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SWEDENBORG

THE NEW CHURCH.

BT
JAMES REED,
PASTOB, OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF THE NEW JERUSALEU

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY
(JC&c EilierBiJie Pwbb, Camlirilise.
1880.

COPTRIQHT, 1880.
Bl JAMES KEED.

All rights reserved.

n-nx95

Ra^

EIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE !
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT
H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY,

PEEFAOE.

The author has been, of late years, often re
minded of a growing desire, on the part of in
telligent persons in the community, for a brief
and clear statement of the principal teachings of
Swedenborg. In the hope of meeting this want,
the following lectures were prepared and deliv
ered, and are now in a permanent form offered
to the public.
Boston, January 27, 1880.

CONTENTS.

FIRST LECTURE.
FA6I
Swedenborg and the New Church ... 7

SECOND LECTURE.
The Sacred Scriptures  25
THIRD LECTURE.
The Divine Nature and Providence . . 44
FOURTH LECTURE.
The Incarnation and Redemption . . .60
FIFTH LECTURE.
The Holt Spirit and Regeneration . . 78
SIXTH LECTURE.
The Spiritual World  96
SEVENTH LECTURE.
Death, Resurrection, and Judgment . . 115
EIGHTH LECTURE.
Marriage  129

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH.

FIRST LECTURE.
SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH.
Most well-informed persons, at the present
day, have heard of Emanuel Swedenborg, and of
the doctrinal system which is usually coupled
with his name ; but it may be truly said that
very few know much about them. On this, as
on many other subjects, the great majority of
people are content with what they may gather
from hearsay, or from the vague, general impres
sions of others. Though they may no longer re
gard Swedenborg as a madman, and his writings
as a tissue of insane dreamings, yet they have
scarcely any idea of the true nature and scope of
the doctrines he unfolds.
But to those who have read, and understand
and accept, these doctrines, they seem to be of
the utmost magnitude and importance. They
do not differ from other doctrines on any single
point, or on any few points, which might be
quickly mentioned ; but they appear to bring new
light to bear on all points. It is not any mere

8 FIRST LECTURE.
sectarian distinction which they indicate, but the
dawning of a new age, and the beginning of a
new Christianity.
The term " New Church " is constantly em
ployed by Swedenborg to designate this new or
der of things ; which, at the time when he wrote,
he declared to be at hand. By it is meant not
simply the substitution of one system of religion
for another among men, but a radical change in
their habits of thought and modes of life, a re
newal of the mental and spiritual air which they
breathe, a fresh impulse and direction given to
all their efforts and activities. The New Church,
in a broad, general sense, does not consist of
those alone who professedly receive the new doc
trines, but includes men and women in every
part of the world who are, directly or indirectly,
sensibly or insensibly, affected by the new influ
ences. Swedenborg stands before us as the her
ald of a new age, and his writings as an exposi
tion of its distinctive religious truth.
These are great claims, it will be' truly said,
and should be admitted only upon the weight
iest evidence. Ought they to be accepted on
the bare authority of Swedenborg or any other
man ?
To this question, so frequently asked, I would
give the most emphatic answer. No man, how
ever good and wise, should be blindly followed in
matters of opinion or belief. Swedenborg him-

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 9
self would be the last among men to assume any
such personal authority. It is laid down in his
writings as a cardinal principle that man should
act in freedom according to reason. Religion fur
nishes no ground of exception to this rule. Un
less one has perfect freedom of thought, and is
able to satisfy his own reason, he can have no
genuine faith in any doctrine. Though he pro
fess, he does not truly believe. But, if a doc
trine or principle is seen to be true in itself, no
matter whence it comes, or with what name it is
associated ; no matter how many or how few may
join us in embracing it ; if we are free and un
trammelled in the exercise of the rational facul
ties which the Lord has given us, we shall adopt
it for its own intrinsic worth, and say nothing
about authority. It seems to us to be of God.
On these grounds, and on no others, the doc
trines of the New Church, as contained in the
theological works of Swedenborg, are valued by
those who receive them. And, as was said, they
constitute an entire new system of theology,
which touches on every conceivable point of be
lief. They let in a flood of light upon the Script
ures, enabling us to understand better who our
Heavenly Father is, what are the purposes of his
creation and the character of his government,
and how we maybe prepared for heaven. They
explain to us the constitution of the human
mind, and thus help us to know oui'selves. They

10 FIRST LECTURE.
open before the mind's eye the spiritual world as
it has never hitherto been opened. In short,
they give more comprehensive and spiritual views
of all things.
Still there may be a natural and proper desire
to know something about the man in whose writ
ings these doctrines' are to be found. Let us,
therefore, at this time consider briefly who and
what he was.
Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm,
Sweden, January 29, 1688, or nearly two hun
dred years ago. His name at first was not Swe
denborg, but Swedberg, and he was the son of
Jesper Swedberg, bishop of Skara, in West
Gothland. His father is spoken of as a man of
" piety, learning, integrity, benevolence, and all
other virtues." It is an interesting fact, that for
many years he (the father) superintended a
Swedish mission on this continent, in and about
the State of Delaware.
" A son of Bishop Swedberg," says Sandel,
who pronounced Swedenborg's eulogy, " could
not fail to receive a good education according to
the custom of the times, and such as was adapted
to form his youth to virtue, to industry, to solid
knowledge, and especially to those sciences which
were to constitute his chief occupation." The
sciences here referred to are the natural sciences,
to which in the early part of his life he gave spe
cial attention, and which, in the estimation of

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 11
this eulogist, were the principal ground of his
celebrity. He studied first in the Swedish uni
versity of Upsal, and afterwards, during four
successive years, in the universities of England,
Holland, France, and Germany.
When he was twenty-eight years old, he was
appointed, by King Charles XII., Assessor Ex
traordinary of his Board of Mines. This board
is a constitutional branch of the Swedish govern
ment ; and the position of assessor is compared
by an English biographer to that of president of
the British Board of Trade. There can be no
doubt that it was a post of great honor and re
sponsibility. Swedenborg unquestionably owed
his appointment at so early an age to his attain
ments in mathematical and mechanical science ;
and it is to be remarked that until he was about
sixty years old he devoted his time almost exclu
sively to scientific pursuits. During this period
he published many scientific works of great value,
in which he anticipated a number of important
discoveries, which are commonly ascribed to more
recent investigators. Nor did he disdain to join
practical with theoretical science. It is related
that on one occasion he was of great service to
the king by transporting over valleys and moun
tains, by the help of machines of his own inven
tion, two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop,
for a distance of about fourteen English miles.
He received during his lifetime many marks

