained,' in six volumes, are published by the Sweden¬ borg Society, both in the original Latin and in an English translation* CHAPTER X The Soul As this is a popular book, we have incorrectly entitled this chapter * The Soul/ when we really intend to treat of the immortal man generally* There are, however, four distinct terms which Swedenborg applies to the spiritual part of man, each with a different and very definite signification, viz* spiritus y anima, mens, and animus * By spiritus (spirit) he means the whole immortal man—all that which lives as a man after death and is popularly called the soul* This includes the other three* Anima (the soul) is strictly the very inmost of man's spirit and the first receptacle of life from the Lord ; and by deriva¬ tion, inmostly pervades and is the life of the whole mind and body* Mens (the mind) is intermediate between the anima and animus , and in itself comprises three discrete degrees—the highest, middle, and lowest* The animus is the lower and external mind, composed of affections and outward inclinations insinuated principally after death, by education, association, and habits of life* Here we have a complete anatomy of the human soul, which Byron, speaking of the death of Keats, described as * that fiery particle * which was * snuffed out by an article*' In popular language, the immortal part of man is generally referred to as the soul* What is the soul i To-day people talk of all kinds of souls ; they talk of the soul of a nation, and they say that some men are * soulful,' whatever that may mean* The man of science does not admit that there is such a thing, his explanation of consciousness and the processes REASONABLE RELIGION 183 of thought and memory are purely physical, but we venture to submit that a belief in the scientific theory of consciousness involves a degree of faith in materialism as great as, if not greater than, that exacted by the Athanasian Creed, a faith in which has been wittily described as a belief in something which is known to be untrue* When life has definitely departed from the human frame, when the soul has left the body, the remaining corpse rots away and decomposes* But while the soul is still in that body the latter continues to live, to perform functions, to replace the wasted tissues, and to be an instrument of thought* We can examine that remarkable machine, take it to pieces, explain the mechanism by means of which the eyes are able to see, the tongue to speak, the ears to hear, the hands to grip and the feet to walk* We can even follow the digestive and assimilative processes of the human organism, and discover how, all unconsciously, we keep our machinery going, how we digest our food, how the body is irrigated by the blood with its central pumping station, the heart* We know how we breathe, and how the oxygen necessary to the system is inhaled by the lungs* We even know, some¬ times, how to make our hair grow* But when it comes to obtaining an intelligent idea of the user of all this mechanism—the human soul—which sees through its eyes and hears by its ears, and communicates what it has seen and heard to others by means of the voice and the tongue ; when we ask ourselves what this ego is which we possess, and which is capable of volition, and of crimes and virtues, of judgment and imagination, which operates our human machine, and is yet different in each of us, even in the case of brothers and sisters brought up under the same roof, then we are compelled to admit with Hamlet that there are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy* A story is told of a famous man who believed that during cremation the soul left the body in a kind of vapour, but was disappointed to discover his error on attending such a ceremony, and ever after ceased to believe in the soul* Doctors have been known to declare that they have cut THE SOUL 183 up many human bodies but have never come across the seat of the souL This is rather like the Frenchman who was commissioned to write an essay on the hippopotamus, and went to the Jardin d'acclimatation where there did not happen to exist a specimen at the time, and conse¬ quently concluded that there was no such animal* Prevalent theological ideas about the soul are some¬ what vague and contradictory. Some people talk about a vapour, some about an aura, but it is all rather visionary, and moreover there does not appear to exist any definite concrete conception of what the soul is, and yet that there must be a soul seems too obvious to doubt. One consideration alone would seem to establish this. The human animal would, so far as has yet been ascertained, appear to be the only one capable of producing anything partaking of the nature of immortality. It has left permanent records of its thoughts and deeds in the literature and art of the world. We need only mention the Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities, the pyramids, the Vedas of the East, and the splendid literature of ancient Greece and Rome. Shakespeare's plays are as much alive to-day as they were when their reputed author was managing the Globe Theatre. Then there are the great law-givers, the great rulers, the generals, the dis¬ coverers and inventors ; of most of these it can be said that their works live after them. Immortal works must be the product of an immortal soul. The prevailing ignorance respecting the soul is thus commented on by Swedenborg : The soul is unknown as to its every quality, especially in the learned world. This is evident from the fact that some believe it to be an ethereal principle, some a sort of flame of fire, some merely the thinking principle, some the vital principle in general, some the natural, active principle. And what still further attests their ignorance of the nature of the soul, they assign it to various places in the body, some place it in the heart, some in the brain and in the fibres there, some in the corpora striata , others in the ventricles, and others in the exigua glandula ; some in every part. But then what they conceive is a vital principle and this is common to every living thing. REASONABLE RELIGION 184 From all which it is plain that nothing is known about th? souh This is the reason why all that has been offered respecting the soul has been conjectural* And because they could thus form no idea of the souh very many could but believe that it is nothing else but a vital something which, when the body dies, is dissipated. Hence it is then that the learned have less belief than the simple in a life after death ; and as they do not believe in it, neither can they believe in the things relating to that life, which are the celestial and spiritual things of faith and love. This is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew : * Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes ' (xi. 25) ; and again, * Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand' (xiii. 13). For the simple have no such thoughts about the soul but believe that they will live after death ; in which simple faith is concealed—although they are not aware of it—a belief that they will live there as men and will see the angels, converse with them, and enjoy happiness. With regard to the seat of the soul above referred to, Swedenborg tells us : It should be known that man's spirit in the body is in the whole and every part of it; and that it is the purer substance of it—as well in its organs of motion as of sense, and every¬ where else ; and that his body is the material substance every¬ where annexed to it, adapted to the world in which he then is. This is what is meant by saying that man is a spirit and that the body but serves him for uses in the world ; and that the spirit is the internal of man, and the body his external. In our first chapter in which we treated of the creation of the world, we showed that matter was dead and that it was spiritual substance which was alive, for the spiritual sun in Heaven, which is an emanation from the Lord, is the source of all spiritual substance; we saw how that spiritual substance gradually cooled off, as it were, and solidified into matter; thus a duality is formed, a spiritual world within a material universe. From this material universe there is returned back to the spiritual world the human soul propagated on the material plane ; and just as the spiritual world is within the material universe, so the spiritual substantial soul is within the material THE SOUL 185 body, only it is in the whole and in every part, and is the purer substance of it* As regards the soul [says Swedenborg], of which it is said it shall live after death, it is nothing else than the man himself who lives in the body ; that is the interior man, who through the body acts in the world, and who animates the body* This man, when freed from the body, is called a spirit, and then appears in a complete human form ; yet he is invisible to the material eye* To the eye of the spirit he is however visible and appears as a man appears in the world: he has senses, touch, smell, hearing, sight, far more exquisite than those of his material body ; moreover he has appetites, pleasures, desires, affections, loves, such as he had in the material world, but in a surpassing degree ; he thinks also, as he did in the world, but more efficiently ; he converses with others ; in a word , . * unless he reflects upon the fact that he is in the other life, he does not know that he is not in the natural world. * * * For the life after death is a continuation of the life in the world. This then is the soul of man which lives after death. . * * He appears entirely as a man with all the members and organs with which man is endowed, and is in truth the very man himself who was in the body. That this is so indeed is evident from the angels seen, of which we read in the Word, who all appeared in human form; for all the angels in Heaven are in human form, because the Lord is in that form, and indeed often appeared as a man after His resurrection. Nor should it be forgotten that every part of the human organism, as indeed everything in nature, is symbolical and representative of spiritual truths and affections, hence it becomes obvious that the human soul or spirit would possess all these symbols in a world where their meaning is patent to his fellow spirits and angels* In * The True Christian Religion ' we are told that the soul is the inmost and highest part of man ; and into this proceeds direct influx from God, which thence descends into the subordinate parts and vivifies them in proportion to reception* Truths of faith enter by ear and are implanted in the mind, but these truths only serve to adjust the man for the reception of Divine influx through the soul* The origin of the soul, Swedenborg asserts, is from REASONABLE RELIGION 186 the father, and this, he maintains, no wise man doubts* He proceeds to demonstrate that this is plainly to be seen from the minds, and also from the faces, which are the types of the minds, in descendants proceeding in regular line from the fathers of families ; for as an image the father returns, if not in his sons yet in his grandsons and great- grandsons* And this comes from the cause, that the soul con¬ stitutes the inmost of man ; and though this may be covered over in the next offspring yet it comes forth and reveals itself in the descendants afterwards* That the soul is from the father, and its clothing from the mother, may be illustrated by analogies in the vegetable kingdom* Here the earth or ground is the common mother* One of the most interesting of the problems of man¬ kind is the relation of the brain and the senses* The school of sensationalists explains that the eye and the ear and the surface nerves, which have the sense of touch, convey the sensations they receive from the outside to the brain, which thus becomes in a measure little more than a passive receiver of outside impressions* This theory, of course, pre-supposed the non-existence of a soul, and attempted to account for consciousness by chemical and mechanical hypotheses* Swedenborg puts the views of this school of thought in inimitable language* Speaking of the various current opinions and theories explanatory of the intercourse between the body and the soul, he says : The first, which is called physical influx, is from appearances of the senses, and the fallacies arising out of them ; because it appears as if the objects of sight which affect the eyes flow into thought, and produce it; in like manner as if speech, which affects the ears, flows into the mind and there produces ideas* And so with the smell, the taste, and the touch* As the organs of these senses first receive the impressions flowing to them from the world, and according to the affections of them the mind appears to think and also to will, therefore ancient philosophers and schoolmen supposed influx to be derived from them into the soul, and so adopted the hypothesis of physical or natural influx. This must be admitted to be a fair statement of the THE SOUL 187 sensationalist standpoint* How unsatisfactory that is, it is perhaps a waste of time to indicate* While it may affect to account for sight, hearing, and touch, it does not explain speech and motion, which are directly voli¬ tional acts, and cannot be explained, however unsatis¬ factorily, by a purely sensational hypothesis* Without dwelling on the other hypotheses current to-day, let us plunge at once into the very lucid, rational, and compre¬ hensive teaching of Swedenborg on this subject* To begin with, then, all life is from God, or rather there is but one only life, which is that of the Lord, which flows into man and imparts life to him also—indeed, the evil as well as the good have life from this the only source. Life flows into man from God through the soul, and thence into his mind, consequently into his affections and thoughts, and from these into the senses, speech, and actions of the body; because these are in successive order* For the mind is subordinate to the soul, and the body is subordinate to the mind* Now, the mind has two distinct vital principles, or vitalities— one of the will, and the other of the understanding. The life of the will is the good of love, the derivations of which are the affections* The life of the understanding is the truth of wisdom, the derivations of which are thoughts. Through both of these the mind lives* The senses, speech, and actions are the life or vitality of the body, these are vivified by the soul through the mind, this indeed follows from the order in which they are. The human soul, being a higher spiritual substance, receives influx immediately from God ; and the human mind, being a lower spiritual substance, receives influx mediately from God through the spiritual world. The body, being composed of material substances, receives influx from God mediately through the natural world. There is Divine influx into the will, and there is also Divine influx into the understanding; the will is the receptacle of the good of love, and the understanding of the truth of wisdom, each immediately from God through the spiritual sun in which He is, and mediately through the angelic heaven* These two receptacles—the will and REASONABLE RELIGION 188 the understanding—are as distinct as heat and light. There is an influx from the human mind into speech and action, the first from the will, through the under¬ standing, the second from the understanding through the will. However, it is the will rather than the under¬ standing which colours the character of the man, for as the quality of his love is, such is his wisdom, and consequently the man is as his love is. The under¬ standing can, indeed, be elevated far above the will in the light of Heaven, for there is given to man the ability to lift the intellectual side of his mind into this light in order that he may see how to direct his conduct, so as to achieve happiness on earth and blessedness in Heaven, for God does not wish man to be miserable in either life, nor is the quest of worldly prosperity harmful, pro¬ vided it is sought not for itself, but for its uses, as a means to perfect ourselves and benefit others. Man becomes prosperous and blessed by acquiring wisdom and keeping his will obedient to it, but when he allows his will to rule his reason the reverse ensues—he becomes unpros- perous and unhappy. This is because man from his birth, and from heredity, is prone to evil, and even to enormous evils, as is indeed convincingly illustrated in the novels of Balzac and Zola. Unless man curbs his will by means of reason, he is capable of committing every conceivable wickedness, and even of destroying those who oppose him, or will not give way to him, or who merely do not share his views. Besides, unless the understanding could be separately perfected, and by acting on the will, perfect the latter, a man would be nothing more than a wild beast. Well has the Russian writer, Karamzin, said : * Reason was given to man for the control of his passions/ Man having acquired by heredity a disposition to evil, he is born an animal, and is gradually developed into a man through the operation of the understanding on the will; this, of course, is only true of the regenerate. If man [says Swedenborg] were in the order into which he was created, that is in love towards the neighbour and love towards the Lord—for these loves are proper to man—he above THE SOUL 189 all animals would be born not only into knowledges, but also into all spiritual truths and celestial goods, and thus into all wisdom and intelligence. For he is capable of thinking about the Lord, and of being conjoined to Him by love ; and so of being elevated to what is Divine and eternal, , , , Thus man would then be governed by no other than the general influx from the Lord through the spiritual world. But because he is not born into order but in a state of opposition to his order, therefore he is born into ignorance of all things ; and because this is the case, it is provided that he may afterwards be re-born, and thus come into so much of intelligence and wisdom as from freedom he may have received of good, and by good of truth. This is a convenient place for giving some account of Swedenborg's teachings regarding the thoughts and affections and the organic substances of the mind. In his * Divine Providence * he tells us : Affections, which are of the will, are mere changes of state of the purely organic substances of the mind ; and thoughts which are of the understanding, are mere changes and varia¬ tions of their form ; and the memory is the permanent state of these changes and variations. Who does not assent when it is said that there are no affections and thoughts except in substances and their forms, which are subjects i And as they exist in the brains, which are full of substances and forms, they are called purely organic forms. He then points out how irrational it is to suppose that affections and thoughts are not in substantial subjects, but exhalations modified by heat and light, like images in the air and ether, seeing that there can be no thought apart from a substantial form any more than there can be sight apart from its form—the eye, or hearing apart from the ear, etc. Examine the brain [he adds] and you will see innumerable substances, and likewise fibres, and that there is nothing there that is not organised. What need is there of other than this ocular confirmation . . . { What is affection then, and what is thought i This may be inferred from all and every one of the