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A Spiritual Ground of Hope for the Salvation of our Country. 
 
 A. DISOOTJRSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 NEW JERUSALEM TEMPLE, 
 
 CHICAGO, AUGUST 6, 1863. 
 
 BY REV. J. R. HIBBARD, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 TRIBUNE COMPANY'S BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE, 51 CLARE STREET. 
 
 1862. 
 
A SPIRITUAL GROUND OF HOPE FOR THE SALVATION OF 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 J^ DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 NEW JERUSALEM TEMPLE, 
 
 CHICAGO, AUGUST 6, 1863. 
 
 BY REV. J. R. HIBBARD, 
 
 PA.STOR. 
 
 PUBIilSHED B¥ REQUEST. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 TRIBUNE COMPANY'S BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE, 51 CLARK STREET. 
 
 1862. 
 
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 in 2010 witli funding from 
 
 CARL!: Consortium of Academic and Researcli Libraries in Illinois 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/spiritualgroundoOOhibb 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 We have been invited by our Chief Magistrate to 
 assemble to-day for a special purpose, and special rea- 
 sons are assigned by him for the invitation. We are 
 called upon " to render homage to the Divine Majesty 
 for the wonderful things he has done in the nation's 
 behalf, and invoke the influence of his Holy Spirit to 
 subdue the anger which has produced and so long sus- 
 tained a needless and cruel rebellion ; to change the 
 hearts of the insurgents; to guide the counsels of the 
 Government with wisdom adequate to the great national 
 emergency; to visit with tender care and consolation, 
 throughout the length and breadth of our land, all 
 those who, through the vicissitudes of war, have been 
 brought to suffer in mind, body or estate ; and finally, 
 to lead the whole nation, through paths of repentance 
 and submission to the Divine will, to the perfect enjoy- 
 ment of union and fraternal peace." 
 
 The special reasons given for calling upon " the people 
 of the United States to unite in this thanksgiving, 
 praise and prayer," are, that " it has pleased Almighty 
 God to listen to the prayers of an afflicted people, and 
 to vouchsafe to our arms, by land and sea, victories so 
 signal and effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for 
 augmented confidence that the Union of these States will 
 be maintained, their Constitution preserved, and their 
 peace and prosperity pennanently secured ;" and because 
 
" these victories have cost much sacrifice, domestic afilic- 
 tion and bereavement;" and because "it is meet and 
 right to recognize and confess the presence of the 
 Almighty Father, and the power of his hand equally in 
 these triumphs and in these sorrows." 
 
 And as an appropriate Divine theme for the occasion, 
 I have chosen the following passage from Zephaniah : 
 
 " Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the 
 day that I rise up to the prey ; for my determination is 
 to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, 
 to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce 
 anger ; for all the earth shall be devoured by the fire of 
 my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure 
 language, that they may all call upon the name of the 
 Lord, to serve him with one consent." (3 : 8, 9.) 
 
 The general scope and bearing of the text is readily 
 grasped by those who ai'e in the habit of reading, care- 
 fully and thoughtfully, the Sacred Scriptures, in the light 
 of the New Church. 
 
 In its most obvious sense we see it to be an invitation 
 from the Lord to his people, to wait upon him, to serve 
 him, and trust in him, and wait patiently his time to 
 execute judgment upon the nations ; knowing that he is 
 "King of Kings and Lord of Lords;" that "Heruleth 
 over the nations of the earth;" that "He raiseth up one 
 and putteth down another," as he sees will most conduce 
 to the eternal good of mankind; aod that in his own good 
 time — when his infinite wisdom sees that the time has 
 come — he will, in an unusual and remarkable manner, 
 "gather the nations and assemble the kingdoms, to pour 
 upon them his indignation and the fierceness of his 
 anger, and devour them with the fire of his jealousy." 
 Not that the Lord does this directly, or by the immediate 
 
influence of liis spirit, for the Lord is never angry, nor 
 fierce, nor indignant, but such is the appearance to those 
 who are evil, and resist or pervert the influences of his 
 love, and the government of his wisdom ; and that this 
 will be done, that the nations of the earth may be puri- 
 fied, their evils broken up and removed, and a new and 
 better state of things caused to exist, — a state in which 
 the people will acknowledge the Lord and serve him. 
 " Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that 
 they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him 
 with one consent." 
 
 The text thus obviously involves the acknowledgment 
 of the Lord as the Supreme Governor of nations ; and 
 that the wars and desolations which sometimes come 
 upon them, while caused by their sins, are nevertheless 
 under Divine control ; and that they are permitted and 
 overruled, to the end that all may be led to " call upon the 
 name of the Lord, and to serve him with one consent." 
 And that a time should come when this would be mani. 
 festly so in an unusual and remarkable manner. 
 