12 FIRST LECTURE.
of distinction, and probably there were few of
his countrymen who were as widely and favor
ably known. In the year 1719, when he was
about thirty years of age, his family was raised to
the rank of nobility, and his name was changed
from Swedberg to Swedenborg. He thus became
a member of the Equestrian Order of the House
of Nobles, and was entitled to a seat in the diets
of the realm, where he always conducted himself
in such a way as to gain the respect of all classes
of men.
There is abundant evidence that his mind was
always interested in spiritual and religious mat
ters. He says of himself, in a letter written to
his friend. Dr. Beyer : " From my fourth to my
tenth year, my thoughts were constantly en
grossed by reflecting upon God, on salvation,
and on the spiritual affections of man. I often
revealed things in my discourse which filled my
parents with astonishment, and made them de
clare at times that certainly the angels spoke
through my mouth. From my sixth to my twelfth
year, it was my greatest delight to converse with
the clergy concerning faith, to whom I have often
observed that charity or love was the life of faith,
and that this vivifying charity or love was no
other than the lo.ve of one's neighbor ; that God
vouchsafes this faith to every one ; but that it is
adopted by those only who practise that char
ity." Throughout his scientific works there is a

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH: 13
manifest seeking after things higher than nature.
By means of a knowledge of the body he was al
ways striving to rise to a knowledge of the soul,
and even beyond. This class of his writings
comes to a fitting culmination and conclusion in
the treatise entitled, " The Worship and Love of
God," published in 1744.
Up to this time, however, he had written noth
ing of a professedly theological or religious char
acter. But in the following year began the pe
riod of what is generally known as his illumina
tion. He himself speaks of it as follows : " From
this day forth I gave up all merely worldly learn
ing, and labored only in spiritual things, accord
ing to what the Lord commanded me to write."
He straightway applied himself, although he was
fifty-seven years of age, to the acquisition of the
Hebrew language, in order that he might be able
to study the Old Testament in its original tongue.
He then read the Bible through several times, for
this was to be the great source of the light which
he was to receive and communicate to mankind.
Five years after the issue of his last philosoph
ical treatise, and four years from the date of his
illumination, appeared the first volume of the
"Arcana Coelestia," the largest as well as the
earliest of his theological works. The last of the
eight quarto volumes of which it consisted was
given to the public about nine years afterwards.
The " Arcana " is principally an exposition of

14 FIRST LECTURE.
the spiritual meaning of the books of Genesis
and Exodus, and its publication at that time is
a striking indication of the fact that the leading
object of his mission was to unfold the Scriptures,
and to reveal the divinity within them.
Between the year 1749, when the first volume
of the " Arcana " was published, and the year
1772, in which Swedenborg died, he printed and
put in circulation no less than twenty-four vol
umes, large and small, beside writing many others
which were found in manuscript form after his
death. When we consider the profound charac
ter of these works, and his advanced age (he was
eighty-two years old before the last volume was
published), we must regard the performance of
such an amount of labor as a remarkable achieve
ment. Then further, although most of his time
during these years must necessarily have been
spent in solitary study, he was not averse to soci
ety nor neglectful of his public duties. Count
Hopken, at one time prime minister of Sweden,
testifies that " the most solid memorials, and the
best penned, at the diet of 1761, on the matters
of finance, were presented by him." This prac
tice was in perfect harmony with his precepts,
which uniformly urge the importance of a useful
life among men as one of the first religious obli
gations. The excellence of Swedenborg's life and char
acter is proved by the abundant testimony of his

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 15
contemporaries. It may be remarked in passing,
that certain charges of immorality contained in
the larger biography of White have been shown
to be entirely groundless. These four rules which
he had prescribed for his conduct, and which were
found noted down in several of his manuscripts,
will tell what manner of man he was : " Often to
read and meditate on the Word of God ; to sub
mit everything to the will of Divine Providence
to observe in everything a propriety of behavior,
and always to keep the conscience clear ; to dis
charge with fidelity the functions of my employ
ments and the duties of my oSice, and to render
myself in all things useful to society."
In all his writings the Scriptures are placed
prominently before us. His statements with re
spect to important doctrines are repeatedly con
firmed by numerous passages from the Old and
New Testaments. Never for a moment is the
Bible out of sight. He himself says : "I testify
in truth — that from the first day of (my) call I
have not received anything that pertains to the
doctrines of the (New) church from any angel,
but from the Lord alone, while I was reading the
Word." That is to say: While he was meditat
ing on the Scriptures, divine light flowed down
into his mind, giving him a clear perception of
their interior significance. He was not inspired.
The prophets were inspired ; and when they
wrote or uttered the Scriptures, their tongue was

16 FIRST LECTURE.
the pen of a ready writer, whose divine words
they were empowered to communicate. He was
not commissioned to reveal a new Word, but to
make the former Word, the everlasting Gospel,
bright and clear. And first of all, it was made
bright and clear to him. He but expressed, in
his own language, according to the best of his
ability, the wonderful truths which he saw. We
can suppose his condition to have been like that
of the twelve disciples, when, after his resurrec
tion, the Lord opened their understanding, that
they might understand the Scriptures, and un
folded to them from the law of Moses, the Proph
ets, and the Psalms, things concerning Himself,
which had previously lain concealed.
It is important to remember that the highest
claim which is made by Swedenborg, or can be
rightly made by any one on his behalf, is that he
was a truly enlightened expositor of Scripture,
and was therefore the herald of a new dispensa
tion of Christianity. There is nothing in all his
teachings which does not reverently point us to
the Scriptures and help us to understand, to love
and to venerate them as we never did before. It
is indeed believed that he had unusual spiritual
experiences ; that, as he declares, the eyes of his
spirit were opened, and he had constant commu
nication with the inhabitants of the other world.
But this was a secondary matter, quite subordi
nate to the main purpose of revealing the inner