things that are in the body. There are many viscera there, each fixed in its place, and they perform their functions by changes and variations of state and form. That they are in the REASONABLE RELIGION 190 performance of their functions is known ; the stomach in its function ; the intestines in theirs ; the kidneys in theirs ; the liver, pancreas and spleen in theirs ; and the heart and lungs in theirs. All these operations are set in motion only from within ; and to be moved from within is to be moved by changes and variations of state and form. It is therefore evident that the operations of the purely organic substances of the mind are nothing else ; with the difference that the operations of the organic substances of the body are natural, while those of the mind are spiritual; and that by correspondences these and those make one. What is the nature of the changes and varia¬ tions of state and form of the organic substances of the mind, which are affections and thoughts, cannot be shown to the eye ; but yet they may be seen as in a mirror from the changes and variations of state of the lungs in speaking and singing. There is in fact a correspondence ; for the tone in speaking and singing and also the articulations of sound, which are the words of speech and the modulations of song, are made by the lungs ; but the tone corresponds to an affection, and the speech to thought. They are in truth produced from them—and this is done by changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances in the lungs ; and from the lungs, through the trachea or arteria aspera in the larynx and glottis ; and then in the tongue ; and finally in the lips. The first changes and variations of the state and form of sound are made in the lungs ; the second in the trachea and larynx; the third in the glottis, by the manifold openings of its orifice ; the fourth in the tongue, by its manifold applications to the palate and teeth ; the fifth in the lips by their manifold forms. From these things it is evident that mere changes and variations of state of organic forms, continued successively, produce the sounds and the articulations of them which are speech and song. Now as sound and speech are produced from no other source than from affections and thoughts of the mind—for they come from these ... it is plain that affections of the will are changes and varia¬ tions of state of the purely organic substances of the mind ; and that thoughts of the understanding are changes and variations of the form of those substances—in like manner as in the lungs. Since affections and thoughts are mere changes of state of the forms of the mind, it follows that the memory is . . . their permanent state ; for all changes and variations of state in organic substances are such, that being once habitual they become permanent. Thus the lungs are accustomed to produce various sounds in the trachea, and to vary them in the glottis, THE SOUL 191 to articulate them with the tongue, and modify them by the mouth ; and when these organic changes have become neces¬ sary the sounds are in the organs and can be reproduced. These changes and variations are infinitely more perfect in the organic substances of the mind than in those of the body. Modern psychologists have recently, or comparatively recently, discovered that man has a subconscious self, but nearly two hundred years ago Swedenborg stated in his * Intercourse between the Soul and the Body ' that man possessed voluntary and involuntary, or automatic, activities. To prevent misunderstanding it is best to quote the whole of the passage in which this statement occurs; he is speaking of goodness, and says : As regards every good that constitutes heavenly life, and so eternal life, with men and with angels, the case is this : The inmost of good is the Lord Himself, even the good of love, which is immediately from Him. The next succeeding good is the good of mutual love ; then follows the good of charity towards the neighbour ; and lastly the good of faith. . . . From this it may be seen how matters stand with regard to immediate and mediate influx. In general, in the degree only in which a good, successive in order—that is to say, an exterior good—has the higher interior good within it, is it a real good ; for it is in that degree that it is nearer to the Lord Himself, the inmost of all good. But the successive co-ordination and arrangement of interior goods in the exterior varies in each and every subject according to reception, which varies with and is dependent on the spiritual and moral life of each individual recipient in the material or natural world. For the life led in the world remains with every individual to eternity. The influx of the Lord is also immediate with every individual, for the mediate influx would be of no effect without it. Immediate influx is received according to the order in which the individual, whether man or angel, may be ; thus according to the Divine truth which is from the Divine, for this is order. It is order itself therefore for man that he should live in the good which is from the Lord; that is to say, that he should live from the Lord. This immediate influx is continual, and is in relation with every one and all the things of man's will, and directs them in order as far as possible, for man's will continually strives in the opposite direction. It is as with things voluntary and involun¬ tary (or automatic) in man. His voluntary actions continually 192 REASONABLE RELIGION lead away from order; but the involuntary (or automatic) acts continually revert to order* Hence it is that the action of the hearty which is involuntary, is entirely outside the control of the will; in the same way also the action of the cerebellum ; and this is why the action of the heart and the powers of the cerebellum govern the voluntary acts, so that these may be curbed in their imperiousness and prevented from rushing beyond bounds, and thus jeopardising the life of the body before its time* For this reason the activities of both the voluntary and involuntary principles in the body proceed in conjunction* According to order, the celestial flows into the spiritual and adapts it to itself, and the spiritual flows into the reason and adapts it to itself, and the reason or rational into knowledge in the same way* Though there is a similar order while man is being instructed in earliest childhood, this does not seem to be the case, for it appears that progress is from knowledge to reason, from things known to things rational, from these to things spiritual, and finally to things celestial* That this seems to be the order is because the way must be opened to things celestial, which are the inmost* All instruction is but an opening of the way; and as the way is opened, or as the receptacles are opened, there flows in, according to order, from the celestial-spiritual, things rational; within them are things celestial-spiritual, and within these, things celestial* These are continually pouring forth and also preparing for themselves, and forming, receptacles which are opened* This will appear from the consideration that knowledge and reason are faculties which have this appearance from the interior life which flows in* Take, for instance, thought and judgment* In these lie concealed all the secrets of art and of analytical science, which are so numerous that they cannot possibly be explored; all the thought and all the speech, not only of adults but also of children, are full of them, although even the most learned are unaware of it; and this could never be if the celestial and spiritual things within were not pouring in and producing all these results* The above will give the reader some idea of Sweden- THE SOUL 193 borg's teaching regarding the soul and its organic structure* This soul, being a substance, though not material but spiritual, is therefore indestructible* This we know to be a fact in the case of matter, and if matter is indestructible it follows that spiritual substance, which is of a higher order, must also be indestructible* The body does not die, it decomposes, the soul lives on* But how i In healthy, normal and consequently happy surroundings i Or does it assume noxious morbid qualities i In the latter case it must putrefy and become abnormal, it cannot die, but it can become fetid and moribund, evil and malevolent* The future fate of our immortal soul is not only of supreme importance to every individual, it is of importance to the universe ; if our soul becomes in after life a malevolent spirit, it will add to the sum of the already existing forces of evil* Therefore from the purely humanitarian point of view, from what may be called the Comtist point of view, it is incumbent on us to do all that in us lies to save our souls* What shall we do to be saved i To this question Swedenborg gives a full and exhaustive answer in his * Heaven and Hell/ Some people imagine 1 [he says] that it is difficult to live the life which leads to Heaven, which is called spiritual life, because they have been told that they must renounce the world and put aside what are called the concupiscences of the body and the flesh, and live in the spirit, and they believe this to mean that they must reject the world with its riches and honours, and lead a life of pious meditation upon God, salva¬ tion and eternal life ; and spend their time in religious exercises* This, however, Swedenborg maintains to be a mistaken idea. On the contrary, in order to receive the life of heaven, it is necessary that man should live in the world and engage in business and perform his duties, for spiritual life can only be received through civil and moral life* To lead an internal life secluded from the world unfits a man for Heaven. Man's life should be threefold, it should be spiritual, moral and civil, yet all three phases are distinct, for people have been known to live good civil lives, and even good moral lives, without leading spiritual lives. Spiritual life is within natural life, as the soul 1 For purposes of brevity this passage has been paraphrased. o 194 REASONABLE RELIGION is within the body, and moral and civil lives are the activities or manifestations of spiritual life. Most people lead good civil and moral lives, the wicked as well as the good, for every¬ body wants to appear just and sincere in the eyes of the world. With the spiritual man, however, the motive is different, and he acts sincerely and justly because this is agreeable to the Divine laws. Indeed in all his conduct the spiritual man has regard to the Divine laws, and in proportion as he does so he is in communion with angels, his internal or spiritual nature is opened and he is adopted and unconsciously led by the Lord, When anything presents itself to man which he knows to be insincere and unjust, but which he is inclined to do, nothing more is necessary than that he should reflect that it ought not to be done because it is contrary to the Divine commandments. If he accustoms himself to think so, and acquires a habit from that custom he is then gradually conjoined to Heaven ; but in proportion as he is conjoined to Heaven the higher principles of his mind are opened, and in proportion as they are opened he is able to discern insincerity and injustice ; and in pro¬ portion as he sees them, they are capable of being removed, for it is impossible that any evil can be removed until it is seen, * This is a state into which a man may enter in perfect freedom, for who cannot think in perfect freedom in this manner i But when he has thus made a beginning, the Lord operates within him to produce every variety of goodness, and enables him not only to see, but to reject evils from his will, and, finally to hold them in aversion. This is what is meant by the Lord's words : “ My yoke is easy and my burden is light '' (Matthew xi, 30) but the difficulty in thinking in this way and of resisting evils increases in proportion as a man commits evils voluntarily, for he then proportionately accustoms himself to them, until he ceases to see them, and even loves them, excuses them, and finally regards them as permissible and good. This is the case with those who, at mature age, plunge into evils without restraint, and at the same time reject Divine things from the heart.' 4 The way,' says Swedenborg, 4 which leads to life is narrow , not because it is difficult, but because there are few who find it.' Yet it must not be supposed that even those who have not found it in this world cannot be made fit for Heaven. The ways of Providence are inscrutable, but Swedenborg THE SOUL 195 assures us that those who have a vestige of a conscience are saved. Moreover errors of belief and faith are not condemnatory. How the reformation of these unpre¬ pared spirits is effected in the spiritual world we shall see in the next chapter. It suffices for the present to say one word on the subject of regeneration. As we have seen, man is born into this world with evil tendencies hereditarily acquired, just as he is born with hereditary physical taints and tendencies, such as gout and tuberculosis for instance. These have to be eradicated. We have seen that this is effected almost unconsciously, but man must be willing, he must desire to reform, and he must therefore remove the evils of his nature, as they come forth and manifest themselves, of his own free will. He is all unconscious (and must be so or he would cease to be a free agent) that God is working for him, stimulating him to reject his evils, and fighting them for him. But there comes a time when the man becomes divided against himself, when his old and un¬ regenerate carnal will rebels against the new spiritual will that has been almost imperceptibly engrafted in him, a combat ensues, and this is what is meant by temptation. In these temptations it is God who fights for us, for we ourselves would be impotent, indeed only too often do we give up the combat and declare ourselves beaten, as in appearance we have been, when as a matter of fact, a great victory has been won for us, and, although we may think that our case is hopeless, we find to our surprise very often, after a little while, that it was the enemy, and not we, who was defeated. But let a man beware of ascribing merit to himself. If he, from self-derived prudence, persuades himself and confirms himself in the idea that every good and truth he may manifest is in and from himself, he is in the state typified by Adam and Eve after they had succumbed to the wiles of the serpent, and had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Such a man ends by re¬ jecting God, and by attributing everything to nature and human prudence, and finally will ascribe to himself every evil and falsity. If a man would but believe, what is REASONABLE RELIGION 196 indeed the case, that everything of goodness and truth that he may appear to possess is from the Lord, and that everything evil and false was from hell, he would neither appropriate to himself good and make it meritorious, nor would he appropriate to himself evil and make himself guilty of it. We have seen that there is a constant influx from the Lord into man of goodness, and of truth into that good¬ ness, man either receives it, or closes the door to it. It is ill with him if he does not obey the injunction conveyed in the twenty-fourth Psalm, * Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory i The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle/ However if when he refuses to admit the Lord, who stands at the door and knocks, he experiences a sensation of anxiety there is hope that he may be reformed ; but if he has no such anxiety, the hope vanishes. With every man there are two spirits from hell, and two angels from Heaven; because, man being born in evil could not live unless he communicated on the one hand with hell and on the other with Heaven, between which he is kept while on earth in a state of unstable equilibrium. If, when in full maturity he inclines to evils, he swings himself towards the two infernal spirits, and they approach, but should he turn himself towards good he comes in closer proximity to the two angels from Heaven and the infernal spirits from hell are removed. Consequently when a man betakes himself to evils, as is the case with most in youth, if, when he reflects upon his wrong doing, he experiences any anxiety or qualms of conscience, that is a sign that he will still receive influx through the angels from Heaven and that he will suffer himself to be reformed ; but if he should have no such feelings it is a sign to the contrary. As a man becomes more closely conjoined to the Lord he becomes wiser and happier, and appears to himself freer and perceives more clearly that he is the Lord's, CHAPTER XI The Hereafter If we have an immortal soul, and many men of science are beginning to believe that we have, and are adducing scientific proofs of its existence, it follows that that soul cannot die. After the decease of the body the immortal soul must survive, indeed many credible witnesses, men of education and learning amongst them, claim to have held communication with the spirits of the departed. What does the spirit do after it has left the body i How and in what conditions does it live i What are its occupations { Is it happy or miserable i And if either, in what does the happiness and misery consist i These are questions which can only be answered by those who have actually heard and seen how departed spirits live, and this Sweden¬ borg claims to have done. Before proceeding to give his answers to the above questions, and to examine their probable accuracy, let us first consider what our own preconceived ideas on this subject are. As children we are generally taught that after death good people go to Heaven and bad people to hell, that Heaven is a place where angels are assembled round the throne of God in praise of whom they sing without ceasing, accompanying their vocal outpourings on harps. It is a very pretty idea, but it strikes even a child as rather a monotonous way of spending eternity. Both the Scandinavian Valhalla and the Mahomedan Paradise would be more attractive to the carnally minded. How¬ ever, it is certainly preferable to the fate predicted for REASONABLE RELIGION 198 the wicked who, we are told, will be kept perpetually burning in hell-fire* Absurd as this idea of the next world may seem, there is yet a certain quantum of spiritual truth hidden within it. In Heaven we shall certainly be in a perpetual state of thankfulness and praise to God, and our hearts will be continually glad with song. Those of us who encounter another fate will be burning with passions and desires, the lusts of our infernal loves. Let us for one moment consider Swedenborg's teach¬ ing concerning matter and substance. Nature, he tells us, is cold and dead. We may, perhaps, by way of illustration, describe it as a sort of waste product, a refuse, into which life is re-introduced in order that human souls may be propagated in this world with the object of attaining eternal blessedness. The real world, the world of life, is the spiritual world, and the spiritual substance, of which the spiritual sun, which is a direct emanation from the Lord, is the source, is true substance. Hence it follows that life in the spiritual world must be much more intense, much more vital, if such tautology may be pardoned, much more real than anything we can conceive. We will now proceed to give, in a condensed and popular form, the gist of what Swedenborg has to say about