 But in the light of the New Church, it is given to 
 those who are willing to use it to see, not only in a gen- 
 eral and obscure manner those features of the text, but 
 to see, with some clearness, the "times and seasons" re- 
 ferred to. And, knowing the intimate relation existing 
 between the spiritual and the natural worlds, and that 
 all the events that take place in the natural originate 
 in the activities of the spiritual, it becomes, U23on an 
 occasion like the present, a matter of interest as well as 
 propriety, to direct our attention to the spiritual causes 
 that have produced and are continuing the present ter- 
 rible commotions in our country, and which threaten to 
 involve, ere long, the civilized world in a religious as 
 well as civil war ; and to see whether recent victories 
 
and successes, with other connected circumstances, afford 
 reasonable ground of encouragement and hope for the 
 final success of our arms, and the preservation of our 
 nation, and the advancement of the principles of genu- 
 ine freedom, and an increase of the fear, love and service 
 of the Lord amongst men. 
 
 We feel assured they do, and we propose briefly to 
 give some reasons for this assurance. 
 
 These reasons, as they arise in our own mind, cluster 
 around three things : Divine Providence, the Last Judg- 
 ment, and the Fourth of July. 
 
 DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 
 
 The Lord governs the world, from a love that is never 
 unkind, and by a wisdom that never blunders. His 
 divine love wills or permits every event that takes place; 
 and his infinite wisdom provides that everything "shall 
 work together for good to them that love God," and, 
 by the efibrt to do his will, will place themselves in the 
 stream of his life ; and that, to the evil and perverse, 
 everything shall work together to produce the best re- 
 sults possible, consistent with their free will. He who 
 created,' daily sustains the world. He who redeemed, 
 daily provides, as far as possible, for its salvation. He 
 who by the suflferance of trials, and temptations, and the 
 cross, purified, and sanctified, and glorified his humanity, 
 continues still, by means of trials and temptations, and 
 the crucifixion and death of earthly things, to purify, 
 and sanctify, and elevate the world to a higher and bet- 
 ter state. The tender mercies of our God are over all 
 his works. "His sun rises on the evil and the good, 
 and his rain falls upon the just and the unjust." So 
 that while, as the "Most High God," he "ruleth in the 
 kingdom of men, and appointeth over it whomsoever 
 
lie will," in all that he does, he seeks to provide for, 
 and promote the happiness and well-being of the least 
 as well as the greatest, the lowest as well as the highest, 
 in his kingdom. While he controls the nations, build- 
 ing up one and pulling down another, he watches, with 
 equal care, the life and destiny of every individual in 
 them. He beholds and overrules, not only kings and 
 presidents, and the nations over which they preside, but 
 every man therein. He sees the sparrow, when it falls, 
 and numbers the hairs of our head. The Divine Provi- 
 dence — the spirit and governance of divine love and 
 wisdom — has been, and still is present, in all the affairs 
 of our beloved country, providing the best of good, and 
 23ermitting the least of evil possible, consistent with the 
 free will of our people, individually and collectively. 
 
 From this view of the Divine Government, we see 
 that all the events that have transpired in relation to 
 our country, whether apparently propitious or adverse, 
 are really for its final good, and we thence draw encour- 
 agement to believe, that, while the rebellion itself, and 
 its earlier successes, were apparently disastrous to our 
 country, and threatened the dissolution of our Govern- 
 ment and the overthrow of our free institutions, they were 
 really but the permissions of a merciful Father, to try 
 our love for our country,, and, by the fear of its loss, 
 render it more dear to our hearts, and by afflictions to 
 purify and exalt both our country and our love for it ; by 
 freeing our country from great evils, rendering it more 
 worthy of our love, and by our sufferings in its behalf, 
 making our love for it less selfish and more worthy of 
 bestowal. The people generally but little realized the 
 value of our country, or our Government, until they saw 
 them in imminent danger of being taken away; and 
 until a common danger threatened, and a common woe of 
 
blood, and tears, and suffering came upon us, each one 
 lived for himself instead of for his neighbor, his country, 
 or his God. But a danger and affliction in which all are 
 involved, from which none are entirely exempt, have 
 opened the hearts of the people towards each other, and 
 brought more near, and into closer and kinder sym- 
 pathy, the souls of all loyal citizens. And in this "fur- 
 nace of affliction " all the various loyal elements in our 
 land have been melted into one ardent compact body of 
 patriotic self sacrificing men and women, devoting them- 
 selves with all they have and are, to the various services 
 required to protect, defend and preserve our union and 
 our country, while the dross by the same furnace is being 
 separated and consumed. 
 