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 17
meaning of the divine Word. Yet it was of great
service in enabling him to understand clearly
the things which he was to reveal ; for the inter
nal sense of Scripture relates to the higher and
heavenly life of man — to the spiritual, not the
natural, order and conditions of his being. Swe
denborg's case must be regarded as exceptional, on
account of the peculiar work which he had to do.
He is emphatic in his testimony as to the danger
of open intercourse with spirits. Hence those
who are influenced by his teachings can have no
sympathy with the spiritualists, so called, nor
any faith in the virtue of their real or pretended
manifestations. The only genuine source of di
vine truth to men is the written Word of God.
The fact can hardly be questioned, that there
now exists in the minds of professed Christians
a degree of doubt and uncertainty with respect
to the Scriptures, and all doctrines founded on
them, which is quite unprecedented. And if we
may judge from , appearances, this scepticism is
daily on the increase. Nor is it at all to be won
dered at ; for with the increase of knowledge and
the prevalence of independent thought have arisen
new emergencies which the former views of the
Christian church are but ill prepared to en
counter. The testimony of modern science seems
to come into direct antagonism with the Script
ures. When, for example, the book of Genesis
teaches that the earth was created in six days,
2

18 FIRST LECTURE.
and geology declares that hundreds of centuri<3s
were spent in the formation of its crust, the Bible
appears to be set directly at defiance. Some
still adhere tenaciously to the literal Scripture
record, making light of this meddlesome, new
born science ; while others, unable to disbelieve
the evidence of their senses, are deaf to the still,
small voice in their hearts which tells them,
albeit feebly, that the Word of the Lord is truth.
Between these two extreme parties is doubtless
a larger class than either, which is honestly seek
ing to reconcile the manifest discrepancy, but
finds itself sorely puzzled and perplexed.
Not only the geologist, but the astronomer,
comes and bears record of the immutable laws
which govern nature. The earth revolves on its
axis, turning toward the sun in regular and
changeless succession, now one part of its surface
and now another. Thus, and thus alone, is pro
duced the endless alternate sequence of day and
night. Yet the account in Genesis speaks of
three days which passed before the sun was cre
ated, and says, moreover, that on the very first
day " God divided the light from the darkness,
and God called the light day, and the darkness
he called night." In other words, day and night
existed three days before the sun itself.
Again, an astronomer is not needed to discover
that the life and growth of all animals and vege
tables are dependent on the solar heat and light.

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 19
In the arctic circle, which is reached by the
sun's rays but remotely and partially, the forms
of life in either of these two great natural king
doms are, comparatively, but few in number, and
mostly of the lower orders ; while the fertile
regions of the tropics bring forth in such luxuri
ant abundance as to defy all efforts at description.
Take away the sun, and it is evident that all ma
terial things must perish. Yet it is written in the
Scripture record, that before there-was any sun,
the earth brought forth grass, herbs, and trees.
Still another doubt comes up with regard to
the parentage of the human race. Have all men
descended from one and the same pair, or not ?
Many scientific investigators of unquestioned
ability and influence declare it impossible that
such should have been the origin of the various
races of mankind, which, so far as all visible signs
go, were always as clearly distinct and as widely
different from each other as they are now. Fur
thermore, the ostensible teachings of the Bible
on this point, if they are not in themselves abso
lutely inconsistent, are certainly quite involved
and obscure. To begin with, it must be remem
bered that Adam is the common Hebrew word
which means man, and it is almost always so ren
dered in the Scriptures. Now the first place
where it is mentioned is in the opening chapter
of Genesis, and there it is said that " God cre
ated (Adam or) man in his own image, in the

20 FIRST LECTURE.
image of God created He him ; male and female
created He them." Thus on the sixth day of
creation it would appear that the human family
was called into being, and, like all the lower
races, consisted of males and females. So, too,
at the beginning of the fifth chapter we read :
" In the day that God created man (or Adam),
in the likeness of God made He him ; male and
female created He them; and blessed them, and
called their name (man or) Adam in the day
when the^ were created." In this passage we
seem indisputably to be taught not only that man
was created male and female from the very first,
but also that Adam was a generic term, includ
ing both sexes, and applied to both at the time
of their creation. But quite different conclu
sions would naturally be drawn from the nar
rative contained in the second and third chap
ters, which describe the garden of Eden; the
temptation, the eating of the forbidden fruit, the
fall, and the expulsion from Paradise. One man,
named Adam, is represented as the first of cre
ated beings. After he has lived for a while alone,
Jehovah God forms one of his ribs into a woman
called Eve. And they twain are the parents of
the human race. Surely if all these things are
taken into consideration, the literal sense of the
Bible cannot be said to settle the question. whether
man was first planted in one or many stocks.
Again, what kind of a process was it, by

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 21
which our first parents are reputed to have en
tailed the heritage of everlasting perdition upon
their numberless descendants ? The serpent (not
a factitious serpent, be it remembered, but one
that is expressly classed among the beasts of the
field, — a veritable reptile, condemned to go upon
his belly all the days of his life) breaks his ac
customed silence, and with seductive whisper
prevails upon Eve, and she on Adam, to eat the
fruit of the tree of knowledge. One cannot well
allow himself to think upon this story without
concluding that, as a recital of literal facts, it is
altogether improbable, not to say impossible.
And when we consider the tremendous and aw
ful effects which are said to have followed from
apparently so trivial a cause, we must either con
fess ourselves overwhelmed with doubts, or else
filled with a terrified wonder at the strange Provi
dence which, after all that had happened, still
permitted the wayward pair to people the world
with a progeny that was doomed to endless mis
ery through their transgression.
But we need not multiply examples. Enough
have been enumerated to serve the purpose of
showing that maiiy and grave difficulties stand
in the way of a correct understanding of Script
ure, and cannot be removed by any ordinary
method of interpretation. Light, more light, is
called for on the subject of the Scriptures. Men
are asking of one another, but chiefly of their