the future state. For a full and complete study of the subject we refer the reader to * Heaven and Hell/ published in various editions by the Swedenborg Society and also in Dent's * Everyman's Library,' To begin at the beginning, what happens at death i * When the body is no longer able to perform its natural functions, corresponding to the thoughts and affections of its spirit, derived from the spiritual world, man is said to die '—this follows the cessation of the action of the lungs and the heart, but when man dies he only passes from one world into another, * The inmost communi¬ cation between the spirit and the body is in respiration and heart action ; for thought communicates with the former, and affection, which is love, with the heart' (the heart corresponds to the will). The separation of THE HEREAFTER 199 the spirit from the body follows instantly on the cessation of these two activities, whereupon the body grows cold and putrefies. But the spirit remains in the body until the heart has completely stopped beating. As soon as it stops man is resuscitated, but this is effected by the Lord alone. Resuscitation is the withdrawal of the spirit from the body and its introduction into the spiritual world, and is commonly called resurrection. Communication as to the pulse of the heart is now opened with the celestial kingdom, because this corre¬ sponds with the heart. Angels from that kingdom then approach, and two are near the head. All affection proper to the man is thus removed, but thought and perception remain. After some hours the spirits with¬ draw, and an aromatic odour as of a body embalmed is sensible. When spirits notice this odour they cannot approach, and thus evil spirits are also kept away when a man is first introduced into eternal life. The angels who sit near the head are silent, but communicate their thoughts, and when such thoughts are received by the man, they know that he is in a fit state to be entirely separated from the body. The spirit of man is held in the state of thought in which he was at the time of death, until he returns to the thoughts which flow from the general affection or ruling passion which was his in the world. There is a drawing, and, as it were, a pulling of the interiors of the mind from the body, and this proceeds from the Lord, and is the means by which resurrection is effected. The celestial angels in attendance do not leave the man, because they love all men, but if he is of a quality which prevents him from remaining with celestial angels, he wishes to leave them, and angels from the Lord's spiritual kingdom approach and give him light, for as yet he can only think, but sees nothing. After describing how this is done, by unrolling the coating of the left eye, Swedenborg says that a sensation is produced as though something was being gently unrolled from the face : this is succeeded by a state of spiritual thought. The angels now tell the man that he is a spirit; they render him 200 REASONABLE RELIGION all the kind offices which he can possibly desire, and instruct him concerning the things of the spiritual life, so far as he can understand them ; but if he does not care to be instructed he wishes to leave them* The angels do not leave him, but it is he who dissociates himself from them* He is then received by good spirits, who also render him kind offices whilst he remains with them* But if his life in the world has been such as to make him unable to endure the society of the good, he wishes to leave them also, and these changes continue until he finds his true affinities* With them he finds his life, and leads a similar life to that which he had led in the world* A man on entering the world of spirits is in human form, and has all the organs and members of a corporeal man; he also, at first, retains the countenance and tone of voice which he had in the world, but afterwards the face is changed and becomes entirely different, for it assumes the likeness of his ruling love* Those who are principled in good affections are beautiful, but the faces of those who are in evil affections appear deformed* Every man's life remains with him after death, and we are told repeatedly in the Bible that man will be judged and rewarded according to his deeds and works* By these are meant not only his outward actions, but his real interior intentions* Good actions which are not performed for their own sake but from an ulterior motive are really evil* People who act for the sake of self and the world are not really sincere and just, though they may appear so* The life which remains with man after death is his love and faith realised in action, for to think and will without action, when action is possible, is to be like a flame shut up in a close vessel which dies away* Deeds or works, therefore, constitute man's spiritual life, because they contain within them all things of his love and faith* Moreover, man after death remains to eternity of the same quality as his will, or ruling love* Having shown how the spirit of man is introduced to the spiritual world, and finally gravitates towards his true affinities, let us see what the world of spirits is, into which he makes his first entry* THE HEREAFTER 201 The world of spirits [says Swedenborg] is neither heaven nor hell, but an intermediate place or state between the two, into which man enters immediately after death, and then, after a certain period, the duration of which is determined by the quality of his life in the world, he is either raised to Heaven, or cast into hell. The Roman Catholics evidently had some idea of this and based their doctrine of purgatory on it. Man passes through three states after death before he enters either Heaven or hell. The first state is that of his exteriors, the second that of his interiors, and the third is one of preparation. All these states are experi¬ enced in the world of spirits ; but some spirits do not pass through them, and are either taken up directly into Heaven or cast into hell immediately after death. Those immediately taken up into Heaven had been regenerated in the world, and when so prepared need only cast off their natural defilements with the body to be carried by angels to Heaven. In the ordinary course, man after death comes imme¬ diately into the state of his exteriors. The exteriors of the spirit enable him to adapt the body, the face, speech, and manners to the society in which he lives in the world, but the interiors of the spirit are of his own will and its derivative thought, and are rarely exhibited in the face, speech, or manner, for man is accustomed from infancy to assume the appearance of friendship, benevolence, and sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts of his will. He thus contracts outward habits in agreement with moral and civil life, whatever his real interior character may be, with the result that he scarcely knows anything of his internals and thinks nothing about them. In this first state man is as he was in the world. All spirits on their entrance into another life are recognised by their friends, relations, and acquaintances, and talk to and associate with them as before. Married partners meet and con¬ tinue together for longer or shorter periods, according to the degree of delight which attended their cohabita¬ tion in the world. If they had not been united by truly conjugal love, they are subsequently separated ; but if 202 REASONABLE RELIGION their minds were discordant, and they held each other interiorly in aversion, they break out into open enmity, and even into actual fighting, but they are not separated until they enter the second state* Usually, seeing that their life is not unlike that which they led in the world, spirits, after wondering that they are in the body and in the enjoyment of their senses, and that they see objects similar to those they saw in the world, are seised with a desire for knowledge of Heaven and hell, and want to be informed where they are* Their friends then instruct them, and show them beautiful towns, paradises and scenery, because these things delight their externals* Almost all are anxious to know whether they will go to Heaven, and many believe they will, because they led a moral and civil life in the world, not knowing that the quality of conduct depends upon intentions and thoughts, and the love and faith inspiring it* They are examined by good spirits, and the evil are easily distinguished from the good by their ready atten¬ tion when they are spoken to about external things, and their disregard for the truths and goods of Heaven and the Church, which, being internal things, do not interest them* The first state of man after death is not pro¬ tracted ; its duration is, however, determined according to the rapidity with which the exteriors and interiors are brought into unison, for no one is allowed in the spiritual world to think and will in one way and to speak and act in another* Every one there must be the express image of his own affection or love, thus the same outwardly as interiorly* The second state after death is that of the interiors, for man is then let into his interiors, while the exteriors are kept dormant* There are two kinds of thought, the one exterior and the other interior, as is evidenced in the case of hypocrites and sycophants* When a spirit is in this second state he thinks from his true will, and con¬ sequently from his real affection or love, so that his thought is united with his will, and this union is so perfect that the spirit appears not so much to think as to will* He now acts from his selfhood, and thus clearly THE HEREAFTER 203 shows what kind of man he was during his life in the world. The quality of the wicked in this state cannot be briefly described because they are all insane according to their lusts, and these are various. Those who only loved themselves and worked in the world for reputation and self-aggrandisement are particularly stupid, for they are in antagonism to heavenly wisdom. In this second state evil spirits rush headlong into every kind of crime, for which they are severely punished, because it is only by fear that their evils can be subdued. Good spirits are never punished, although they may have committed sins in the world, because their evils do not return. These were not perpetrated with a purpose contrary to the truth, nor from an evil heart or will, but from the evil inherited from parents. Sins thus com¬ mitted are through the snare of blind delight, when man is in externals separate from internals. * Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile/ (Psalm xxxii.) The separation of evil spirits from good spirits is effected in this second state. Into the third state only good spirits are admitted, for it is a state of instruction, and evil spirits cannot be instructed. Instruction is given by the angels of many societies, and the places of instruc¬ tion are of various kinds, arranged and distinguished, according to the genera and species of heavenly goods, to suit the different capacities and types of spirits. The good spirits to be instructed are led there by the Lord when they have passed through the second state, except those who were instructed in the world, and were there prepared by the Lord for Heaven; these are taken to their destination by another way. Some are admitted imme¬ diately after death, some after a short stay with good spirits where the grossness of thought and affection con¬ tracted from honours and riches are removed from them, and they are thus purified. Others who, though they may have led a good life, have confirmed themselves in errors, undergo grievous sufferings before these errors 204 REASONABLE RELIGION and falsities, which when confirmed by the will adhere most tenaciously, can be dispersed to make way for truths* Swedenborg concludes his description of the world of spirits, or the intermediate state, with a warning* They who are instructed concerning Heaven [he says] suppose that entrance into Heaven is the gift of free mercy to those who have faith, and for whom the Lord intercedes* They therefore believe that admission is granted by mere favour, and that all men without exception might be saved if it were the Lord's pleasure* Some even go farther and imagine that all who are in hell might be saved also* * * * It is therefore expedient to define what the Divine Mercy is. Divine Mercy is the pure mercy of the Lord which seeks the salvation of the whole human race* It is continually present with every man for this end, and never recedes from him, so that every one who can be, is saved, but no one can be saved except by Divine means, which are revealed by the Lord in the Word* Divine means are * . . Divine truths, and Divine truths teach man how to live in order to be saved. By them the Lord leads man to Heaven, and implants the life of heaven within him, and this He does with all; but the life of heaven cannot be implanted in any one unless he abstains from evil, because evil is anta¬ gonistic* So far therefore as man abstains from evil, the Lord leads him by Divine means out of pure mercy, from infancy to the end of life in the world, and afterwards to eternity* This is the Divine Mercy, and hence it is evident that the Lord's mercy is pure mercy, and that it is not immediate or uncon¬ ditional mercy which might save all by mere good pleasure let their life be what it may* The Lord never acts contrary to order, because He is Order itself. The Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord makes order, and Divine truths are the laws of order, according to which the Lord leads man. To save man, therefore, by immediate mercy would be contrary to Divine Order, and what is contrary to Divine Order is contrary to the Divine Himself* We will now turn to Swedenborg's description of Heaven* This spiritual region which is populated entirely by angels from the human race who have inhabited one of the innumerable globes of the universe, is divided in general into two kingdoms, specifically into three THE HEREAFTER 205 heavens, and in particular into countless societies. The angels of the celestial kingdom receive the Divine influx from the Lord in their wills, and consequently more interiorly than those of the spiritual kingdom who receive it in their intellect. Celestial love is love of the Lord, whilst spiritual love is charity towards the neigh¬ bour. There is communication and conjunction between the two kingdoms by means of intermediate celestial- spiritual angelic societies. The three heavens are perfectly distinct, and consist of the inmost, or third; the middle or second ; and the ultimate, or first heaven. They are in mutual relation like the chief parts of a man, the head, the body, and the legs and feet. The Divine influx which proceeds and descends from the Lord is in similar order, hence from the necessity of order, Heaven is three¬ fold. The Divine influx into the third heaven is celestial, that into the second spiritual, and that into the first or ultimate, natural, but this is not the same as what we call natural, it is a spiritual and celestial natural, and the angels there are spiritual natural and celestial natural; these are distinct, yet constitute one heaven, being in the same degree. In every heaven there is an internal and an external, which are like the will and the intellect with man. Those angels who admit Divine Truths im¬ mediately into the life, viz., into the will and thence into act, are in the inmost or third heaven, but those who admit them first into the memory, from thence into the reason, from which they act, are in the middle or second heaven, whilst those who, whilst living morally and believing in God, have no particular concern to be in¬ structed, are in the lowest or first heaven. For Heaven is within us, and not outside. Although the heavens are so distinct that the angels of one cannot associate with those of another, yet they are all united by the Lord by immediate influx from Himself into all, and mediate influx from one heaven into another, for unless they were thus connected they would not form a one, and yet heaven viewed collectively is in the form of a man, and is governed by the Lord as a unit, consisting indeed of many parts, just as the human body is composed of members, organs 2 o6 REASONABLE RELIGION and viscera, which again are composed of fibres, nerves, blood vessels, etc. The angels of each heaven are not together, but segregated in greater or smaller societies according to the different varieties of good in which they may be. These societies are distant from each other according to the general and specific differences of their goodness. The angels of a society are similarly graduated, the most perfect being in the centre, and the others proportionately distant, very much as light decreases from its centre to its circumference. Angels of similar quality have a sort of chemical affinity or molecular attraction for each other and are spontaneously drawn to each other. Every angel is a miniature of heaven, so to speak, and every society of angels, when seen collectively, appears as a man, although the form of each society varies. The light of heaven is Divine truth, and its heat, Divine good, both proceeding from the Lord as a sun. But the Lord does not appear as a sun in Heaven, but on high and above the heavens, yet not above the head or in the zenith, but before the faces of the angels, at a medium altitude. He appears to each angel according to individual receptivity. To those who receive Him in the goodness of love He appears as a fiery flaming sun, and these, as already stated, are in His celestial kingdom. But to those who receive Him in the goodness of faith He appears as a white and brilliant moon, these are in His spiritual kingdom. This difference is due to correspondence, for fire is love and light is faith in the spiritual sense. However, when the Lord appears within Heaven, as is frequently the case, he appears in an angelic form, but He is never personally in Heaven, because personally He is always encompassed with the sun; He is there by aspect. There are four quarters in Heaven as in the world, but in Heaven all quarters are determined from the east, where the Lord appears as a sun; moreover, the east is always in front of the angels, the west behind them, the south on their right, and the north on their left. This is because the whole Heaven turns itself to the Lord as to its common THE HEREAFTER 207 centre* It is analogous to the centripetal force and gravitation in the natural world, with this difference, that in Heaven it is the front and fore-part which tends to the centre, whilst in the world it is the lower parts, which, being nearer, are more strongly attracted* Which¬ ever way the angels may turn they still have the east in front of them, because their changes of aspect are different from those of men, and all determinations of aspect, both with spirits and angels, spring from their ruling love* This, Swedenborg says, is one of the wonders of Heaven. It is also marvellous that although the aspect of the angels is always to the east, yet they have an aspect to the other quarters; but this is from their interior or intellectual sight. In the spiritual kingdom, where the Lord appears as a moon, this is also in the east, but there is a distance of thirty degrees between the sun and the moon in heaven, consequently there is the same difference between the quarters of the celestial and spiritual kingdoms* All the denizens of Heaven have their dwellings in accordance