 And while thus encouraged to believe that good results 
 have followed in the path of our earlier reverses, we are 
 also still more encouraged to believe that our recent vic- 
 tories are tokens also of the Divine favor, and of the 
 Divine purpose to protect and save our Government from 
 dissolution, and continue, in an increased degree, its bless- 
 ings to generations yet to come ; that, having humbled 
 ourselves under affliction, we shall, according to the prom- 
 ise given to such, " be exalted." 
 
 A host of reasons for encouragement gather around 
 this view of the Divine Providence and its operation 
 in the government of our nation ; so many we cannot 
 enumerate them in an hour's discourse ; and we must 
 leave this, and pass to the second centre of reasons for 
 encouragement to believe that our recent victories 
 betoken ultimate success in saving our country with its 
 blessings, as a heritage to our children and the world : 
 
 THE LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 And, that we may see the bearing of the Last Judg- 
 
9 
 
 ment upon tlie present subject, we must say a few words 
 concerning it, and in doing so, shall repeat what some 
 of you, perhaps, may have heard from us before. 
 
 From the beginning of the first Christian Church, 
 those who were interiorly and at the same time exteri- 
 orly good, as they passed into the spiritual world, were 
 taken up into heaven ; while those who were interiorly 
 and at the same time exteriorly evil, were cast into hell. 
 But as that Church increased, became external and cor- 
 rupt, there came to be a class of persons who were 
 externally religious but internally evil, who externally 
 worshipped God, attended the church, observed the sac- 
 raments, etc., but in their hearts made light of the com- 
 mandments, thought nothing of disobedience to them in 
 secret, and were internally evil although externally good. 
 They could not go to heaven, for their evils would infest 
 the angels. Nor need they at once be cast into hell, for 
 they were externally good, and could live in some kind 
 of peace in society with the simple good in the world of 
 spirits. They were, therefore, permitted to remain in the 
 world of spirits, and there form societies and habitations, 
 as it were, heavens, in which they dwelt. Being below 
 the angelic heaven, and closely associated with the minds 
 of men upon earth, the influence of the Lord and the 
 angels as it came down towards men, would be interrupted 
 by them, like the sunlight by dark clouds ; or, as a message 
 sent by an unfaithful or dishonest messenger, the angelic 
 influence, on its way to man, would be perverted to agree 
 with their own evil state, like sunlight passing through 
 smoked glass. So that the Church and the world, from 
 their influence, would become more corrupt, and, react- 
 ing, such persons would become more numerous, until 
 the light of heaven would be almost entirely shut out 
 from men, and the love of self, and lust of dominion, in 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 connection with all false principles agreeing with those 
 loves, would universally prevail in the Church, and con- 
 sequently, in the civil and social life of Christendom. 
 This would go on until the world would be in danger 
 of being utterly desolated and the human race destroyed. 
 When, to prevent this, it would become necessary that 
 a Judgment should be executed upon the evil in the 
 world of spirits, their evil states be made manifest, and 
 they be cast down into hell. Their fictitious habitations, 
 being hypocritical like themselves, or an effigy of their 
 own state, would disappear. The world of spirits, left 
 unobstructed by their presence and influence, would per- 
 mit the light from heaven to flow more directly and 
 without perversion into the minds of men. 
 
 This event took place in the year 1757, and at the 
 same time, a new heaven, of true and genuine Christians, 
 of those who, while they lived in this world, and after 
 they went out of this world, could acknowledge the Lord 
 Jesus Christ as the God of heaven and earth, and who 
 lived lives of love and charity to the neighbor, began to 
 be formed in the region where the fictitious heavens of 
 the internally evil had been. 
 
 At the same time, also, the Lord revealed from His 
 Word to men, the doctrines which are taught, believed, 
 and practiced by the angels of this heaven ; and thus 
 began to establish a New Church on the earth, having the 
 same doctrines of faith and life as the new heaven. Since 
 then, persons passing into the world of spirits do not 
 remain long there ; none more than twenty or thirty 
 years, few anything like so long. But the internally good 
 are prepared and pass up and find their place in the 
 new heaven, while the internally evil pass down into hell. 
 So that, not being obstructed by the long continued 
 presence of evil in the world of spirits, the light and in- 
 
11 
 
 fluence of the new heaven can, and do, since then, flow 
 more directly and powerfully into the minds of men. 
 And as the new heaven increases in numbers, its influ- 
 ence increases in the minds of men, and its principles of 
 love to the Lord, and charity towards the neighbor, are 
 more and more received and operative in the world. 
 