22 FIRST LECTURE.
own hearts, " What are the Scriptures ? Are
they truly the Lord's Word to his children ?
Are they his ever-present voice sounding through
the ages, full of wisdom, infinite in power, un
questionable in authority ? Or do we see in them
only the useless relics of a bygone time, the dy
ing embers of an old superstition? " Right here,
on the ground indicated by these questions, the
great spiritual battles of the present day are
beginning to be fought ; and it is here that the
doctrines of the New Church can afford the most
efficient aid.
Before the difficulties were broached which
now darken the understanding of Scripture, —
before even there was any such science as ge
ology, — every objection had been answered by
the doctrine of the internal or spiritual sense as
unfolded in the writings of Swedenborg. Ac
cording to this doctrine, there is an infinitude of
meaning in the Word of God. Nothing in it has
been written in vain ; nothing is trifling or value
less ; nothing is merely local or temporal in its
character. Whatever may be the external ap
pearance in any portion of it, — within, it is
everywhere filled with life and holiness. The
literal meaning of the Bible is not all it contains ;
it is but its least and lowest part. As words are
to thoughts, as the body of man is to his soul, so
is the letter of the Scriptures to the higher mean
ing within it. This is its life and essence. This is

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 23
what makes it, to the perception even of the least
impressible of human beings, the most powerful
of earthly writings. The internal sense treats
throughout of spiritual and heavenly things, of
the affairs of everlasting life, of the kingdom of
God which is within us.
Swedenborg not only shows that there is a
spiritual sense in the Scriptures, but, by copious
expositions, makes manifest what it is, and how
it is unfolded. As was previously remarked, his
largest work, the " Arcana Coelestia," is a con
secutive explanation of the internal meaning of
Genesis and Exodus. He says in this work,
that, as a general rule, the historical parts of the
Word are in their literal sense a record of real
events, but that the first ten and a half chapters
of Genesis, including nearly all that precedes
the birth of Abraham, do not constitute a true
historic narrative, and can be rationally under
stood and received in tlieir spiritual sense alone.
The whole world seems now rapidly coming to
the same conclusion.
The Scriptures and their interpretation will be
treated of in the next lecture, so that we need
not go further into details at the present time.
My sole object in the preceding remarks has
been to point out the position which the Script
ures hold in New Church theology, and to em
phasize the fact that every important principle
in what is known as the Swedenborgian belief

24 FIRST LECTURE.
is deduced from the Word of God. The New
Church as an outward organization may be de
fined as a body which believes in a definite spirit
ual sense within the letter of the Bible, and in a
system of doctrine which that higher sense , dis
closes, — Emanuel Swedenborg being its expo
nent and interpreter.

SECOND LECTURE.
THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.
The Scriptures — called also the Holy Bible
and the Word of God — are a collection of writ
ings handed down from former times, and pur
porting to proceed from the Lord himself and to
be his own direct revelation to men. They are
known to be divided into two general parts,
which are respectively designated as the Old
Testament and the New Testament. The latter
of these dates from a period shortly following the
advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has ac
cordingly been in existence some eighteen hun
dred years. The former was written at various
times. Its latest portions precede the Christian
era by several centuries, and its earliest are
among the most ancient of known writings.
This remarkable book has always been associ
ated with the worship of the one true God. Dur
ing the ages while Egypt and Phoenicia, Greece
and Rome, and other famous nations of antiquity,
were paying homage to a multitude of so-called
deities, a small, obscure people in the little dis
trict of Palestine was preserving the precious
traditions, transmitted from a still older period,

26 SECOND LECTURE.
that there is one Supreme Being, who is the
Creator and Governor of the universe. " Hear,
O Israel," this people was taught to say, " Jeho
vah, our God, is one Jehovah." Their religious
ideas and customs were not of their own inven
tion, but came to them from time to time in the
writings now called the Old Testament. In con
forming to the law and the prophets, they believed
that they simply obeyed the voice of God him
self. After the Lord came into the world, and the
New Testament was given to men, the worship
of the God of Israel was still continued among
Christians ; and the Scriptures were still re
garded as the basis and authority for it. The
Gospel attaches itself so closely to the law and
the prophets that no separation between them is
possible. Throughout the four evangelists we are
told that such or such a thing was done in order
that a certain prophecy might be fulfilled. To
the Jews who opposed and persecuted Him, the
Lord said, " There is one that accuseth you, even
Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed
Moses ye would have believed me ; for he wrote
of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how
shall ye believe my words ? " The converse of
this proposition must also be true : that those
who accept the Lord's teachings will of necessity
accept those of Moses likewise ; for we read in
the Sermon on the Mount, " Think not that I am

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 27
come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am
not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I
say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law, till all be fulfilled." Again, the Lord says,
" Search the Scriptures." " The Scripture can
not be broken." " It is easier for heaven and
earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail."
In short, no one can yield an unconditional ac
ceptance to the narrative contained in the four
Gospels without including likewise the older rev
elation, on which it professedly and manifestly
rests. The Scriptures are one grand whole, with
all its parts woven together, as it were, like a
seamless garment. To the Scriptures Christianity
owes its origin and continuance, and with them
it must stand or fall.
Let us consider for a moment the claim which
the Bible makes for itself, not omitting to notice
how much the claim implies. "Thus saith Jeho
vah ; " " The word of Jehovah came unto me ; "
" These are the true sayings of God : " such" are
the expressions which fill its pages. Not the
slightest reservation is made as regards the source
and authority of its utterances. In the most di
rect and unequivocal manner it declares itself the
medium of divine instruction to men. Waiving
all inquiries as to the authenticity of particular
books, chapters, or verses, we are at once con
fronted with the grand general question whether

28 SECOND LECTURE.
the Scriptures are what they proclaim themselves
to be. If they are, they should be embraced
with all the heart as the most precious of earthly
treasures. If they are not, it is difficult to find
language strong enough for their condemnation ;
for nothing could be more monstrous than the
assumption which they make. What terms of
severity can be too great to apply to authors
who falsely affirm that their compositions are
divine and infallible truths ? From the dilemma
thus presented there is no escape. There is no
middle course between the full admission of the
divine inspiration of Scripture, and the utter re
jection of its claims. Either it is the veritable
Word of God or it is a human compilation which
has forced itself into notice for centuries under
the awful pretext that it is divine.
Those who receive the doctrines of the New
Church, as presented in Swedenborg's writings,
cannot hesitate as to their choice. No alterna
tive whatever is suggested in those writings.
They proceed, from first to last, on the assump
tion that the Scriptures speak truly about them
selves, and that the highest claim which could
possibly be made for them is none too great. If
there is any one point which these doctrines es
tablish more clearly than any other, it is that
the Scriptures are the expression of God's infi
nite wisdom, and the exhaustless fountain of it
to human beings. The men to whom the Word