with the quarters. Those who are in the goodness of love dwell east and west, those who are in clear perception dwelling in the east, and those who are in obscure perception in the west. Those who are in wisdom derived from the goodness of love dwell south and north, those in the clear light of wisdom south, and those in obscure light, north* The dwellings of the angels in the spiritual kingdom are arranged on the same principle. The same arrangement prevails in every society in Heaven, and every angel knows his place* It must not be supposed, however, that life in Heaven is monotonous ; on the contrary the angels are constantly undergoing changes of state, changes as to their love and faith, and their wisdom and intelligence, and these interior changes affect their outward living conditions. These changes have some analogy with the changes of the seasons and the times of the day, for while the latter are dependent on the world's attitude towards the sun, the former are dependent on the attitude of the angels 208 REASONABLE RELIGION towards the Lord, In the Bible, days and years signify states of life in general, heat and light, love and wisdom; the morning, the first and highest degree of love; noon, wisdom in its light; the evening, wisdom in its shade; daybreak, the obscurity which preceded the morn (or the first and highest degree of love); and night, the privation of love and wisdom. One of the causes of these changes is the love of self, for even the angels have self-love or they could not enjoy happiness; but they are restrained or withheld from this love by the Lord, In proportion as this restraint is relaxed they sink into this self-love, and hence arise changes of state and successive vicissitudes. These changes of state, however, are means of perfecting those who experience them, whose perception and sense of good is rendered more exquisite by these alternations of delight and dejection, or undelight. By these alterna¬ tions angels are perfected to eternity, for there can be no finality to goodness and wisdom. The angels have no conception of time, although they live in a successive progression, as in the world, and that so completely that there is no difference. The reason being that instead of years and days, as there are on earth, there are changes of state. This can be logically under¬ stood when it is remembered that the source of time is the sun, and that the spiritual sun affects angels according to the state of receptivity in which they are, as we have seen above. All things in Heaven also appear to be in space and in place just as in the world, yet the angels have no idea of space or place. Here again, all changes of locality or area are effected by changes of state of the interiors, hence there are no distances, only changes of state. Change of place being only change of state [as Swedenborg says] it is evident that approximations are similitudes of the state of the interiors, and that removals are dissimilitudes, and hence it is that they are near to each other who are in a similar state, and distant who are in a dissimilar state, and that spaces in Heaven are merely external states corresponding to internal. From this cause alone are the heavens distinct from each other, THE HEREAFTER 209 and each society of every heaven, and every individual in each society ; and hence also the hells are altogether separated from the heavens. The objects which appear in the heavens are nearly all similar to those on earth, yet they are not similar in essence, seeing that they have their being directly from the sun of Heaven, whilst material objects owe their existence indirectly to the natural sun. To those who are in intelligence in Heaven there appear gardens and paradises, full of trees and every variety of flowers, the trees also bear fruit according to the goodness of love in which these angels are principled. They walk in these paradises, gather flowers, and weave garlands for little children. Angels have clothes, houses and similar things, only in much greater perfection than on earth. In describing how the angels are attired Swedenborg says : The most intelligent have garments which glitter as with flame, and some are resplendent as with light; while the less intelli¬ gent have garments of clear or opaque white without splendour, and the still less intelligent have garments of various colours ; but the angels of the inmost heaven are naked. . . . The garments of the angels do not merely appear to be garments, but really are garments, for the angels not only see them, but feel them, and have many changes which they take off and put on, laying aside those which are not in use, and resuming them when they come into use again. Angels also have houses, exactly like those on earth, only more beautiful. They contain various kinds of rooms including bedrooms, and they have courts, gardens and fields. Indeed, there are rural and urban residences; and the towns are arranged in streets and squares, etc. There are also palaces in Heaven of a magnificence, Swedenborg affirms, beyond description. * Their upper parts were refulgent as if of pure gold, and their basements as if they were precious stones : some were more splendid than others, and the splendour without was equalled by the magnificence within/ Not only the palaces and houses, but the minutest details correspond to interior things. 210 REASONABLE RELIGION The houses occupied by the angels are not built, but are given them freely by the Lord according to their reception of good and truth, and vary with their change of state referred to above* Whatsoever the angels possess they hold as gifts from the Lord* Some angels do not live in societies but separately, these are in the midst of Heaven and the most perfect* As Heaven consists of societies it follows that there are governments there, these governments are various and adapted to the states of the various societies, but in one essential they are identical, the only government in Heaven is the government of mutual love, this is heavenly govern¬ ment* The governors are distinguished by greater love and wisdom, they are benevolent towards all, and their wisdom enables them to give effect to their benevolence* They do not domineer and command, but minister and serve, nor do they magnify themselves in their relations to others, but rather humble themselves, for they put the good of society in the first place, and themselves in the last* Nevertheless they enjoy honour and glory and are housed in splendid palaces, but they accept these distinctions for the sake of obedience, because all know that they enjoy them from the Lord, and not for the sake of their own gratification* Seeing that there is civil government in Heaven, it follows that there is Divine Worship with churches and preachers, these are fully described in 4 Heaven and Hell/ We need not emphasise the fact that the angels must have occupation* The idea of living to eternity in a state of idleness may appeal to the Oriental mind, to Buddhists who look forward to Nirvana, but is not in harmony with the Christian ideal of charity* In this connection it may be interesting to read that: * It is impossible to enumerate or to describe speci¬ fically the employments of Heaven, because they are innumerable and various according to the distinct offices of every society/ for every society has its function and every one in Heaven performs some use, for it is a kingdom of uses* As we have seen there is civil government, and there are ecclesiastical affairs and domestic affairs* Then THE HEREAFTER 211 there are societies whose duties consist in taking care of infants, others who instruct and educate them as they grow up, others again who attend to the young, there are those who teach the simply good from the Christian world and lead them into the way to Heaven, others who render similar services to the * Gentiles/ others who defend novitiate spirits, or new-comers from the infestations of evil spirits, some are present with spirits in hell to restrain them from tormenting each other beyond certain limits, then there are those who, as we have seen, attend on the dead and dying. Moreover angels of every society are sent to men that they may guard them and withdraw them from evil affections and thoughts, and inspire them, as far as they may be willing, with good ones. All these employments of the angels are functions per¬ formed by the Lord through them. Apart from these, however, every angel has his own particular duty: all angels delight in their work and labour, as they all have a love of use, and no love of fame or of gain; indeed, all their needs are freely supplied. As Heaven is from the human race, and as the human race has two sexes, it follows, seeing that spirits after death have a substantial body in all respects similar to their corporeal body, that there should be marriages in Heaven. But marriage in Heaven is the joining of two minds in one. Two married partners in Heaven are there not called two but one angel, for in Heaven the will of the wife is also the will of the husband, and the understanding of the husband is also that of the wife. For a full explanation of conjugal love we must refer the reader to our chapter on 4 Sex/ Marriages in Heaven differ from marriages on earth inasmuch as there is no procreation of children there, but only procreation of goodness and truth. One of the most important duties of angels is, as we have seen, the training of infants. Swedenborg assures us that every infant wheresoever born, whether within the Church or not, whether of wicked parents or good, is, if it dies in infancy, received by the Lord and educated in Heaven. Infants are instructed principally by representatives, and Swedenborg gives a charming description of how this is 212 REASONABLE RELIGION done* Lest angels who have departed the worldly life in their infancy and have grown up in Heaven should imagine that their goodness is inherent in themselves, they are sometimes let into their hereditary evils until they acknow¬ ledge and believe that they owe whatever goodness they have to the Lord* Swedenborg gives some interesting descriptions of various public functions in heavenly societies, such as athletic sports, public debates, and even banquets* There is no reason to suppose that there is no literature or art, or that there are no theatres in Heaven, and on the contrary we are told by him that there is most exquisite music* We must now turn from the delightful subject of Heaven, the surface of which, as it were, we have only skimmed, for we have no space to dwell upon what Swedenborg has to say concerning the blessedness of Heaven, the peace of Heaven, and the wisdom and power of the angels, their speech, their writing, and innumerable other details full of luminous wisdom, all corroborated and illustrated by quotations from the Word* It is less pleasant to consider the fate of those who, after death, are found to have formed a character which unfits them for Heaven* It may be said that such persons are punished; so indeed they are, but their punishment is self- inflicted, and if they were admitted into Heaven we can easily conclude, from what has been said about the constitu¬ tion of heavenly societies, that they would be profoundly miserable there* At the close of his book on * The Divine Providence * Swedenborg records an interesting experience* Certain spirits [he tells us], by permission, ascended from hell, and said to me, * You have written a great deal from the Lord, write something also from us/ I replied, * What shall I write i * They said, * Write that every spirit, whether he be good or evil, is in his own delight—the good in the delight of his good and the evil in the delight of his evil/ I asked them, 4 What may your delight be i 1 They said that it was the delight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding and lying. Again I asked , 4 What is the nature of these delights i * To this question the spirits replied that their delights were perceived by others as revolting and disgusting, but THE HEREAFTER 213 were, nevertheless, most delightful to them. * Then/ said Swedenborg, * you are like the unclean beasts which live in such filth/ They answered, * If we are, we are ; but such things are the delights of our nostrils/ On asking them what else he should write they told him : * Write this, that it is permitted every one to be in his own delight, even the most unclean, as it is called, provided he does not infest good spirits and angels ; but as we could not do otherwise than infest them, we were driven out, and cast into hell, where we experience direful sufferings/ On being asked why they infested the good, they explained they could not do otherwise, and that they felt themselves invaded by a sort of fury when they saw an angel and felt the Divine sphere around him. We have seen that Heaven is governed by the Lord, but, as Swedenborg explains, since the relation of Heaven to hell and of hell to Heaven is like that of two opposites mutually acting against each other, and by this action and re-action producing an equilibrium in which all things subsist; therefore in order that all things may be kept in equilibrium, it is necessary that He who rules the heavens should also rule the hells ; for unless the same Ruler restrained the assaults of hell and calmed the insanities which rage there, equilibrium would be destroyed and the whole universe would perish. When two things mutually act against each other, and the reaction and resistance of the one are equal to the action and impulse of the other, neither of them has any force ; because each neutralises the other, and therefore a third may act upon them at pleasure as easily as if there were no opposition. Such is the equilibrium between Heaven and hell. It is not the equilibrium of two bodily combatants whose strength is equal, but it is the spiritual equilibrium between the false and the true, evil and good. There is a continual exhalation from hell of the false derived from evil, and a continual exhalation from Heaven of the true derived from good, and hence results a spiritual equilibrium, in which man enjoys freedom of thought and will. . ♦ . All the inhabitants of the world of spirits exist in that equilibrium, because the world of spirits is mid-way between Heaven and hell, and all men in the natural world are kept in a similar equilibrium for the same reason. 214 REASONABLE RELIGION Hell is divided into as many societies as Heaven, for every society in heaven has its opposite in hell; but there is no personal infernal ruler of hell* The Devil means hell under one aspect and Satan means hell under another* As the universal Heaven in one complex constitutes one man, so the universal hell may be described as constituting one monster, or devil* Although there is no supreme Devil, there are governments in hell to keep the internals in restraint* Infernal government springs from self-love, for every one in hell desires to rule over others and to be the greatest* Infernal spirits hate those who do not favour them, and they pursue them with vengeance and cruelty, wherefore the most malignant are made governors, and rule by fear, but they dare not pass beyond certain prescribed limits* The punishments of hell are various, and are gentle or severe according to the nature of the evils to be restrained, but the fear of punishment is the only means of restraining the violence and fury of the infernal spirits. Their severe punishment appears to be the Lord's doing, but no punish¬ ment is from the Lord* Evil itself is the origin of punish¬ ment, because evil and its own punishment are so intimately associated that they cannot be separated* Infernal spirits love and desire nothing better than to do evil, and especially to inflict punishment and torture on others* They consequently actually injure and punish every one who is not protected by the Lord, and since all who do evil from an evil heart reject the protection of the Lord, infernal spirits rush upon them and punish them* Imagine [says Swedenborg] a state of society composed entirely of men who love themselves alone, and who love others only so far as they make one with themselves. It is evident that their love is like that which exists among robbers; for they embrace and call each other friends when they are united by a common interest; but when that is severed they despise all subordination, and murder one another* If the interiors or minds of such men are explored they are seen to be full of mortal hatred against each other, while they laugh in their hearts at all justice and sincerity, and even at the Divine Being Himself, for they regard Him as a nonentity* THE HEREAFTER 215 Swedenborg thus defines self-love : Self-love consists in a man's willing well to himself alone, and not to others, except for the sake of himself. ♦ ♦ . To confer benefits merely for the sake of our own reputation, honour, and glory, is also a form of self-love ; because unless these rewards can be obtained by doing good to others, the selfish man says in his heart, * What business is it of mine i Why should I do this i What advantage is it to me i * and so he does nothing. In the Bible the portion of those who are in hell is described by everlasting fire and gnashing of teeth. The fire of hell, or infernal love, exists from the same origin as the fire of Heaven or heavenly love. Both are from the Sun of Heaven, which is the Lord, but this Divine emanation is made infernal by the infernal spirits who receive it. The fire of hell is therefore the love of self and the world, and includes every lust which springs from these, together with their respective delights. The fire of hell, or infernal heat, is turned into intense cold whenever the heat of Heaven flows into it, and causes the infernal spirits to shiver and feel inwardly tormented. Thick darkness follows and then infatuation and blindness. These states however are only experienced when it is necessary to quell the excessive outrages of infernal licence. Every infernal spirit cherishes hatred against every other, and from that hatred torments others with savage cruelty as far as he has the power to do so. These cruelties and the torments they cause are also understood by hell fire, for they are the effects of evil passions. Gnashing of teeth fs the continual dispute and combat of falses, and therefore of those who are principled in them. The Lord permits torments in hell because evils cannot otherwise be restrained and subdued. It is generally believed that God is angry with man for his sins and casts him into hell. But this is not the case, because the Lord is never angry, and never rejects man, for God is goodness itself, love itself, and mercy itself, and could not therefore do evil to anyone. We have been told that heaven is 2 i6 REASONABLE RELIGION within us, and it is equally true that hell is within us* Man does evil from hell and good from the Lord, but if he believes that whatever he does is from himself then the evil which he does adheres to him as his own, and after death he desires nothing more earnestly than to be where his own evil is* It is, therefore, man who casts himself into hell* This he does in the world of spirits when he turns away from the good spirits who, as already described, attend him, and then seeks his real affinities, thus casting himself headlong into hell* However it is not so difficult to enter Heaven as some believe, for a man may live outwardly as others do, may amass wealth, keep a plentiful table, dwell in a fine house, dress sumptuously, enjoy the pleasures of the world, and undertake worldly enterprises for the sake of occupation and business and for the recreation of mind and body * provided/ Swedenborg adds, * that he interiorly acknow¬ ledges a Divine Being, and wishes well to his neighbour.