 In the latter age of the first Christian Church, from 
 the influence of the evil and hypocritical in the world 
 of spirits, faith alone, or belief, instead of a life of char- 
 ity, was taught as a means of salvation, and its legitimate 
 effect upon society was the common feeling that a life of 
 use, of charity, of labor, was degrading ; but a life of 
 faith, of belief that Christ suffered for them, and they 
 need not work at all, was honorable. Hence the institu- 
 tions and forms of society for the support of an aristoc- 
 racy of idleness, of gentlemen of leisure, all over Christ- 
 endom a hundred years ago. The Last Jud cement re- 
 moved the exciting cause of these false principles and 
 parties in the world of spirits, while the formation of a 
 new heaven, and the revelation of its doctrines for the 
 establishment of a New Church on the earth, gave rise to 
 a new class of principles, to a new order of influx, to a 
 new train of thought and feeling concerning life ; beo-an 
 indeed a new kind of common sense among men. The 
 doctrine of charity, of use, of salvation by the Lord only 
 in the degree man keeps the commandments, and in ceas- 
 ing to do evil learns to do well, to be useful, to do some- 
 thing that in some way promotes the common good, 
 began to be taught ; and the new influx of common 
 sense, from the new heaven, agreeing with it, began to 
 strengthen the new doctrine, that charity, use, work 
 labor, was the crown of manhood. 
 
 This new order of thought and element of life, as 
 following the Last Judgment, began in 1757 — weak at 
 
12 
 
 first, but continually becoming stronger. All the false 
 notions of life, and evil forms of society in accordance 
 with tliem, were of course antagonistic to the new ele- 
 ment that was forming itself from heaven into the minds 
 of men. The effect of this continued and increasing 
 influx, must therefore, of course, be commotion, change, 
 renovation, reconstruction of the order of things in all 
 departments, and in all the planes of life, scientific, artis- 
 tic, civil, social, and religious : the breaking up of the 
 old, and hard, and false, and useless, and the forma- 
 tion and growth of the new, and living, and true, and 
 useful. 
 
 In all divine creations " that is first which is natural, 
 afterwards that which is sj^iritual," whether it be a 
 man as an individual, or a nation, or a church, or a 
 heaven. 
 
 The Lord formed the earth before he formed man 
 upon it. And when he would form an angel, he first 
 forms the body of an infant, afterwards the rational and 
 regenerate man, and finally the angel ; and in the regen- 
 eration of a man, the child first learns and understands 
 natural truths, natural things, and afterwards rational, 
 and finally spiritual things. The same law holds true 
 in regard to the establishment, form^ation, and growth 
 of man as a church, as a dispensation, as a new order of 
 human life on earth. That is first which is natural; 
 that is, that which is first formed and appears is natural, 
 having within it the germ of what is spiritual, as the 
 body of the infant is first formed, and has in it the germ 
 of the spiritual man. The influence of the new heaven, 
 flowing down, and pressing to be received, would mani- 
 fest itself by its effects, through those faculties of the 
 mind open to its reception. There would be first the 
 lowest natural, the sensual, those relating to the phys- 
 
13 
 
 ical sciences and arts, and tliat have care for tlie physical 
 and worldly comfort and happiness of man. The new 
 life and light, flowing into these faculties, would break 
 out in new discoveries in science, and new inventions in 
 art, and these would follow each other in rapid succes- 
 sion as the new influence increased. The notions of 
 science that before prevailed would be exploded or 
 renovated, and new principles, founded on experience 
 in the light of reason, would take their place. The 
 arts, for use especially, would leap with new life. 
 
 And what has been the state of things in this respect 
 since 1*757? The sciences and useful arts are since then 
 almost a new creation. The steamboat, the railroad, the 
 telegraph, the power press, the cotton gin, the sower and 
 the reaper and the mower, improved machinery for spin- 
 ning and weaving and knitting and sewing, and ten 
 thousand other things, from the friction match that lights 
 your fire to the subject sunlight that prints your por- 
 trait, or the fire-sped chariot that in a day sweeps you 
 across a kingdom or a continent, all have come down or 
 out from the new heaven since 1757 — and the day of 
 making all things new has but just begun. 
 