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 29
of God came did not write from themselves.
They simply recorded the things which were
given them to say. It was not even necessary
that they should understand the meaning of what
they wrote : nor could they understand it, except
in a very slight degree. Not only are the Script
ures the Lord's Word, not only have they pro
ceeded from Him, but they partake of his nature.
As surely as the work of any human author ex
hibits the peculiar quality of his mind, so surely
does the Lord's book show forth his divine
quality. In its essence it makes one with Him.
It is infinite and unfathomable, even as He is.
The saying is literajly true: "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God."
Not that the Word always existed in the pre
cise form in which we know it in the Scriptures.
The Scriptures are revelations which have been
given at different periods of time. But divine
truth, as it is in its essence, has forever existed
in the bosom of the infinite. Our Scriptures are
the means by which it has presented and accom
modated itself to the states of natural and finite
creatures. But, in so doing, it has not become
separated from its source. The form contains
the essence, as the body contains the soul. The
spirit of truth abides interiorly in its letter. The
life and power of divinity itself are in the Script
ures, though outwardly they a,re adapted to the

30 SECOND LECTURE.
lowest human intelligence. Hence they have
ever been full of peace and comfort to all classes
of people, — to children and old men, — to the
simple in their simplicity, and the wise in their
wisdom. Those who have read them lovingly
and receptively have been conscious of a peculiar
influence which no mere verbal expressions were
sufficient to account for. Ther^ is a something
in the Psalms of David which could not be sup
plied by a thousand Homers. The lives of Moses
and Joshua could not be replaced by the glory,
infinitely multiplied, of Socrates and Alexander.
In short, there is no comparison between the es
sential quality of the holy Word and that of all
other writings.
Because the Scriptures proceed from the Lord
God himself, they must needs contain an infini
tude of meaning. Their literal sense is but the
lowest and outermost form which divine truth
puts on. Within that sense are higher and in
terior senses, which are adapted to more exalted
states of intelligence and wisdom than those
which usually prevail in this world. For the
reason that the Scriptures are divine, they can
nowhere have a merely temporal and transitory
significance, but must reach beyond the present
life into that life which is spiritual and eternal.
Hence they are not merely for men, but for an
gels, according to what is written in the psalm :
"Forever, O Jehovah, thy word is settled in

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 31
heaven." But the inhabitants of heaven per
ceive in them a higher meaning than their breth
ren do on earth. They are nearer to the sources
of truth, and behold it more as it is in its naked
purity. In other words, they receive it in its
spiritual and celestial senses, while men in the
world see nothing but its literal or natural sense.
This intrinsic and distinctive quality of Script-
uie is the only real proof of its divinity. No
acuteness of textual criticism can make or un
make a sincere belief in the Word of God.
There is no historical evidence .outside of its own
statements which goes to show that the Bible
was written by divine inspiration. We do not
know of witnesses that stood by when Isaiah
penned his majestic prophecies, or Jeremiah his
tearful lamentations, or John, in the Isle of Pat-
mos, his visions of things to come. But if these
writings possess an interior power which is all
their own, if they seem to increase in beauty and
significance, the longer and more attentively we
study them, — if, especially, they can be shown
to contain profound depths of wisdom wliicli ap
pear actually exhaustless, — what need of any
further testimony ? Indeed, the Bible must
prove itself true to the minds of men by their
observation and experience of its contents, if it is
really proved true at all.
But how is it that an internal or spiritual sense
can be inclosed within the sense of the letter?

32 SECOND LECTURE.
Briefly, then, it is by correspondence, or, as we
may say, by symbols. The Scriptures are sym
bolically written. Everything in them which is
apparent to the natural apprehension represents
something higher than itself. All the literal
narratives typify spiritual experiences. All the
literal precepts hold in their bosoms heavenly
and eternal principles. Nor is the connection
between that which represents and that which is
represented at all an arbitrary one, confined ex
clusively to the Scriptures ; it is a relationship
universally existing between natural and spiritual
things. Nature is a manifestation of something more
than dead matter: it is filled and permeated with
spiritual life. Every species of animals, plants,
or minerals is different from every other because
the life within it is different. There is no out
ward object on which our eyes can rest which is
not the concrete expression of some indwelling
spiritual essence. Man is the universe in minia
ture. All other created things have relation to,
and centre in, him. They exist for his mind, as
well as for his body. They are capable of minis
tering to his sentiments and emotions, as well as
to his physical necessities. The world around
him is wondrously responsive to the world within
him. The reason is, because all the varied ob
jects of nature are but the embodied forms and
visible images of his own thoughts and feelings.

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 33
There is nothing in the whole material creation
which has not a distinctive spiritual meaning.
All men perceive, in some small measure, the
interior significance of things. No demonstra
tion is required to convince any one that the
rose and lily are fair, or that the sweet singing
birds, the skipping lambs, the running brooks,
the fruitful fields, are things of beauty, and a joy
forever. Nor need we be told, on the other hand,
that beasts and birds of prey, or noisome and poi
sonous plants, or stagnant, fetid pools, are loath
some and repulsive. Almost intuitively we di
vide natural objects into two classes, — one of
which seems to us good, and the other evil. But
wherein does the difference consist ? The wolf
is fashioned as wonderfully as the lamb. The
anatQmy of the vile crawling serpent is as strik
ing and beautiful as that of the young robin
which he devours. In fact, in this merely out
ward sense, there is no just distinction between
them. Nor can any of the brute animals be re
garded as morally responsible, or as having the
least idea of good and evil, as such. Each one
simply acts out what is in itself, — gives expres
sion to its own inborn nature, from which it can
not vary. They are not, therefore, either good
or evil in themselves, but only the embodied
forms of something good or evil. They impress
us favorably or unfavorably by virtue of what
they represent, — by virtue of the spiritual