* With regard to the fate of the wicked, it is, as we have seen, grievous though it be, the only fate possible for them. Those spirits who retain the possibility of being made happy, are prepared for Heaven in the world of spirits, the others who were miserable on earth, are miserable in hell, but in Heaven they could not exist, whilst in hell they are at least in their own delight* CHAPTER XII The Godhead In all ages and all climes man has been prone to believe in the supernatural, in a god (or a number of gods), yet this tendency in man, which is as strong and deep-rooted as the instinct of self-preservation, has been derided by the learned of all countries as superstition. The men who have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the men who regard their learning as self-derived, have great difficulty in humbling themselves as little children and acknowledging that all they know and all they possess has been bestowed upon them by a Higher Power. They like to think, as the self-made man too often thinks, that all their achievements, that all the results they have obtained, are due to their own efforts, their own industry, their own wisdom. Nevertheless, even among these, there have been many who, while they could not believe in the childish tradi¬ tions of the people, have admitted that the problem of the origin of life could not be explained on any other hypothesis than on that of the existence of some unknown supernatural force, nor could they discover a sufficient inducement for conduct without postulating a future life. Thus Voltaire, with his usual demoniacal wit, declared that if there was no God, it would be necessary to invent one, and Goethe, who was, as we know, a dilettante student of Swedenborg, admitted, in his * Dichtung und Wahrheit/ his belief in a supernatural force which manifested itself occasionally on earth, e.g. in Jesus Christ. The views of the German philosophers have been epigrammatically crystallised in the story of the two intense German ladies who are represented 2l8 REASONABLE RELIGION as discussing metaphysics, and one of whom is made to say : * Es giebt ein gewisses Etwas t (there is a certain something), which, however, is a very vague and intangible creed* But the German materialists of the last century were intolerant of such abstractions* Thus Buchner, in his * Kraft und Stoff' (* Force and Matter'), published in 1855, maintained that force was inherent in, and a property of, matter, and thus laid the foundation, as Turgueniev has shown us in his # Fathers and Children/ to the Nihilism which has succeeded in achieving the ruin of Russia* Tyndall, in his * Heat as a Mode of Motion/ proved to the satisfaction of the scientific world that the sun must gradually become extinct, but not before it had, like Cronos, consumed its own planets* This melancholy view was later corrected by the hypothesis of Sir William Siemens, who attributed to the sun a heart-like or respiratory action* To-day it is the fashion to place force before matter, the atom being composed of electrons* In all these various theories and articles of scientific belief in nature, it must be admitted that the votaries are frequently expected to perform really admirable acts of faith* But the masses go on believing in God, even in Russia, where a thoughtful Bolshevik Government has inscribed in sight of the churches the warning words : * Religion is opium for the people/ Now, it has been argued by the learned, if there really is a God, how is it that He has never patently manifested Himself to His creatures in so overwhelmingly convincing a manner that His existence would be permanently removed from the region of speculation and incontrovertibly established as a veritable fact i The answer to this is that God has indeed repeatedly revealed Himself to mankind, but never in such a manner as to compel belief, and always in the way best adapted to the state of the minds of men at the time* We have seen in our chapter on the Church in what order these successive revelations were made, and in the following passages we will endeavour to condense within the compass of a few pages what Swedenborg has to say about God* God is one, He alone has being, He alone is essence* and He is at the same time the manifestation of being; He THE GODHEAD 219 is thus the esse and existere, the Jehovah, * Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty/ He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, Love (Alpha), Wisdom (Omega), and sole, very, and first substance and form {substantia et forma , unica y ipsa et prima). The word Jehovah means, I am, and to be (sum et esse ). 1 God is infinite and eternal* He is in space without space, and in time without time* The unity of God [says Swedenborg] may be inferred from the creation of the universe, since the universe being a coherent and uniform work, from first to last, depends upon God, as the body depends upon the soul. The universe is so created, that God may be omnipresent therein, and keep the whole, with all its parts, under His government and observation, and may thus maintain it in perpetual unity, which is to preserve it. . . . This great system, which we call the universe, is a coherent and uniform work, from first to last, for the reason that God intends but this one end in its creation—the formation of an angelic heaven from the human race ; and all the things of which the world consists are means for the promotion of this end ; for the desire of any end implies also a desire of the requisite means for its attainment. If therefore [Swedenborg continues] we regard the world as a work containing means adapted to such an end, we may also regard the universe of creation as a coherent and uniform work, and may perceive that it is a complex of uses, in successive work, for the service of the human race out of which is formed the angelic heaven. For Divine Love cannot design any other end than the eternal happiness of men, by a communication of itself; and Divine Wisdom cannot produce any thing but uses, as a means for the attainment of that end. By contemplating the world in the light of this broad and universal idea, any wise man, Swedenborg maintains, can see that the Creator of the universe must be one, and in His essence He must be love and wisdom, and he pro¬ ceeds to show that there is not a single thing in existence but has its uses, some hidden and more or less remote, for the service of man. While people [he says] consider only particular parts of creation, and do not take a view of the whole, in its connected 1 1 The True Christian Religion,’ pp. 13, 19, 20, 21. 220 REASONABLE RELIGION series, as consisting of ends, mediate causes and effects; or while they do not refer creation to its true source, as an effect derived from Divine love, by means of Divine wisdom, it is impossible they should see that the universe is the workmanship of one God, and that He has His abode in the uses of every particular thing which are the end for which it was created* For whatever is in the end is also in the means conducive thereto, inasmuch as the end itself is in all the means acting in them and producing its own ultimate purposes* While men consider the universe as not the workmanship of God, and the habitation of His love and wisdom, but as the work¬ manship of nature, and the habitation of the sun's light and heat alone, they close up the superior parts of their minds against the admission of God, and open the inferior parts thereof for the admission of the devil, whereby they divest themselves of the nature of men, and acquire the nature of beasts, not only believing, but actually making themselves, like unto them* Swedenborg makes a distinction between the esse or being of God and His essence or manifestation, because, as he points out, there is a distinction between the infinity of God and His love, the first being an attribute of His existence and the other of His essence ; for His esse is more universal than His essence, and in the same sense His infinity is more universal than His love* Infinite is thus an adjective to the essentials and attributes of God, which are described as infinite ; just as we say that the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom are infinite, also the Divine Power, yet the esse of God is not pre-existent to His essence, but enters into it as an adjunct, cohering with, determining, forming, and simultaneously exalting it* Love and Wisdom are the two essentials to which all the infinite properties that are in God, and proceed from Him, have relation* This was known in the earliest ages of the world, but the knowledge of what love and wisdom are in their essence has been lost through successive generations becoming immersed in worldly and corporeal matters* Since God is the very, the sole, and thus the first sub¬ stance and form. Whose essence is love and wisdom, and since all things which are made were made by Him, it follows that He created the universe with all its parts from THE GODHEAD 221 love by means of wisdom; consequently Divine Love, in union with Divine Wisdom, must be in all and every created object. But love is not only the essence from which all things are formed; it also unites and conjoins them, and thus keeps them in order and connection. This may be illustrated from the analogy of the heat and light which proceed from the sun and from which all things on earth exist and subsist, for heat and light exist in nature because they correspond with Divine Love and Wisdom. It may be further illustrated by the analogy of the will and under¬ standing in the human mind from which the latter exists and subsists, for the will is the recipient and habitation of love, and the understanding of wisdom. The human body also exists and subsists by the heart and lungs, for the heart corresponds to the will and hence to love, and the lungs to the understanding and consequently to wisdom. God, being love in its essence and the essence of wisdom, is therefore good itself and truth itself, for good is derived from love and truth from wisdom ; and as God is love itself and wisdom itself, God is life, the very life itself. Love and Wisdom are united in God and form one. Love must have objects on which to bestow itself. It follows therefore that the essence of love is to love others out of or outside of itself, to desire to be one with them and to make them happy from itself. This is so obvious that it requires no further elucidation, but it was these properties of the Divine Love which were the cause of the creation of the universe and are the cause of its preservation. Having shown that Divine Love and Divine Wisdom constitute the Divine Essence, Swedenborg proceeds to treat of the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of God, and states that these are the properties of the Divine Wisdom derived from the Divine Love, but not of the Divine Love operating by means of the Divine Wisdom. For according to the law of influx—and it is inconceivable that God should act contrary to His own laws, which are the order of infinite wisdom—love enters by universal and particular influx into wisdom and 222 REASONABLE RELIGION dwells there, like a king in his kingdom, or a master in his house, relinquishing to wisdom all the authority of love, and to judgment all the authority of justice, for justice has respect to love and judgment to wisdom* God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, there¬ fore, by means of the wisdom of His love, and this is what is meant by the statements in the first chapter of John, where the Word means Divine Truth, or Divine Wisdom, which is the same thing* Here Swedenborg interposes the following definition of order, for, as he explains, the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of God cannot be understood until what is meant by order be known, and until the fact that God is order be grasped* Order [he says] is the quality of the disposition, determina¬ tion, and activity of the parts, substances, or entities, which constitute the form of a thing, and whereon its state depends, the perfection of which is produced by wisdom operating from the love t or the imperfection of which is occasioned by perverse reason operating from cupidity * In this definition he explains that although mention is made of substance, form and state, yet that by substance he means at the same time form, because every substance is a form, and the quality of a form is its state, the perfection or imperfection of which results from order* God is order, because He is very substance and form itself, for all subsisting things derived originally, and continue to derive, their existence from Him : moreover, all the quality of substances originally arose from Him, and continues to do so, and quality can only be derived from form* Being order itself, God necessarily introduced order into the universe and all its parts ; evils had birth together with hell after creation* It follows that God is omnipotent, for He has all power from Himself, and all other things derive their power from Him* His power and will are one ; and since He wills nothing but what is good, for He is essential good, He can do nothing but good* Thus His omnipotence proceeds and operates within the sphere of the extension THE GODHEAD 223 of good, which is infinite ; for this sphere fills the universe from its inmost centre, and all and everything therein, and from thence governs the things outside, so far as they enter into conjunction with it according to their respective order; and where they do not enter into conjunction, this sphere nevertheless supports and labours to reduce them to a state concordant with that universal order in which God is in His omnipotence, and in accord¬ ance with which He acts. Where this cannot be effected, He still supports them from that inmost centre. The Divine omnipotence, by entering into actual contact with anything evil, would have to go out of itself, as it were, and this would be contrary to Divine order, for evil turns itself away, and in consequence is entirely separated from God, and automatically, so to speak, precipitated into hell, between which and Heaven there is a great gulf fixed, God would be acting in direct opposition to His own goodness (which is inconceivable) if He condemned, cursed, or cast into hell, or predestined human souls to eternal damnation, or avenged injuries, punished, or was capable of anger, Swedenborg asserts on the contrary that * He cannot even turn His face from anyone, or regard him with the least severity of countenance, these and the like acts being contrary to His essence, and consequently contrary to Himself/ To picture to oneself a God capable of acting with the arbitrary recklessness of an oriental despot, is to create God in our own image, and is manifestly absurd and unphilosophical. It cannot be too often repeated that God is order because He is love and wisdom. The omniscience of God, Swedenborg teaches, consists in His perceiving, seeing, and knowing all and everything, even to the most minute, that is done accord¬ ing to order, and, by that means also, whatever is done contrary to order. That God is omniscient is the logical consequence of His being Wisdom itself and Light itself, and it is Wisdom itself which perceives all things, and Light itself which sees all things. From the things which are according to order, God perceives, knows, and sees all and everything that is done contrary to order—this 224 REASONABLE RELIGION follows as a consequence of His withholding man from evil and striving with him. This continual striving, struggling, resistance, repugnance, and reaction of evil and falsity against good and truth, i.e. against Himself, God perceives both in its quantity and quality, for it is a consequence of His omnipresence in all and every part of His own order, and at the same time of His omniscience of all and everything that occurs or exists in it. Now as God perceives, sees, and knows all the relatives in Heaven, by virtue of the order in which He is Himself, He in consequence perceives, sees, and knows all the opposite relatives in hell, and it is therefore evident that God is omniscient in hell as well as in Heaven and also among men on earth ; and that He thus perceives, sees, and knows their evils and falsities by virtue of the good and truth in which He is Himself. God is omnipresent in all the gradations of His own order. This is effected by the heat and light from the spiritual sun in which He Himself is. By means of this sun order was first established, and there is a continual emanation or efflux of heat and light issuing thence which pervades every part of the universe, from first to last, producing life and vegetation. Since God is not extended, and yet fills every extense of the universe, therefore He is omnipresent. By His omnipresence God sees all things, by His omniscience He provides for all things, and by His omnipotence He operates all things, hence omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence make a one, the one implying the others, so that they cannot admit of separation. Man was created a form of Divine order, having been created in the form and image of God. There is a corre¬ spondence between the angelic heaven and man, insomuch that there is not a single society in that heaven which does not correspond with some part of the human organism; moreover, that heaven is a form of Divine order in its largest portraiture, and appears in the sight of God as a single man. All things which proceed from the sun of the spiritual world have some resemblance to man, and whatever things exist in that world have a general tendency THE GODHEAD 225 to the human form, which, in their inmost essences, they exhibit; whence all the visible objects in that world are representatives of mam God before creation was Love itself and Wisdom itself in their respective tendencies to effect uses* Hence it appears that the universe was created by God for the existence of uses, on which account it may be called a theatre of uses ; and since man is the principal end of creation it follows that all and everything were created for his sake, and therefore that all the properties of order, both in general and in particular, were collected into him, and concentrated in him, to the intent that God by him might effect primary uses. Now, as God is the creator of the universe, and is in Himself very being and existence, it follows that this Divine Esse cannot produce another independent and self-existing Deity; in other words, it is illogical to postulate the existence of another God of the same essence. The production of a God [says Swedenborg] is a thing impracticable and not to be supposed, inasmuch as Essential Divinity, which is Esse and Existere in itself, could not possibly have place in such a production. It is the same thing whether we use the terms begotten by God, or proceeding from Him; in both cases we must suppose a God to be produced by a God, and this differs little from the creation of a God. Therefore to introduce into the church a belief that there are three divine persons, each of whom, singly and by Himself, is God, and of the same essence, and one born from eternity, and the third proceeding from eternity, is utterly to destroy the idea of God's unity, and thereby every just appreciation of the Godhead, and thus to banish all the spirituality of reason from the mind. What becomes of the Athanasian Creed and the Christian religion after that i The Athanasian Creed has already been faithfully dealt with in the chapter on the Church, and we shall now proceed to examine Swedenborg's Christianity. In his book entitled 4 The True Christian Religion/ Chapter II is devoted to * The Lord the Redeemer/ In explaining the title thus chosen he says : 4 By the Lord the Redeemer we mean Jehovah in the humanity; for Q 226 REASONABLE RELIGION that Jehovah Himself descended and assumed the humanity for the purpose of redemption will be proved in the following pages/ He then continues as follows : It is believed at this day in all Christian churches that God, the Creator of the universe, begot a Son from eternity, and that this Son descended, and assumed the humanity for the purpose of redeeming and saving mankind; but this is a great error and is overturned by its own absurdity, if it be only considered that God is one, and that it is a more than fabulous imposition on reason to suppose that one God should beget any Son from eternity; and further, that God the Father, together with the Son and the Holy Ghost, each whereof singly and by Himself is God, form but one God* This fabulous description of the Deity totally vanishes like a meteor in the air, when by demonstration from the Word Jehovah God Himself is proved to have descended and to have been made man and to be also the Saviour, or Redeemer* Swedenborg then quotes various passages from the Bible in which reference is made to the coming of our Lord, viz .: Isaiah vii* 14 and Matthew i* 23*—Behold a virgin shall con¬ ceive and shall bring forth a Son, who shall be called God with us * Isaiah ix* 6*—Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given : the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Hero, the Father of Eternity , the Prince of Peace* Isaiah xxv* 9*—It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God t we have waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation* Isaiah xl* 3, 5*—The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah; make straight in the desert a highway for our God : and all flesh shall see him together* Isaiah xl* 10-11.