 The natural plane for man's physical comfort has just 
 begun to be prepared for the coming forth and residence 
 of the higher things of the New Jerusalem, the order of 
 things which will surely follow. And through what 
 opposition and battling from the old have all these new 
 things come! How Fulton labored and struggled for 
 long weary years against the ignorance and prejudice of 
 old ideas ! And Morse the same. We well remember 
 when the proprietors of the old stage coaches opposed 
 the railroad, because it would not only destroy their 
 business, but the farmer's business of raising horses, 
 upon the supposition that there would be no use for them. 
 
14 
 
 And the cotton and woollen factories and sewing ma- 
 chines were long and bitterly opposed, lest they should 
 starve the poor who spun and wove and sewed for their 
 support. The old and useless in science and art, as in 
 everything else, loves ease, hates change, dreads death, 
 and battles against the new till its last breath. Every- 
 thing new, like a new birth, comes with struggling and 
 pangs. 
 
 After, and above the plane of science and art for the 
 physical comfort of man, and the lowest basis of society 
 and the Church, comes the civil and social plane of life. 
 Previous to 1757 the forms of the civil and social world 
 in Christendom grew out of the doctrine of faith instead 
 of charity, the lust of dominion instead of love ; out of 
 the doctrine that idleness was genteel and honorable, 
 and labor servile and degrading. And Calvin taught 
 that even the effort to do anything good was a sin. The 
 spirit of the civil government, as derived from the state 
 of the Church, was like its origin. The idle few ruled, 
 for their own aggrandizement, the many laborers. The 
 working men had no liberty to choose who should be 
 the medium of law from God to them. They had no 
 freedom to choose politically whether they would serve 
 the Lord or Baal. A self elected few claimed the divine 
 birth-right to rule the many ; and this with several of 
 the nations had worked down so low that a part of the 
 people were bought and sold like cattle. 
 
 After the Last Judgment, when the spirit of the new 
 heaven, the spirit of use, of labor, of voluntarily and 
 rationally doing something useful, began to flow down 
 and be perceived as the true index and measure of a 
 man, the old spirit and effete forms of civil and social 
 life began to feel and fear its influence. The civil plane 
 of the minds of some were sufliciently open to perceive 
 
15 
 
 aud receive something of true light in civil affairs, to 
 receive some light concerning a right order of civil 
 government. In due time, through the civil plane of 
 the minds of the fathers of our country, there came forth 
 the form of our Republican Government. 
 
 We may, and I do believe that the idea of our Govern- 
 ment came forth from the Lord, by the descending influ- 
 ences of the new heaven, through the civil plane of the 
 minds of our fathers, that it might be a new, free, civil 
 Government as a plane for the free as New Jerusalem 
 Church. 
 
 But the IDEA of our Government, begotten of the 
 Lord by the influence of the new heaven flowing into 
 the civil plane of the minds of our fathers, was not born 
 without struggles, and violence, and blood. The old 
 tyrannies and aristocracies opposed and battled against 
 the growing sentiment of free government, and the 
 dignity of useful labor. And in the throes of our Revo- 
 lution many of our fathers laid down their lives. But 
 a new nation — new in spirit, form and life — was born 
 from the struggle though baptized in their blood. 
 
 Since 1757, the same spirit from the new heaven that 
 gave rise to our Government, has been pressing down 
 and striving to come forth in the Old World. And 
 what upheavings and struggles have been produced by 
 the eftbrts of the old tyrannies to oppose its utterance! 
 Yet every eftbrt to hold it back breaks some bond ; every 
 resistance loosens some fetter ; until to-day, in England, 
 France, Germany, Italy, and even Russia, the laboring 
 serf breathes more freely, and feels himself, and is, a 
 hundred per cent, more a man than he w^as a century 
 ago. We believe aud trust that in due time, the new 
 man of free civil government, recognizing the life of 
 charity, the dignity and honorableness of useful labor. 
 
16 
 
 will be born into active life in the kins^doms of tlie old 
 world, while the encrusted and useless aristocracies of 
 faith alone, and of the lust of dominion, pass away. 
 But it can only be through rendings, and trials, and seas 
 of blood. 
 
 And even when a new nation is born from the 
 descending influences of the new heaven, it is like the 
 individual infant, defiled with hereditary evil. A nation 
 is but a larger man, and the laws that govern the birth, 
 development, regeneration, and perfection of the one, 
 govern also that of the other. 
 