34 SECOND LECTURE.
thing which they faithfully picture to the nat
ural senses.
This relation between what is spiritual and
what is natural is called correspondence ; and the
Scriptures were written by means of correspond
ence. The Lord's way of providing forms of
truth is the same as his way of creating forms
of life. In both cases the natural clothes the
spiritual as with a garment. In their obvious
literal sense, the Scriptures relate largely to
transient, earthly events. But when the spirit
ual sense is evolved from the literal by an inter
pretation of its symbols, all earthly things that
are mentioned become transformed into corre
sponding spiritual things. In this manner a
continuous meaning is obtained, which is entirelj
distinct from the only meaning which was at
first apparent. The history of the Jews, for in
stance, when thus translated, is seen to be an ac
count of the spiritual growth and experiences,
the possible temptations, trials, and backslidings
of the true church, or of any man of that church,
in all ages. Their sacrifices, burnt-offerings, and
other ceremonial observances, in themselves quite
meaningless to the men of modern times, repre
sent with almost infinite detail the essentials of
a true interior and heartfelt worship. Man need
not at this day offer sacrifices of bullocks and
goats ; but if he would truly worship his heav
enly Father, he must perform spiritual acts which

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 35
the sacrifices represent. Thus nothing is obso
lete, nothing is lost, in the sacred volume ; but
all of it is of present and everlasting import, and
its claim to be considered the adequate revelation
of an infinite God is fully vindicated.
It is shown in Swedenborg's writings that in
the most ancient times correspondences were well
understood, and the knowledge of them was con
sidered the most precious of mental possessions.
By means of them men were enabled to lift their
thoughts by regular and intelligible steps "-from
nature up to nature's God " ; and nothing af
forded them so great delight as to see the spirit
ual and divine significance of all created things.
But, in the course of time, as their hearts turned
to evil and became more and more engrossed in
selfish and worldly objects of desire, this chief of
all subjects of human knowledge was gradually
obscured in the mind, till at last it dropped al
most wholly out of sight. Still, some traces of
it remained, and are to be found even at this
day. The sculpture-writing and picture-writing
of the Egyptians, known by the name of hiero
glyphics, are to be referred to this source. In
like manner the mythology of the ancients,
which plainly means much more than it out
wardly expresses, has its foundation and origin in
correspondences. And many common forms and
customs which cannot be explained on merely
natural grounds are relics of the days when the

36 SECOND LECTURE.
connection between natural and spiritual things
was better understood than it has since been.
There is unquestionably more or less of corre
spondence in such ceremonies as kneeling in
prayer, the imposition of hands in token of bless
ing, the wearing of distinctive robes of office, the
laying of corner-stones, bowing or uncovering the
head as a sign of respect, giving the wedding-
ring, grasping or shaking the hand to indicate
friendship, and in many others which might be
mentioned. If these observances have not a spir
itual significance, they are mere arbitrary forms
for which any others might be substituted with
just as good effect. But who really believes that
such is the case ? Who can doubt that there is
intrinsic propriety in the aforesaid customs, for
the reason that they do truly embody or express
in outward form the very act or state of mind
which is usually associated with them ?
It is an interesting fact that a belief in the in
ternal sense of Scripture has faintly betrayed it
self from time to time in the past history of the
church. The idea was not wholly unfamiliar, even
to the Jewish mind. In Calniet's Bible Diction
ary I find this general statement : " The ancient
Jews, as the Therapeutse, the author of the Book
of Wisdom, Josephus and Philo (and, in imita
tion of them, many of the fathers), turned even
the historical parts of Scripture into allegories,
although the literal sense in such passages is most

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 37
clear." Concerning one of the greatest men of
the early Christian church, Neander says : " To
the mind of Origen the highest problem of the
interpretation of Scripture is to translate the gos
pel of sense into the gospel of spirit." " Thus
he saw in every part of Scripture a condescen
sion of the infinitely exalted, heavenly spirit to
the human form which is so incompetent to grasp
it, -. — a condescension of the Divine teacher of
humanity to the wants and weakness of man."
He also quotes from Origen these remarkable
words : " We ought not to be surprised if in
every text of Scripture what is superhuman in
the thought does- not become immediately obvi
ous to the unlearned." " Neither can we doubt
the divinity which pervades the whole body of
the sacred Scriptures, because our weakness is
unable to trace, in every one of its declarations,
that hidden glory of the doctrine which is veiled
beneath an unpretending simplicity of expres
sion ' for we have the treasure in earthen ves
sels.'"" No regular and systematic method of interpre
tation grew out of these various efforts. They
are now simply alluded to as showing the strong
feeling which existed in those early times with
regard to the divinity of Scripture, and the deep
sense of need which no literal exegesis was able
to satisfy. Precisely the same necessity is felt
at the present day. Indeed, there is always a

38 SECOND LECTURE.
tendency on the part of devout readers of the
Word to spiritualize its expressions as far as they
can, in order to make them applicable to their
own lives. They do not love to think that any
portion of Holy Writ was intended only for past
ages, and has outlived its usefulness. They wish
to find a place in their hearts for every verse.
Accordingly, they often invest a passage with a
kind of inner meaning almost without knowing
it, and certainly without acknowledging any fixed
principle of spiritual interpretation. The wil
derness journey of the Israelites, for example, is
frequently taken as a type of the process by
which man is gradually prepared for heaven.
All professed Christians believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ, at the time of his coming into the
world, fulfilled the various predictions which had
been made concerning the Messiah. But not one
would say that He fulfilled them in all respects
literally. Some of those prophecies declared that
He was to build up Zion, to reestablish the king
dom of David at Jerusalem, and to gather to
gether the outcasts of Israel. But he brought
none of thfise events naturally to pass. It must,
therefore, be a spiritual Zion, Jerusalem, and
Israel which are referred to. The Jew says that
the prophecies are still to be accomplished ac
cording to the letter. The Christian declares
that they have been already spiritually accom
plished. The New Churchman maintains that