—Behold the Lord Jehovah will come in strength, and his arm shall rule for him : behold his reward is with him ; he shall feed his flock like a shepherd. Zechariah ii* 10-11*—Thus saith Jehovah , Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Sion; for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee : and many nations in that day shall cleave to Jehovah ♦ Isaiah xlii* 6, 8*—I Jehovah have called thee in righteousness, and will give thee for a covenant of the people* I am Jehovah ; that is my name t and my glory will I not give to another * THE GODHEAD 227 Jeremiah xxiii. 5-6 ; xxxiii. 15-16.—Behold the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch who shall reign as a King, and prosper and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth ; and this is his name Jehovah our righteousness ♦ He also refers to many other passages to show that the coming of the Lord was called the Day of Jehovah ♦ That Jehovah Himself descended, and assumed the humanity [he continues] is very evident from this passage in Luke : 4 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man i And the angel answered and said unto her. The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee f and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God / (i* 34 - 35 ) * and in Matthew: Behold the angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream and said unto him, Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife ; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit . And Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first¬ born son ; and he called his name Jesus, (i. 20-25.) After stating that every child receives its soul and life from his father, Swedenborg asks : How then could it be more plainly expressed in words, that the Lord received His soul and life from Jehovah God i And since the Divine is indivisible, what can be more evident than that the Divine of the Father was the Lord's soul and life i Therefore the Lord so often calls Jehovah God his Father, and Jehovah God calls Him His Son. What then can be more ridiculous than to say, that the soul of our Lord was derived from His mother, Mary. ♦ . . i Swedenborg also quotes a number of passages from the Bible to show that Jehovah Himself declared Himself to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the world (e.g., Isaiah xliii. 5, 7, 8, xlix., lx.; Hosea; Jeremiah ; the Psalms); and he maintains that it must be evident to every one from these passages * that God who is One, descended, and was made man for the purpose of effecting the work of redemption/ 228 REASONABLE RELIGION He then proceeds to show * why God could not redeem mankind—that is to say, deliver them from damnation and hell—by any other process than that of assuming the humanity* For redemption/ he explains, consisted in reducing the hells into subjection, and bringing the heavens into an orderly arrangement, afterwards renewing the Church on earth ; and there was no other possible means by which the omnipotence of God could effect these purposes than by assuming the humanity; just as there is no possibility for a man to work without hands and arms; therefore in the Word, the humanity is called * the arm of Jehovah , (Isaiah xh io; liii* i)* ♦ ♦ ♦ For God to have effected the redemption without assuming the humanity, would have been as impossible as for Europeans to subdue the Indies without soldiers and shipping* ♦ . * For Jehovah, as He is in Himself, cannot by all His Omnipotence approach any devil in hell, or any devil on earth so as to curb his fury and subdue his violence, unless He be in ultimate, as He is in first, principles; and He is in ultimates in His humanity, therefore, in the Word, He is called the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End* Jehovah God, Swedenborg proclaims, descended into the world as the Divine Truth, which is the Word, but, being indivisible, He did not separate the Divine Good from it* We have seen that the essence of God is con¬ stituted of Divine Good and Divine Truth, or Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and these two constituents are signified in the Word by the name Jehovah God, for by Jehovah is signified Divine Love, and by God Divine Wisdom* In the Word these names are used separately or together, but always in this sense* Swedenborg shows that the passage in John, * In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God* All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made/ makes it evident that Jehovah God descended as the Divine Truth, which is the Word* He adds : The reason why Divine Truth is there signified by the Word, is because the Word which is received in the Church is Divine Truth itself; for it was dictated by Jehovah Himself, THE GODHEAD 229 and whatever is dictated by Jehovah is Divine Truth in its purity, and can be nothing else* As, however, the Word passed through all the heavens until it reached the lower world, it was accommodated to the angels in Heaven and also to men on earth: hence there is in the Word a spiritual sense, in which the Divine Truth shines with its full light, and also a natural sense, in which the Divine Truth is respectively shaded and obscure ; therefore the Divine Truth residing in this Word is what is signified in John. This is further confirmed by this consideration, that the Lord came into the world to fulfil the whole Word ; for which reason we so often read of His doing this and that thing, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Nor is aught else but Divine Truth understood by the words 4 Messiah/ or 4 Christ/ or by the Son of Man, or by the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Whom the Lord sent after His departure out of the world. Swedenborg then shows by quotations that the Lord spoke of Himself as the Truth ♦ That God, although He came down as the Divine Truth, did not separate the Divine Good from it is evident, Swedenborg points out, from His conception, concerning which it is written that the power of the Highest overshadowed the Virgin Mary, the power of the Highest signifying the Divine Good. Moreover, the Lord Himself repeatedly declared that the Father was in Him, and that He was in the Father, that all things the Father had were His ; and that He and the Father were One. In all these references to the Father, Swedenborg tells us, the Divine Good is signified. We have seen that God is order, and that He operates according to the laws of His own order. It follows, therefore, as Swedenborg explains, that, seeing that God did descend into the world, it was necessary, with a view to His becoming Incarnate, that He should go through the processes of His own order, namely, that He should go through the processes of conception, gestation, and birth ; that He should be educated and trained, and thus introduced to intelligence and wisdom. With respect, therefore, to the Humanity, He was an infant, child, and youth, like all other human beings, with this difference only, that He accomplished the different stages of His progress to manhood more rapidly, more fully, and more 230 REASONABLE RELIGION perfectly than others* Indeed, this appears from the Gospels* All this process [Swedenborg explains] was accomplished because Divine order requires that a man should prepare him¬ self for the reception of God ; and in proportion as he so pre¬ pares himself, God enters into him as into His house and habitation* Such preparation is effected by means of the knowledge of God and of the spiritual doctrines of the church, and a consequent intelligence and wisdom; for it is a law of order that in proportion as a man approaches and draws nigh unto God, which he ought to do entirely as of himself, in the same proportion God approaches and draws nigh unto him, and conjoins Himself to him, in the middle region of the mind* The Lord, as we shall presently see, in His Humanity, proceeded according to this order, even to union with His Father, for that Humanity is the Son of God* * With respect to the Lord/ Swedenborg says, * what was Divine appertaining to Him was from the Father Jehovah, and what was human from the mother, and these two united are the Son of God/ as is indeed stated in the passage from Luke already quoted* Yet the Lord [Swedenborg states later] when He glorified His Humanity, put off all that He had received from His mother, and put on all that belonged to His Father* * * * That no one can see the Father, or know Him, or come unto Him, or believe in Him, except by His Humanity, is declared by the Lord in numerous places* Swedenborg then proceeds to show that all Christian Churches to-day assert and believe that the Lord alone has righteousness, by virtue of His obedience to His Father during His abode in the world, and particularly by His passion on the cross, but that the passion on the cross is imagined to be the very act of redemption : this Swedenborg, however, explains to be an error, the passion on the cross having been the glorification of His Humanity* Redemption, he says, consisted in bringing the hells into subjection, and the heavens into order, and in thus pre¬ paring the way for a new spiritual Church* THE GODHEAD 231 That redemption consists in these three things [he explains] I can declare with the utmost certainty, since the Lord at this day also accomplished a redemption, which was begun in 1757, together with the Last Judgment, which was then executed. He further declares that Now is the Lord's Second Advent, and a new church is to be established, which could not be effected unless the hells were first reduced into subjection and the heavens restored to order ; and as I was permitted to see the whole process of this work, I could describe in what manner the hells were subdued, and the new heaven was formed and arranged ; but the descrip¬ tion would take up an entire volume. With respect, however, to the Last Judgment, and the manner in which it was executed, I have published an account of it in a small treatise, printed in London in the year 1758. That the subjugation of the hells, the restoration of the heavens to order, and the establishment of a new church, constitute redemption, is a truth grounded in this fact, that without such a process no man could have been saved. The parts of that process also follow each other in an orderly connection; for it is necessary that the hells should be subdued before a new angelic heaven could be formed, and the formation of a new heaven is equally necessary to the establishment of a new church on earth ; for human beings on earth are so connected with the angels of heaven and the spirits of hell, that to whichever they are joined, they make one with them as to the interiors of their minds. Swedenborg further quotes many passages from the Word confirming his statement that the Lord, during His abode in the world, fought against the hells and reduced them to obedience. He crystallises this doctrine in the following comprehensive sentence : Jehovah God descended and assumed the Humanity for the purpose of reducing to order all things in Heaven and the Church : since at that time the power of the devil, i.e. of hell, prevailed over the power of heaven, and on earth the power of evil over the power of good, in consequence a total damnation was at hand and threatened every creature. This impending damnation Jehovah God removed by His Humanity, and thus redeemed both angels and men : from whence it is evident, that unless the Lord had come into the world, no flesh could 232 REASONABLE RELIGION have been saved. The case is similar at this day; consequently, unless the Lord come again into the world, no flesh can be saved. He explains that the angels could not have stood in their state of integrity had not redemption been effected by the Lord. At the time of the Lord's first coming [he avers] the hells had grown to such a height, that they filled the whole world of spirits, which is in the middle between heaven and hell, and had thereby not only disturbed the last or lowest heaven, but had also made attempts upon the middle heaven, which they infested in a thousand different ways, and which would have been destroyed unless the Lord had protected it. Such insurrection of the hells is signified by the tower which was built in the land Shinar, whose head was to reach unto Heaven, which attempt was prevented by the confusion of tongues, when the builders were dispersed, and the city was called Babel. Now the whole angelic heaven together with the church on earth is before the Lord as a single man, whose internal . . ♦ is the angelic heaven and whose external is—the church ; or . . . the highest heaven constitutes the head; the second and lowest ♦ . ♦ the breast and middle region of the body; the church on earth . . . the loins and feet; and the Lord Himself is the soul and life of that whole man. Unless the Lord had effected redemption this man must have been destroyed; the feet and loins must have perished by the defection of the Church on earth; a general mortification would have set in which would have threatened the whole organism. Hence, unless the Lord had performed the work of redemption no man could have been saved, nor could the angels have main¬ tained their integrity. The only refuge against destruc¬ tion is in the Lord, as He has Himself taught in the fifteenth chapter of John. But this redemption could not have been effected by Jehovah God in His infinite essence, for if He had only breathed on the denizens of hell they would have been instantly deprived of life. Swedenborg aptly illustrates this by the analogy of the sun, whose rays must traverse the air before they can enter an organism on earth, or traverse the water before they can THE GODHEAD 233 affect fish, 4 for it is necessary it should act by means of the element in which the subject of its operation dwells/ Hence the Incarnation was necessary* The passion of the cross was not redemption, but the last temptation which the Lord endured as the Grand Prophet; it was also the means of the glorification of His Humanity, or, in other words, of the union with the Divinity of His Father* This uniting of the Lord's Humanity with the Divinity of His Father was effected by successive steps, and was fully completed by His cross and passion. Every man should approach God in the same way, and, as he so approaches Him, God enters in the same proportion* Conjunction is effected by temptations, for in these man, to all appearance, is abandoned and left alone to himself; this, however, is only an appearance, for it is at such times that God is most present with man in the inmost principles of his mind, and supports him* Consequently, when a man conquers in temptation he is then most intimately conjoined with God. This was the case with the Lord. That the Lord in His Humanity experienced similar feelings is proved by His exclamation on the cross : * My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me i ' Yet He was fully aware of His Divinity, for He said : * No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again* This commandment have I received of my Father 9 (John x* 18). Swedenborg contends that it is evident from this that the Lord did not suffer as to His Divinity, but only as to His Humanity, and that at the time of suffering * the most intimate, and thereby the most com¬ plete, union was effected*' He furthermore insists on the importance of keeping distinct in one's mind the two ideas of redemption and of the cross and passion* He then points out that the Lord was willing to be tempted even to the suffering on the cross because He was the Grand Prophet; and prophets formerly signified the doctrine of the Church derived from the Word, and thence they represented the Church by various emblems and acts according to its nature and quality* But the Lord, since He was the Word Incarnate, 234 REASONABLE RELIGION by His sufferings on the cross as the Prophet, represented the Jewish Church, as to the manner in which it had pro¬ faned the Word* Moreover, He could thus be acknow¬ ledged in the heavens as the Saviour of both worlds; for the particulars of His cross and passion were emblematic of the profanation of the Word, and were understood by the angels in the spiritual sense* Thus Swedenborg shows that: The Lord, as the Prophet, represented the state of the Jewish church with respect to the Word, as is evident from the parti¬ culars of His sufferings* * * * His being betrayed by Judas signified that He was betrayed by the Jewish nation, who were in possession of the Word, and were represented by Judas : His being taken and condemned by the chief priests and elders signified that He was dealt with in like manner by the whole Jewish church; His being buffeted, and spit upon, scourged and struck on the head with a reed, signified that the like had been done to the Word with regard to its Divine truths; His being crowned with thorns signified that the Jewish nation had falsified and adulterated Divine truths ; the division of His garments, and the casting of lots upon His vesture signified that they had dissipated all the truths of the Word, but had not injured its spiritual sense, which