 Hereditary evil, by the mercy of the Lord, lies latent 
 during the infant's early years, while remains of good 
 and truth, by various means, are being implanted by 
 the Lord, by which, in after life, he may be strengthened 
 to resist and overcome his inborn evils, when, excited by 
 wicked spirits, they shall rise up to assault the spiritual 
 life of the soul. And when, in adult life, hereditary 
 evils, being excited by evil spirits, assault the life of 
 the sonl, the man begins to find that the worst foes to 
 his regeneration, to his peace, prosperity, and eternal 
 happiness, are those of his own household, those that 
 were born with him, those that have grown up with and 
 in him as a j^art of himself. And the most painful and 
 hardest work he has to do is, to "cut off the right hand, 
 and pluck out the right eye " of those hereditary evils, 
 that from childhood he has seen and loved as a part of 
 himself. 
 
 But his regeneration and salvation require their 
 removal; and without it he cannot be saved. By the 
 remains of good and truth, stored up in him from infancy, 
 he stands firm against the assaults of his inward foes, 
 overcomes, puts them down and away, and rises into a 
 higher and purer atmosphere of life, and into a state of 
 peace and blessedness superior to any he before enjoyed. 
 
17 
 
 Just so with a nation. Begotten by tlie influence of 
 the new heaven, our nation, as a nation, derived hered- 
 itary evil from our English mother. Declaring all men 
 by nature to be " free and equal," and having a just 
 " right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," she 
 retained the taint of the distinction of caste, of the 
 degradation of labor. 
 
 During the early years of our national life, these 
 hereditary taints, as in an infant, were latent and inac- 
 tive, while Divine mercy was busy, with all possible 
 means, to store the inner mind of the nation with 
 remains of genuine civil and political good and truth ; 
 instilling into the minds of her people, more and more, 
 the true and good principles of civil life, of respect for 
 man as man, and for his natural rights as an image of 
 his Maker, of the duty of all to obey law, to observe 
 order, and for the honorableness of active usefulness. 
 By means of these remains, implanted in the inte- 
 riors of our national mind continually, by the various 
 means provided by the Lord for her instruction, has the 
 Lord provided a power to sustain the nation in her day 
 of trial, when in her present more adult age, her hered- 
 itary evils have risen up, seeking to destroy her national 
 life. 
 
 Our nation is no longer an infant. Hereditary evils, 
 at first and for a long time measurably latent — unob- 
 served — have risen up in open rebellion, and seek by 
 violence and war, supremacy, or the destruction of our 
 national life. 
 
 Our civil war is a conflict between the old and the 
 new ; between the principles of free government and the 
 principles of despotism ; between free service and com- 
 pelled labor; between the right of man to own himself 
 and the right of another to own him ; the right of every 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 man to be tlie Lord's freeman, and the right of another 
 to enslave him ; between the doctrine that useful labor 
 is honorable, and that it is degrading ; between industry 
 and idleness ; between the spirit of freedom, and the lust 
 of dominion ; between the love of use, and the lust of 
 pleasure ; between the new from heaven, and the old 
 from hell. These are the principles from above and 
 below, that come out and meet in fierce and open 
 conflict in this civil war. And the movements and sym- 
 j)athies of parties, nations and religions of the world 
 confirm, to every thoughtful and reflecting mind, what 
 the light of the New Church so clearly shows to be the 
 case. 
 
 With this view of the Last Judgment, and its effects 
 and influence upon the world, can we doubt which will 
 finally triumph ? So sure as the spring sun thaws out 
 the frozen earth, overcomes the persistent frost, loosens 
 the icy bands, and lets the imprisoned water freely flow 
 towards the great fountains, or ascend upon the sun- 
 beams towards the heavens, till, filled with life and joy, it 
 spreads itself abroad, and descends in gentle showers, to 
 refresh and fertilize the earth, covering the fields with 
 green and the forests with beauty, and making the 
 deserts to rejoice and blossom as the rose, so sure will 
 the spirit of the wintry past, in the religions and govern- 
 ments of the nations, and the frozen, hard, selfish and 
 oppressive forms and habits of societies and peoples 
 founded thereon, be broken up by the spirit of the 
 Lord, coming warm from the new heavens, in this spring 
 time of the new age ; and armies, nations, or peoples 
 that attempt to sustain the old and evil, will melt away, 
 and disappear from the earth, giving place to the new, 
 the free, the useful, the blessed, in religious, civil, social, 
 and domestic life. 
 
19 
 
 But we must pass from the Last Judgment, and its 
 general effects and influences, and its present and pros- 
 pective results, to the last general division of our 
 subject, 
 
 THE FOURTH OF JULY, 
 
 And inquire what reasons cluster around that day, from 
 which we have a right to draw encouragement, that our 
 Union will be preserved, our Government sustained, and 
 our Country, with its untold blessings, saved : no longer 
 an oppressor, but an asylum for the oppressed, a rest 
 for the weary, a goal for the wanderer, a light to the 
 world ; of the new age, the first-born unto God, among 
 the nations of the earth. 
 