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 39
not only these, but all the prophecies, and not
only the prophecies but the precepts and histo
ries, whether their literal sense is fully verified
or not, possess a spiritual meaning. He makes
a universal application of a principle which his
predecessors have tried, in a few exceptional
cases, to apply before him.
To show how the key of correspondence can
be used to unlock the treasure-house of divine
revelation would require far more time than can
be spared for a single lecture. The most that
can be done at the present moment is to bring
forward a few simple illustrations.
Allusion was made a few minutes ago to the
sacrificial worship of the Israelites ; and it was
stated that, though rude and barbarous in itself,
it represents genuine internal worship of the
heart. B ut how can this be ? The sacrifices
consisted in burning the flesh of certain species
of animals ; and animals correspond to the vari
ous affections and thoughts of man. According
to the doctrine previously explained, there is no
creature that .walks the earth, or flies above it,
which is not the embodied form of something in
the human heart or mind. This something may
be either good or evil, gentle or fierce, guileless
or subtle ; but whatever it is, it finds expression
in the character and habits of the animal which
is representative of it. Thus the lamb is a form
of innocence ; the hog, of filthy lusts ; the ox, of

40 SECOND LECTURE.
natural good affections ; the serpent, of things
earthy and sensual. The animals offered in sac
rifices represents the affections and thoughts
which rightly enter into the worship of the Lord.
None but clean beasts were used for the pur
pose. Any noisome reptile, or bird of prey, or
other unclean animal, would have been an ut
ter abomination. Even so it should be our con
stant endeavor to put away from the Lord's sight
everything hurtful and impure ; and, as the flesh
of sheep and cattle and turtle-doves smoked upon
the altars of Israel, so should the best feelings of
our hearts ascend in adoration and prayer to our
Heavenly Father.
When we read in Isaiah, " Ho, every one
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; " or in
John, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me
and drink," it is easy to understand and believe
that water corresponds to truth. The analogy is
clear and striking. Truth performs for the mind
the same office which water performs for the
body. There is a spiritual thirst which can be
satisfied only by truth, just as there is a natural
thirst which can be satisfied only by water. By
applying truth to his life, man's evils are removed,
as by the outward application of water all physi
cal impurities are washed away. The " well of
water springing up into everlasting life " is the
divine Word. The same is the " pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 41
the throne of God and of the Lamb." The prom
ised land of the Israelites is described as " a good
land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and
depths that spring out of valleys and hills ; " by
which is meant that in the heavenly state denoted
by Canaan there is an abundance of refreshing
truth. The use of water in baptism plainly rep
resents the removal of evil by means of divine
truth ; which work being effected, the mind is
prepared to received the purest and best influ
ences from the Lord himself, — in other words, to
be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
The sun, more perfectly than any other visible
object, shadows forth the glory of the Lord. His
heat signifies the Lord's love, and his light the
Lord's wisdom. " The entrance of thy words
giveth light ; it giveth understanding to the sim
ple." " That was the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world." " There
is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Times
and places signify, in the spiritual sense, states
of mind. The daytime is a state of clear thought
and warm affection, and the night is a state of
obscurity and doubt. The six days of creation
represent as many successive states or stages of
regeneration, ending with the Sabbath, or the
state of eternal rest. Each of these days con
sisted of an evening and a morning, the evening
being always mentioned first ; by which is meant
that the corresponding states of regenerating life

42 SECOND LECTURE.
grow more bright and perfect as they advance.
Egypt, as we know, stands for the state of the
merely natural man ; Canaan, for that of the
spiritual and heavenly man. The Garden of
Eden, likewise, represents a state of superior
wisdom and intelligence.
Thus we might proceed without limit. But
perhaps enough has been said to illustrate, in
some small measure, the principle of interpre
tation which is afforded by the doctrine of the
spiritual sense. That principle is equally appli
cable to all parts of the inspired Word. Any
writings to which it is not applicable are not in
spired. If its truth is admitted, nothing surely
can exceed it in importance ; for no greater
change could possibly be made in our under
standing of the Scriptures than that which should
transform them wholly into a connected account
of the Lord and his kingdom, of heavenly life and
the way to attain it, of our own daily experiences
and needs.
"The pure river of water of life, proceeding
out of the throne of God and the Lamb," flows
down through the heavens to earth. By the heav
ens we are not to understand a distant, inaccessi
ble country far off in space, but the better part of
that inner world of spirit, which is round about
our own souls, and where the angels live of whom
it is written that the Lord gives them charge over
us. These angels, as was previously said, receive

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 43
the Word in its spiritual and celestial senses,
while men read it in the sense of the letter.
Hence it is a wonderful bond of union between
angels and men. It serves to consociate them
with each other and to conjoin them all with the
Lord. The stream of truth comes to us laden
with divine and heavenly blessings, as it gently
flows from the infinite fount of wisdom, through
the streets of the golden city and the green past
ures of paradise.

THIRD LECTURE.
THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE.
How does it teach us to think of God ? is the
first question to be asked in relation to any relig
ious system. The ideas which we entertain of
the Supreme Being will go far to determine the
position which we occupy with respect to Him.
If we know and upderstand Him rightly, we have
taken one long step toward loving Him, and con
forming our lives to his divine order.
The true starting-point in considering the nat
ure of God is to be found in the declaration, often
repeated and everywhere implied, throughout the
Scriptures : " Hear, O Israel : The Lord our God
is one Lord." This is the fitting introduction
to the first and great commandment : " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
If we truly and inteUigently love the Lord, we
must, first of all, direct our attention to Him as
the one God. He never is nor can be divided.
He must be thought of as absolutely and unequiv
ocally one. Whatever appearance to the contrary
may be presented in any of the terms to be found
in the Scriptures, it can be only an appearance.