the Lord's vesture or tunic represented ; His crucifixion signified the destruction and profanation of the whole Word ; the offering Him vinegar to drink signified that the truths of the Word were altogether falsified, wherefore He did not drink it; the piercing of His side signified that they had totally extinguished all the truth and all the good of the Word ; His burial signified the rejection of what remained from the mother; His rising again on the third day signified His glorification or the union of His Humanity with the Divinity of the Father* * To bear iniquities/ Swedenborg points out, * does not mean to remove them, but to represent the profanation of the truths of the Word*' Here it is interesting to note that Swedenborg concludes from Genesis xiii* 7 that there was hereditary evil from the mother with the Lord* He shows that it is quite impossible for any man to be born of a human parent without deriving evil from his progenitors, but that there is a difference between hereditary evil derived from the THE GODHEAD 235 father and that derived from the mother* The evil inherited from the father is more internal, and though it can be overcome and be kept down, it can never be totally eradicated; thus, as we have seen, the angels are indeed withheld from evil, but are not entirely devoid of it* The Lord could have no such evil, having been born of Jehovah, and being thus as to His internals Divine, or Jehovah, for God is indivisible* Hereditary evil from the mother, however, adheres to the external man. The Lord, having been born as any ordinary man, had infirmities, like any other man, derived from His mother. This is obvious from the fact that He suffered temptation, for it is impos¬ sible for anyone to be tempted who has no evil, evil being that in man which tempts and by means of which he is tempted* We are told that the Lord was tempted, and that He suffered temptations a thousand times more grievous than any man could possibly sustain, and that He endured them alone, and by His own power overcame evil, or the devil and all hell* That the Lord bore the iniquities and evils of mankind is a form of speaking common with preachers ; but He could not have taken upon Himself iniquities and evils otherwise than in the way above indi¬ cated, for the Divine is not susceptible of evil. In order to overcome evil by His own strength, which no man ever could or can do, He was willing to be born as a man, and to come into the world and put on evil, so as to fight against and conquer it and thus join together in Himself the Divine Essence and the Human* He however put off, by acts of redemption, the whole humanity which He had from His mother, and put on a humanity from the Father, which is the Divine Humanity, so that in Him Man is God and God Man. This was effected by His passing through the two states of exinanition and of glorification, for Divine order requires that a man should dispose himself for the reception of God, and prepare himself to be a receptacle and habita¬ tion into which God may enter and dwell, as in His own temple* Man should do this of himself, yet acknowledging that it is an effect of Divine influence, for he does not perceive the presence and operation of God, Who, never¬ theless, produces in him by His presence and operation REASONABLE RELIGION 236 all the good of love and all the truth of faith* This is the order of procedure for man from natural to spiritual, and the Lord proceeded in the same order for the purpose of making His natural humanity Divine* In this state God appears to be absent, man, as has been said, not perceiving His presence; but this state is succeeded by another, which is conjunction with God, in which man acts as in the former state, but now consciously from God* In this manner the Lord united Himself (or rather His Humanity) to His Father, and the Father Himself to Him* In short, the Lord glorified His Humanity, i*e* made it Divine, by a process similar to that by which He regenerates a man— viz *, makes him spiritual. The Divine miracles, Swedenborg avers, were also effected in accordance with Divine order, namely, accord¬ ing to the order of the influx of the spiritual world into the natural* Thus they were never arbitrary. Having demonstrated that the Father and the Son are one, Swedenborg treats of the Holy Ghost: Properly speaking [he says] the Divine Truth and con¬ sequently the Word is signified by the Holy Ghost, and in this sense the Lord Himself is also the Holy Ghost; but whereas, in the Church at this day the Divine operation which is specified by the Holy Ghost, is actual justification, therefore this Divine operation is here considered as the Holy Ghost* Of this we now propose chiefly to speak, especially as the Divine operation is effected by means of the Divine Truth which proceeds from the Lord; and that which proceeds is of one and the same essence with him from whom it proceeds, like these three, the soul, the body and the proceeding virtues, which together form one essence ; in a man a merely human essence, but in the Lord, divine and human also ; these being, after His glorifica¬ tion, united together like the prior with its subsequent, and like essence with its form ; thus the three essentials, called Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are a one in the Lord* The Lord is Divine Truth and the Holy Ghost is also the same, as is evident from these passages* Here Swedenborg quotes extensively from the prophets and the Gospels, giving overwhelming evidence in support of his assertion. Of these, perhaps the most authoritative THE GODHEAD 237 passage is from John xv* 26 : * When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, he shall testify of me/ Since the Divine Truth, which was in the Lord, and was the Lord (John xiv* 6), is meant by the Holy Ghost [Swedenborg continues], and since the Holy Ghost could therefore proceed only from Him, it was for this reason said * The Holy Ghost was not yet {given) ; because that Jesus was not yet glorified/ (John vii. 39.) And after His glorification, He breathed on His disciples and said, * Receive ye the Holy Ghost/ (John xx* 22.) Nevertheless, Swedenborg maintains that there is a Divine Trinity consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but that these three are the three essentials of one God, which makes a one, like soul, body, and operation in a man* Before the creation of the world this Trinity did not exist, but it was provided and made since the creation, when God became Incarnate, and then centred in the Lord God, the Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ* How does this doctrine of the Trinity fit in with the Apostles' Creed, which Swedenborg admits to be true i In that Creed Jesus Christ is described as the only Son, Our Lord, of God the Father Almighty, as having been conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary* This is exactly what Swedenborg contends* But further He is described as sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty* This, obviously, is an allegory. What is the right hand of God i In the ( Arcana Coelestia ' Swedenborg says that to sit at the right hand denotes a state of power; the statement, therefore, in the Apostles' Creed fully substantiates Swedenborg's teaching* In conclusion Swedenborg asserts that henceforth no Christian can be admitted into Heaven unless he believes in the Lord God and Saviour, and approaches Him alone* This may seem a hard saying to some, but when we re¬ member that all souls on their leaving the human body are first admitted to the world of spirits, where they are prepared for their ultimate destiny and instructed in heavenly truths, it loses much of its apparent harshness* CONCLUSION In the preceding pages the message and teachings of Swedenborg in their principal features have been passed before the reader in rapid review* Whatever attitude may¬ be assumed towards his claim of inspiration, it must be admitted that he has expounded a singularly harmonious and logical system of philosophy and religion* His work, all must agree, is essentially constructive* The funda¬ mental truths which the Christian Churches of all denomi¬ nations teach are explained and rationalised by him, the errors explained and refuted* He presents to us a theory of the cosmos which is neither miraculous nor self-contra¬ dictory ; moreover, he elucidates everything* In the light of his teaching we can understand the mythologies of the ancients as well as we can harmonise the modern achieve¬ ments of science* All is made plain; nor are we asked to accept as infallible truth any dogma obviously contrary to reason* But he does ask us to believe that he has seen with his own eyes the things he describes, and that he was Divinely instructed as to what he should write* Indeed, this he repeatedly avers* Is this too great a demand on our credulity i We accept Moses and the prophets, we accept the Bible as the foundation of our belief, why should we assume that the well-spring of Divine revelation should have dried up, and that no further revelations are to be expected i After all every ingenuous mind must admit that a fresh revelation has become very necessary* The discoveries of science have made the early Christian cosmogony no longer tenable* Geologists have proved that the world took more than six days to create, astronomers have shown that this CONCLUSION 239 insignificant planet is but a minute speck in the great system of the universe, and that it is illogical to suppose that the sun, moon, and stars were called into being merely for the purpose of dancing attendance on our compara¬ tively small and insignificant earth* Then there is the higher criticism, as it is called, which has severely shaken the very foundations of Christianity by disputing the authenticity of the Bible* But perhaps the most serious blow of all was the theory of evolution and natural selection which threatened to destroy our belief in the supernatural altogether. Is it contrary to reason to believe that just about the time when these new scientific theories were being formu¬ lated God should have appointed a human instrument to reveal to the world the mysteries of life, and to restore faith and hope to His creatures i On the contrary it seems characteristic of the ways of Providence. But what are Swedenborg's credentials i Christ warned His disciples, and, through them, the world, against false prophets* How do we know that Swedenborg was not an impostor i Well, to begin with, an impostor imposes on people for his own purposes and for his own advantage* Such an impostor, for instance, was the famous Cagliostro, the great adventurer of the eighteenth century, who lived sumptuously on the credulity of his dupes* But Swedenborg, a sober man of science, a technical official of his government, instead of making money or achieving rank and position by his revelations, on the contrary, found it expedient to resign his office* As for rank and station, these he had already—they could not be renounced. He was a conscientious, patriotic, and painstaking member of the Swedish Upper House, the friend and confidant of kings and queens* Yet he cared little for the social distinction which his unique position conferred, but willingly abandoned the capital of his country, where he was known and held in universal esteem, to go and live in humble lodgings in an obscure part of London—for his means, though sufficient, were slender—in order to superintend the printing and publishing of his works, of 240 REASONABLE RELIGION the sale of which he was as little solicitous as of any other worldly matter, though he was far from being an austere recluse, but was, on the contrary, a cheerful companion noted for the elegance and distinction of his manners, the sprightliness of his conversation, and the neatness of his dress, which was yet simple and unostentatious♦ Such a man was no vulgar impostor. Nevertheless, it is conceiv¬ able that he might have been a false prophet. There is, however, another touch-stone by which he can be tested, and that is in his work. He has in the simplest and frankest manner placed in our hands a method of testing the truthfulness of his statements; it is the key which he has given us to the Scriptures, It is by that test that he must stand or fall, Swedenborg teaches that every object in nature is what he calls * a correspondence/ a representative of a spiritual truth, and that in the spiritual world spiritual truths are represented by similar objects. This being the case, it follows that the Bible was written by * correspondences/ that is to say that the statements in the Bible, which appear to us to be merely statements of fact, are really full of unsuspected spiritual truth which we, when reverently reading it, unconsciously assimilate, just, or very much, as we assimilate natural food, for we are unconscious of the processes within us which enable us to derive nourishment from, say, a handful of rice or a dish of potatoes. Now, if Swedenborg's system of correspondences will not hold water, but should lead to contradictions and absurdities, then obviously all his pretensions must fall to the ground. If, on the other hand, we find that the deeper we investigate this theory, the more widely we apply it, the more per¬ fect it appears, then we must admit that Swedenborg has at least strong claims to our further study and research. The reader of the preceding pages will have noted that Swedenborg has built up his whole system of religion and philosophy on his interpretation of the Bible, and has produced a homogeneous, symmetrical, and harmonious system in plain, straightforward, and unsophisticated language. The test has been applied by himself, before our eyes, and his system has stood it triumphantly. We CONCLUSION 241 can apply it ourselves, carry out control experiments, as it were, and we shall obtain, if we do not mask the test or use it improperly, the same result* Indeed, his system works out like a mathematical formula. Besides giving us an easy and simple means of testing his own bona fides , Swedenborg has thus been the chosen instrument of saving the Bible from desecration. What signifies it to us whether the higher criticism asserts that certain books were not written by their reputed authors i It is their spiritual teaching that is alone of importance. Some of the recent theories of modern philosophers might almost have been directly derived from a study of Swedenborg. Take, for instance, the sociological views of Herbert Spencer. That philosopher maintained that society was an organism. This is in complete agreement with Swedenborg's statement that the angelic heaven is a grand man, and that every angelic society is also a man. Then, who can read John Stuart Mill's 4 Essay on Liberty ' without acknowledging that the sociological views of that great economist are in substantial agreement with those of the Swedish seer i Emerson in his * Representative Men ' even asserts that Swedenborg foreshadowed the theory of evolution, but this view is not largely shared, nor does it appear well founded. The manner of the creation of man seems of little real importance to the religious mind. It suffices for us to know that God is order, and never proceeds contrary to His own order, hence it would seem to follow that the creation of man proceeded also on orderly lines. At the International Swedenborg Congress, held in London in 1910, Professor Max Neuberger, M.D., Pro¬ fessor of the History of Medicine at the University of Vienna, in an address on * Some Important Accordances between Swedenborg and Modern Physiologists,' stated that: Representatives of all branches of science, on both sides of the ocean, among them world-famed explorers, vie with one another in extolling Swedenborg as a pioneer in the most heterogeneous spheres, in searching out the influence of his ideas, in proving the wonderful accord of many of his doctrines with R 242 REASONABLE RELIGION the principles and achievements of modern science* . . ♦ Each one endeavours to outbid the other in the scientific recognition of the northern seer, whose surprisingly manifold attainments were, till a very short time ago, a terra incognita for the majority of learned men* * * * From day to day [he added] the number of concords between Swedenborg's ideas and recent biology increases. The doctrine of uses no longer forms an obstacle as it did some decades ago. . ♦ ♦ Of the English men of science who may be included in the above number it is sufficient to name Sir Alfred Russel Wallace and Sir Oliver Lodge. Of Swedenborg's numerous achievements in the domain of science the formulation of the nebular theory, for which he allowed Laplace to take the credit, is perhaps the best known. The 4 Transactions ' of the International Congress above referred to contain many tributes from eminent men of science from all parts of the world record¬ ing his versatility and the great variety of his discoveries. His influence on literature was not less widespread. We know that Goethe was a desultory student of his writings, and sought in the 4 Arcana Coelestia * material for the second part of Faust ♦ In France Balzac had read his works to greater advantage, and in England Coleridge, the Tennysons, the Brownings, FitzGerald, Coventry Patmore, and Carlyle were all more or less, the last the least, indebted to him. But perhaps one of the most remarkable facts con¬ nected with Swedenborg is the extraordinary progress in every branch of mental effort that has followed his phe¬ nomenal appearance. We have seen that he main¬ tained that the revelation of the internal or spiritual sense of the Bible, of which he had been the human instrument, was the second coming of our Lord Who has 4 come, in clouds descending/ the literal sense of the Word, which partly obscures its spiritual meaning, being the clouds, and the Word being Divine Truth. Whether we believe this statement or not, or whether it appears a little too difficult for our comprehension, one thing is beyond dispute, and that is that the world of to-day is a totally different place to live in from what it was two hundred CONCLUSION 243 years ago. In no other period of history have there been so many striking and fundamental changes, nor are these changes purely of a material and external character ; they are spiritual as well. During the last century there is no exaggeration in saying that the religious revival was phenomenal and unprecedented. While Watt invented steam in 1765, and Wheatstone harnessed electricity to the telegraph in the early years of the last century, and while these two inventions were destined to revolutionise the world, the social changes were equally great. The rise of freedom and of representative government all over the world has changed the mental outlook of untold millions. At what period in the history of mankind has there been so great and radical a change in the relations of governors and governed, of rich and poor i The democracies of ancient Greece were only aristocracies in disguise, for the workers were slaves. As late as the eighteenth century the working classes of Europe were still virtually in the same condition. It is only since the dawn of the new era, of which Swedenborg was the herald, that we have seen an awakening of the human conscience and a recognition that human beings had a right to be happy and free, whatever their social condition. We have accomplished much in this short time, and though much, very much, still remains to be done, we are living