 By the common consent of mankind, remarkable 
 events are called to mind, by appropriate celebrations, 
 on the periodical return of the days on which the events 
 occuiTed. To do this is common, and has been for ages, 
 all over the world. This custom originated in Divine 
 appointment, and exists from the ground of spiritual 
 law. 
 
 The Lord appointed the Sabbath, as a periodical 
 remembrance of His Rest. Its period is seven days. 
 The Jewish Passover was appointed by the law, to be 
 observed in memory of the salvation of Israel and their 
 first-born, while those of the Egyptians were slain. The 
 period of this is one year. And so there were many 
 days appointed to be observed, by feasting, and in other 
 ways — some returning monthly, some yearly — and every 
 fiftieth year was a Jubilee, to commemorate especially 
 the freedom of Israel, when they " proclaimed liberty 
 throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof," 
 (Lev. 25 : 10); and every man could return freely to his 
 home, or the possessions of his fathers. And besides 
 
20 
 
 tlie days of Divine appointment, many have been and 
 are still observed as periodical remembrancers of events 
 and of principles connected witli them — observed, not by 
 Divine appointment, but because the common perception 
 of those interested, was and is conscious of a return of 
 thought and excitement of life concerning those events 
 and principles, when the periodic day or time returns ; 
 and they feel a renewed delight in such remembrance. 
 The little child's birthday party and the grandfather's 
 golden wedding are domestic illustrations, while the 
 days of saints and heroes, and the many anniversa- 
 ries, and even centennaries, of great events, are more 
 general illustrations of the same thing. 
 
 There are spiritual reasons why this should be so. 
 
 Life is a cycle — from the innocence of infancy to the 
 innocence of wisdom in old age and heaven. The uni- 
 verse is made up of cycles. The earth revolves from 
 morning round to morning again, and annually marks a 
 larger cycle, and returns periodically to nearly the same 
 point ; and every section of its circle is periodically 
 marked with signs according to its progress, from spring 
 with its grass and flowers, through the summer with its 
 growths and grains, the autumn with its fruits, the 
 winter with its snows, to the spring with its grass and 
 flowers again. Returninor seasons with their peculiar 
 features, and returning periods of each successive day — 
 the cycles of nature in her thousand forms — are but the 
 types of cycles that belong to mind, and that sweep 
 round their courses in the spiritual world. 
 
 The spiritual and the natural world are closely related. 
 Men in the spiritual world, and men in the body, feel 
 and think together by correspondence. The spiritual 
 flows into and operates upon the natural world; spirits 
 into and upon men ; spirits, good or bad, flow into and 
 operate upon those who think and feel with them. 
 
21 
 
 The natural forms of tliouc^lit andfeelinsf in tlie minds 
 of men, are wliat afford a basis for this influx and opera- 
 tion. This fact is the basis of the Holy Sacraments of 
 the Church, as a means of consociation with the angels : 
 of Baptism, as "inserting among Christians in the spiritual 
 world," and the Holy Supper, as " consociating and con- 
 joining with the angels and the Lord." The thoughts 
 of men being of the water, the bread and the wine, 
 with an affection for the things of heaven, corresponding 
 to the thoughts and affections of the angels concerning 
 the spiritual things signified by them. And thus the 
 angels flow into and operate npon men in these sacra- 
 ments. 
 
 Now, certain days are, in our minds, associated with 
 certain events, and the principles that produced them. 
 When, therefore, a certain day approaches, our thoughts 
 turn to, and our feelings become interested in the things 
 connected with that day; and the spirits that are in 
 agreement with and under the influence of similar prin- 
 ciples, become associated with us, and more or less 
 powerfully influence us. 
 
 With this view in our minds, let us look at the Fourth 
 of July, and some of the events more nearly or remotely 
 connected with it. 
 
 On the Fourth day of July, 1776, the fathers of om' 
 country signed the Declaration of Independence — the 
 declaration of civil and religious freedom, for themselves 
 and their children. 
 