in another atmosphere. The wealthy are conscious that they are but stewards for others, that they owe their fellow-men a duty, and the poor are neither so hopeless nor so miserable as they were. The old brutal despair, of which history records so many evidences in the past, has given way to hopeful co-operation, to resolute work. The point need not be laboured, the facts speak for themselves, in every department of life there has been progress, and everywhere there seems to be at work an upward levelling movement, a democratisation, which may have its transitory aesthetic disadvantages, but which is nevertheless slowly but surely transforming the masses. Everybody feels that we are living in wonderful times. The last two centuries have witnessed the emergence of something that did not exist before, this new force in the 244 REASONABLE RELIGION world is called public opinion* The Romans had some glimmering of it when they said that the voice of the people was the voice of God* These things German philosophers have attributed to the Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age* But whence comes that spirit i Does not Swedenborg give us the answer i Is it not the influx from the spiritual world i In this connection there has been an extraordinary wave of what is called Spiritualism* Hard-headed chemists and physicists, sceptical medical men, have discovered that there is another world, beside or within the world we live in, that they can get into communication, or believe that they can get into communication, with the spirits of departed relations or friends* Sceptics sneer and scoff* Then fair-minded, unbiased, critical men form societies to study these strange alleged spiritual phenomena, and some remain as sceptical as they were before, whilst others, often those least likely to be convinced, who went to scoff, have been converted* With regard to spiritualism it may be well to quote Swedenborg's warning note* In the * Apocalypse Ex¬ plained/ he shows that while man lives in the world, he is, as to his spirit, in the midst of spirits who are quite as unconscious of this as he is, for * they are conjoined immediately as to affections of the will and mediately as to the thoughts of the understanding*' For man thinks naturally, and spirits spiritually, and these two kinds of thought cannot be communicated* But as soon as the spirits begin to speak with a man they come out of their spiritual state into the natural state of the man; and then they know that they are with the man and conjoin themselves with the thoughts of his affections, and from these speak with him* ♦ ♦ ♦ No other than similar spirits speak w r ith a man, or manifestly operate upon a man* * * * Man is ignorant of the quality of his own affection, whether good or evil, and with what other beings it is conjoined; and if he has a conceit of his own intelligence, the spirits favour every thought that comes from it* In another passage he says : ‘ It is rarely permitted to CONCLUSION 245 speak with spirits at the present day because this is perilous/ And again : * When spirits begin to speak with a man, he ought to beware to believe nothing whatever from them ; for they say almost anything* Things are fabricated by them and they lie/ Finally: Spirits can be introduced who represent another person ; and the spirit, as well as any one who has been acquainted with the spirit, cannot know but that he is the same. . . ♦ Let those who speak with spirits beware, therefore, lest they be deceived when these say that they are those whom they have known and who had died* Very remarkable progress has also been made in modern times in the art of healing ; the various inventions connected with it, and the importance which is attached to public health, and more especially to the purity of our water supply, are all signs of the times* While pure water, which is representative of truth, has become more abundant, its concomitant, light, has also been more widely diffused, both materially and intellectually* To-day our streets and houses, nay our country roads, our coasts and harbours, are resplendent with light, light has been thrown even on the dark places under the earth. More¬ over, thanks to steam and electricity, light has been shed on the deeds of men and the events in the world. Every morning the press reports to us the happenings of the previous day. Knowledge has been placed within the reach of the poorest. In the eighteenth century it was possible for Sheridan to put into the mouth of Sir Anthony Absolute the opinion that he would rather have a young lady taught the black art than to read or write, but in less than two hundred years since 4 The Rivals ’ was written education has become compulsory in every civilised country. Then the development of trade and manufactures has placed at the disposal of even the poorest, articles of clothing and domestic use undreamed of, by even the wealthiest, two hundred years ago. REASONABLE RELIGION 246 All this is obvious, writers and speakers are repeatedly dwelling on the achievements of science and the progress of the age, but few ask themselves why it is that whereas from the days of the Roman Empire to the time of the eighteenth century—a period of close upon two thousand years—the state of the world and the conditions and con¬ veniences of life had remained virtually stationary, within the last two centuries life has been practically completely transformed, and conditions and conveniences are im¬ proving and increasing almost in a mathematical pro¬ gression* The student of Swedenborg's writings would find a full and satisfying answer to this question* For Swedenborg was no religious recluse who spent his time in beatific contemplation* He was a practical worker and a man of action* His motto was: * All religion has relation to life, and the religion of life is to do good*' He preached useful labour for the benefit of mankind* His doctrine of charity gives force to this view* He maintained that charity and good works were as distinct as the willing to do good and the actually doing it, and that * charity and faith are utterly unprofitable to a man while they remain only in one hemisphere of his body, that is in his head, and are not fixed firm in works*' The following is one of his numerous definitions of charity : Charity of itself consists in acting justly and faithfully in whatever office, business, and employment a person is engaged, because everything so done is of use to society, and use is good, and good in the abstract is our neighbour* * * * A king who sets his subjects an example of well-doing, is desirous that they should live according to the laws of justice, recompenses those who do so live, regards every one according to his merit, secures them against injuries and invasion, acts as the father of his kingdom, and provides for the common prosperity of his people—such a king has charity at his heart, and his actions are good works* A priest who teaches truths from the Word, and by these leads his flock to the good of life and so to Heaven— such a priest, since he provides for the souls of those who belong to his church, is pre-eminently in the exercise of charity* A judge who judges according to justice and law and is not biased in his judgment by bribes, friendship, or relationship, provides for the well-being both of society and of individuals* CONCLUSION 247 ♦ ♦ * A merchant or trader who acts from a principle of sincerity, and not of deceit or fraud, provides for the welfare of his neighbour with whom he is engaged in business. The same is true of a workman or artificer, if he does his work uprightly and sincerely and not fraudulently and with deceit. So also in all other cases, as with captains and sailors, farmers and servants. This is charity itself, because charity may be defined as consisting in doing good to the neighbour daily and continually, not only to our neighbour individually, but to our neighbour collectively; and this cannot be effected but by a man's doing what is good and just in whatever office, business and employment he may be engaged, and with whom¬ soever he may have any connection, for this he does daily; and when he is not in its immediate exercise, still it is continually present in his mind, and is the object of his thoughts and intentions. The man who thus exercises charity, becomes more and more charity in form ; for justice and fidelity form his mind, and the exercise of these his body ; so that in process of time, from the form thus acquired, he wills and thinks nothing but what has some relation to charity. Such persons at length become like those described in the Word, of whom it is said they have the law written in their hearts. They also place no merit in their works, for they never think of merit but only of their duty, which as good citizens they are bound to perform. The best epitome of Swedenborg's message to man¬ kind, and perhaps conclusion to this book, is the following, which forms a sort of preface to that author's * True Christian Religion ': The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church 1. The reader is first presented with a view of faith in its universal and in its particular form, that it may stand as a frontispiece to the work which follows, and as a gate of intro¬ duction to the temple, and as a compendium or summary wherein all the particulars that follow are in a measure included. It is called the faith of the New Heaven and the New Church, because Heaven, which is the abode of angels, and the Church, which is constituted by men on earth, are one in operation, like the internal and external of man. Hence every member of the Church, who is in the good of love derived from truths of faith, and in the truths of faith derived from the good of REASONABLE RELIGION 248 love, is, with regard to the interiors of his mind, an angel of Heaven ; and therefore after death he enters into Heaven and enjoys happiness therein according to the state of the con¬ junction subsisting between his love and faith* It is to be observed, that in the New Heaven which is this day being established by the Lord, this faith is cherished, and is the frontispiece, the portal, and the summary thereof* 2* The faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in its universal form is, that the Lord from eternity, Who is Jehovah, came into the world that He might subdue the hells and glorify His Humanity; that without Him no flesh could have been saved; and that all will be saved who believe in Him* It is called faith in its universal form, because this is the universal of faith, and the universal of faith is what enters into all and every particular part thereof* It is a universal of faith, that God is one in essence and person, in Whom there is a Divine Trinity, and that the Lord God, the Saviour, Jesus Christ, is that God. It is a universal of faith, that no flesh could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world. It is a universal of faith, that He came into the world to remove hell from man, which He effected by combats against it; whereby He subdued it, and reduced it to order and under obedience to Himself* It is a universal of faith, that He came into the world to glorify His Humanity, which He assumed in the world ; that is, to unite it with the Divinity of which it was begotten; thus He keeps hell eternally in order and under obedience* As this could not be effected except by means of the temptations wherewith He suffered His Humanity to be assaulted, even to the last and most extreme of all, which was His passion on the cross, therefore He endured that suffer¬ ing* These are the universals of faith concerning the Lord* The universal of faith on man's part is, that he should believe on the Lord ; for by believing on Him he has conjunc¬ tion with Him, and by conjunction salvation. To believe on Him is to have confidence that He will save ; and since no one can have such confidence, but he that leads a good life, there¬ fore this is also implied in believing on Him* To this purpose the Lord testifies in John : 4 This is the will of the Father, that every one that believeth on the Son may have everlasting life * (vi. 40) ; and in another place : 4 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.' (iii* 36*) CONCLUSION 249 3. The faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in its particular form is, that Jehovah God is essential Love and essential Wisdom, or that He is essential Good and essential Truth ; and that as to the Divine Truth, which is the Word, and which was God with God, He came down and took upon Him human nature for the purpose of reducing to order all things which were in Heaven and in hell and in the Church ; since at that time the power of hell prevailed over the power of Heaven, and on earth the power of evil over the power of good ; in consequence whereof a total damnation was at hand and threatened every creature. This impending damnation Jehovah God removed by His Humanity which was the Divine Truth and thus He redeemed both angels and men ; and after¬ wards He united in His Humanity Divine Truth with Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom with Divine Love, and thus returned into His Divinity, in which He existed from eternity, together with and in His glorified Humanity. This is signified by the words in John : * The Word was with God, and the Word was God ; and the Word was made flesh ' (i. 1, 14) ; and in another place : 4 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world ; again, I leave the world and go to the Father * (xvi. 28) ; and again : 4 We know that the Son of God has come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life * (I. John v. 20). Hence it is manifest that unless the Lord had come into the world, no flesh could have been saved. The case is similar at this day ; and, therefore, unless the Lord come again into the world in the Divine Truth, which is the Word, no person can be saved. The particulars of faith on man's part are : 1. That God is One, in Whom there is a Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 2. That a saving faith is to believe on Him. 3. That evil actions ought not to be done, because they are of the devil, and from the devil. 4. That good actions ought to be done, because they are of God, and from God. 5. And that a man should do them as of himself; never¬ theless under this belief, that they are from the Lord operating with him and by him. The first two particulars have relation to faith; the next two to charity; and the last respects the conjunction of charity and faith and thereby of the Lord and man. INDEX Adulteries, classification of, 83 Adultery, 63 Advent, Second, 174-176, 179, 231 Angels, concerning, in Heaven, 208-212 Apostolic succession, 168 Arian heresy, 171 Arius, 170, 171 Arnold, Matthew, on the sex question, 78 Atonement, doctrine of, 172, 173 Baptism, 151-158 of St. John, 153, 155-157 the three uses of, 154 Behm, Albrecht, 1 Benzelius, Dr. Ericus, 3, 22 Bread, daily, 137, 138 Bruce, Rev. W., on John the Baptist, 155-157 on the daily bread, 138 on regeneration, 141 on the Holy Supper, 148, 151 Brunswick-Luneburg, Duke Lud¬ wig Rudolph of, 11 Celibacy, 84 Charity, definition of, 246, 247 Charles XII, 7-10 Child, Rev. Thos., on Lord’s Prayer, 132, 134, 135 Christianity,explanation of,226-229 Church, 159-180 Christian, 162,163,169,174,177 Faith of New, 247-249 in Heaven, 165 in Middle Ages, 159 Israelitish, 162, 163, 174 Most Ancient, 162, 174 Roman Catholic, 171 Circumcision, the meaning of, 153 Clouds of Heaven, meaning of, 178, 179 Commandments, 57, 59, 65 Conclusion, 238-249 Conjugal Love, 70-86 Correspondences of the body, 190 science of, 107 Covetousness, prohibition of, 64, 65 Creation, 28-31, 38 allegory of, 113, 114 object of, 45, 46 true source of, 220, 225 Creed, Apostolic, 170, 237 — Athanasian, 170, 182 — Nicene, 170 ‘ Daedalus Hyperboreus,’ 7 Death, states after, 201-204 Degrees, 30, 35 Dignities and riches, origin of, 99 Divine Providence, 92 Eden, allegory of, 48-51 Garden of, 163 Ethics, 57-69 Evil, hereditary, 52, 234, 235 origin of, 42-56 Faiths, diversity of, 100-103 False witness, 63, 64 Flammarion, Camille, on the universe and immortality, 41 Flood, allegory of, 114-116 Fornication, 80, 81 Fortune, 95 God, before creation, 225 ; Humanity of, 229-231 ; name of, 61 ; omnipotence of, 222, 223 ; omnipresence of, 219, 224 ; omniscience of, 223, 224 ; unity of, 219, 225 Godhead, 217-237 Golden Age, 163 Good and Truth, marriage of, 71, 72, 76 Gutenburg, 160 Hands, the laying on of, 168 Hartley, Rev. Thomas, 15, 21-23 Heaven, 204 Hell, 212-216 ; composition of, 78, 79 ; origin of, 48, 54 Hereafter, 197-216 Holy Ghost, 236 Holy Supper, 146-151 252 REASONABLE RELIGION Iron Age, 164 John the Baptist, 151, 153-157 Judgment, Day of, 175 Jung-Stilling,|i8 Life, origin of, 26 Louisa Ulrica, Queen, 18 Love, conjugal, 73, 83, 85, 86 — masculine and feminine, 73 Luther, Martin, 160 Macaulay on progress in religion, 161,162 Mahomedanism, 102 Man, appearance of, after death, 185, 200 spiritual, four aspects of, 181 Marteville incident, 19 Messiah, meaning of, 229 Mill, John Stuart, on liberty, 42,241 Murder, 62 Neighbour, love of, 57, 58 New Jerusalem, 179, 180 Nice, Council of, 162 Numerals, meaning of, 118, 119 Order, definition of, 222 Parents, obedience to, 62 Passion, meaning of, 230, 233, 234 Passover, 145 Peter, Lord’s words to, 166, 167 Philosophers agreeing with Sweden¬ borg, 241, 242 Polhammer (Polhem), 4, 9 Prayer, 123-142 ; for material benefits, 124, 125 ; Lord’s, 130- 140 Predetermination, 45 Priesthood, 166-168 in Roman Catholic Church, 171 Progress since Swedenborg, 242,243 Purgatory, doctrine of, 201 Redemption, 230,231 ; need of, 232 Regeneration, 79, 189, 195, 196 Renaissance, 159, 160 Resurrection, process of, 199 Revelation, 104-122 Rules of Life of Swedenborg, 24 Sabbath, significance of, 61 Sacraments, 143-158 Sacrifices, significance of, 117 Salvation, 193,194 ; not difficulty 16 Selfishness, 52 Self-love, 44, 53, 56 Sex, 70-86 ; in Heaven, 74, 75 Soul, 181-196 ; ignorance concern¬ ing, 183, 184 ; immortality of, 183 ; origin of, 186 ; relation of, to the body, 186, 187 ; seat of, 183,184 Spirits, world of, 201 Spiritual atmospheres, 34 ; sun, 31 Spiritualism, 244, 245 Stockholm fire, 19 Subconscious self, 191, 192 Swedberg, Dr. Jesper, 1-3, 7 Swedenborg, Emanuel, life of, 1- 24 ; appointed assessor of mines, 8, 11 ; ancestry of, 1 ; appear¬ ance and dress of, 21; at Greifs- walde, 7 ; betrothal of, 9 ; birth of, 1 ; credentials of, 239- 241 ; death of, 17 ; engineering work of, 9 ; ennobled, 10 ; family connections, 1, 22 ; foreign tours, 3, 5, 7, 11 ; in¬ ventions of, 6, 7 ; political ac¬ tivity of, 13, 14, 20 ; political economy of, 13, 14 ; religious works of, 16, 17 ; scientific work of, 10-13 ; shows a young lady an angel, 23 ; spiritual sight opened, 15 ; visits London, 5 ; visits Paris, 6 Taine, H., evolution of English race, 54, 55 Temptation, 139, 140 Theft, 63 Trinity, doctrine of the Divine, 169, 170, 173, 225 true doctrine of, 237 Wars, meaning of and reasons for, 96 Will and understanding, 188 Word, historical parts of, 116 revelation of, 109, no World, governance of, 87-103 Worship, Divine inspiration of, 128, 129 Printed in England by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., Colchester, London & Eton % Date Due % 2 2 *30 ■ ^ - ( M? 1 m, 1 a ”42 n. r > ” - M < 1 ««»a r £j . ia 'sr, -p*-- m 18'5$ BX8748.H688 Reasonable religion. Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 1 1012 00004 1360