 That was our birthday as a nation. The principles of 
 free government embodied in that Declaration, signed 
 upon that day, assumed form and found a home in the 
 hearts of our people; but more especially, with those 
 living in the northern half of our country. Since then 
 the sun has run his yearly cycle more than eighty 
 
22 
 
 times ; and at every return of that great day, the people 
 have been stirred as one man by the thoughts and 
 principles that gave it birth. In the northern half of 
 our country especially, the young, the middle-aged, and 
 the patriarch leaning on his staff, have called to remem- 
 brance the events of the first Fourth of July, and the 
 principles of liberty that are associated with it; and 
 spiritual power has come into them from those in the 
 spiritual world who sympathize with the sj^irit of free- 
 dom among men. The Fourth of July has thus become 
 the Periodic Sign of human liberty and free government 
 on the earth. 
 
 Man's power, and vigor, and nerve, and active life, 
 flow into him from God, through the spiritual world. 
 
 Put all these things together now, and see if the 
 remarkable events — the victories and successes of our 
 arms — that transpired upon and near the late Fourth of 
 July, do not justly afPord ground for great encouragement 
 and strong confidence that the rebellion will be quelled, 
 the Union preserved, and our country saved. 
 
 All along through the year, our prospects, if not 
 gloomy, were not bright ; with few exceptions, the tide 
 appeared as much against as for us. But as the Fourth 
 of July approached, that day so fully associated in the 
 Northern mind with freedom, but so little cared for in 
 the South, so little celebrated ever, and especially of late 
 years, because their " peculiar institution" would be 
 endangered by the cultivation and dissemination of the 
 spirit of it — as the day approached, the thoughts and 
 feelings connected with it were excited in the Northern 
 mind. And then the spirits who love and sympathize 
 with freedom, became present and flowed into them ; 
 and the Northern soldiers' hearts burned with the fire 
 of liberty and free government, kindled from the 
 
23 
 
 spiritual world ; and his limbs forgot to be weary, his 
 arms grew doubly strong as they grasped the weapons 
 of war. A mighty strength sustained them, and gave 
 them unconquerable power. While the rebels had no 
 such inspiration, but the reverse ; the terrors of the 
 day were on them, for they were opposed to and warr- 
 ing against the very principles that gave it birth. 
 Like Belshazzar at sight of the handwriting on the 
 wall, "the joints of their loins were loosed, and their 
 knees smote one against another," for fear of what 
 was coming; and they melted away at Gettysburg; 
 fled panic-stricken at Helena; laid down their arms 
 and begged for mercy at Vicksburg ; retreated before 
 Kosecrans ; cowered under Banks at Hudson ; ran away 
 from Jackson ; yielded at Yazoo ; scattered before 
 Blunt ; surrendered at Huntsville ; were routed at 
 Front Royal ; and on their knees beg for mercy in 
 Ohio ; until within two days before and twenty days 
 after the Fourth of July, more than seventy thousand 
 rebels yielded themselves prisoners to the citizen soldiers 
 who were fighting to save their country born on that \ 
 day ! Had the spirits that loved the principles an / 
 nounced on the first great Fourth of July nothing to do 
 with all this? And if they had — if their intiuen<-^ 
 strengthened our soldiers' hearts and hands, and inspired 
 fear and trembling into our enemies, then are these late 
 victories a sign that the better powers of the spiritual 
 world — those in connection with the new heavens — are 
 on the side of our country ; and that we shall, by such 
 divine aid and assistance, in due time prevail against all 
 the enemies of our Government, whether foreisrn or 
 domestic. For if the Lord and the heavens are for us, 
 who can be against us ? 
 
24 
 
 Then "offer unto God thanksgiving" for His merci- 
 ful help. He will give it to us if we keep ourselves on 
 the right side, in the right way. Fear him. Obey the 
 laws. Sustain the Government. Serve your Country 
 from love for her and the principles of free government 
 she embodies and represents ; and the armies of Heaven 
 will be with our armies till the rebellion will be remem- 
 bered but as a terrible tornado that has passed away. 
 
 But while we rejoice in recent victories and in the 
 assurance of speedy triumphs, till peace shall again be 
 with us, we are called to sorrow with the many thou- 
 sands who have been torn and wounded, in their own 
 persons or in their friends, by the terrible storm. The 
 moan of the bereaved, the widow's wail and the orphan's 
 cry, come to us on every breeze. The maimed, the 
 wounded, and the limping, meet us at every corner. 
 The call of our sick and suffering soldiers comes on the 
 wind from every hospital. They call for our help. 
 They are doing more for us than we can ever do for 
 them. While with humble and thankful hearts we 
 g" offer unto God thanksgiving" and sing him words of 
 a^raise, let us show our thankfulness of heart by corres- 
 ponding deeds, and give, for the relief and comfort of 
 ihe sick and suffering, as the Lord has given us ability. 
 Amen. 
 

 UCSY 
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