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 45
By whatever variety of names He may be desig
nated in his Word, they are all consistent with
the idea of his perfect unity. Any trinity which
may be shown to exist in Him must agree with
the fundamental doctrine that He is one in essence
and in person. When, for example, the Script
ures speak of the Lord .lesus Christ, they do
not indicate a being distinct from the Heavenly
Father, but a certain phase and manifestation of
the divine nature and life. The same is true of
the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. By the mouth
of Isaiah we are told : " There is no God else be
side me ; a just God and a Saviour ; there is
none beside me." And we cannot be too mind
ful of the weighty words.
Assuming, then, the grand truth of his oneness,
we come next to the fact that He is the only un
created, self-subsisting being, who is the centre
and source of life from eternity to eternity. And
here, again, let us take our starting-point from
the Scriptures. When God appeared to Moses
in the burning bush and commanded him to lead
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt, He said
in response to a question as to the name by which
He should be known : " I am that I am," or,
more literally, " I am who am," — i. e., " He who
is." " Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel : I Am hath sent me unto you." " Jeho
vah, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath

46 THIRD LECTURE.
sent me unto you ; this is my name forever, and
this is my memorial unto all generations."
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Word
of the Old Testament, Jehovah is the name by
which he is most commonly called. In our Eng
lish version of the Bible, instead of " Jehovah,"
" the Lord " is substituted in capital letters. It
is not necessary now to explain the reasons for
that substitution. Enough is said if it is under
stood that " Jehovah " was the word which was
used. This is the memorial name, and it means
the " I AM." Derived from the Hebrew word
" hayah" to be, it must forever signify, to all
who are acquainted with its origin, the infinite
and uncreated One, who was, is, and will be, for
evermore. And what does this name imply ? In the first
place. He who alone is must be the source of life
to all other beings. He has not made the universe
from nothing, for that would be impossible ; but
He has created it from Himself. In other words,
finite things are forms of life derived from his
life ; and his is the omnipresent power which
sustains them all.
This important principle leads us, by infer
ence, directly to another. The omnipresent God
must be with and in his creation, not separated
from it. The work of creation is ever going on.
Every one who reflects upon the matter must
see that the Power which sustains him from hour

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 47
to hour and from minute to minute is no less
marked and conspicuous, and no more easily ac
counted for, than that which originally called him
into being. In a word, preservation is continual
creation. The flow of life is from within outward. It is
from the soul to the body, from the affection to
the deed, from the thought to the word, from what
is spiritual to what is natural, and never in the
opposite direction. And He who is the cause is
likewise the source and centre of life. By succes
sive steps or degrees it descends to the material
bodies of men and to the material world, which
is, so to speak, the circumference of creation. But
He is still, as He was at first, the head and foun
tain of it all. Though He has made his infinity
finite, though He has from Himself formed beings
other than Himself, beings so distinct that they
may even pervert his pure influences and turn
them into their opposites, yet inmostly and really
none of tlie works of his hand are separated from
Him. The stream, however tainted by the grosser
substances with which it comes in contact amid
the plains and valleys of the earth, is not cut off
from the divine spring whence it flows. In a
word, God is the life of the life of all things. He
did not, from without, mould them into being,
like a human artificer, and then go off and leave
them ; but his power from within originally filled
and animated them, and it equally fills and ani
mates them now.

48 THIRD LECTURE.
Herein is the great ground of distinction be
tween God and man. Herein is the difference
between the infinite and the finite. God has life
and IS life in Himself ; man but receives life from
Him. Could contrast be clearer or stronger?
What more vivid picture of Infinity could be
presented to the mind than that of a being who
from his own fulness of life sends forth life, un
ceasingly and inimitably, through all this vast
universe, with its heavens, and its heavens of
heavens, its lands and its waters, time without
end ? And such is God. On the other hand,
there can be no clearer illustration of finite help
lessness than is afforded by the fact of being but
a receptacle of life, from hour to hour, and from
minute to minute, dependent for existence itself
on a higher power. Yet such is man, with all his
boasted intellect and strength. Again, He who
in Himself is Life, and the only source of life,
must from eternity to eternity have his existence.
Therecan be nothing which in any sense either
was, or is, prior to Him. The very suggestion
of such a thought seems almost like profanation.
In a word, the fact that God is the Esse of all
things, necessarily implies that He is infinite and
eternal. To Him times and spaces are nothing.
These come into existence only in connection
with finite beings ; for the latter must needs be
surrounded by conditions which are adapted to
their finiteness.

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 49
Let us now turn to the next question which
naturally presents itself ; and that is, what do
we know about the nature of the divine life, as
it is in itself, pure and unperverted ? In its es
sence it is surely something more than mere
physical existence. Even human life is higher
and better than this. There is the life of the
body, but there is also the life of the soul within
the body. There is the life of affection and
thought above and within the life of animal de
sire and sensation. One of the most important
statements of Scripture is that man is made in
the image, after the likeness, of God ; and it is
evident that the more fully he grows into the
true order of his being, and attains to the highest
capabilities of his nature, so much the more per
fect an image and likeness he becomes. From
this doctrine it follows that a correct understand
ing of human nature will contribute greatly to
a knowledge of the divine nature. A true idea
of the image must lead to a right conception of
its prototype. The soul or spirit of man is the
man himself. The body is only the fleshly cov
ering which for a while he wears. It is to the
soul, — to the character and capacities of a well
ordered human mind, — that we must chiefly look
for the image of the Lord.
And what do we find when we look there?
We find an organic form of life, invisible to the
bodily sight, all of whose operations may be

50 THIRD LECTURE.
classed under the two general heads of loving and
thinking, or willing and understanding. These
internal operations, seeking outward expression,
make themselves known in the body as speech
and action. Every voluntary act of man is
immediately caused by anterior affection and
thought. First, he wills a thing ; secondly, by
means of thought, that which he wills receives a
distinct form in his mind, and, finally, by means
of his bodily oi-gans, he carries it into effect. So
likewise, when we consider how unerringly the
various thoughts and emotions may betray them
selves in the face and gestures — how sorrow and
sympathy bring the tear unbidden to the eye —
how shame and modesty paint the unconscious
blush on the cheek — how sudden fear causes the
heart to palpitate, or lays the body prostrate in
a swoon — it is easy to perceive that substan
tially the same principle applies to what we call
involuntary actions, also.
Now, in these and all other conceivable opera
tions of the human soul, spirit or mind, the pri
mary motive principle is love. In other words,
love is the very life of man. There is no thought
which we think, no deed which we do, that is
not prompted by love of one kind or another.
It may be mere sensual inclination or appetite;
it may be the lust of gain or dominion, or some
other form of self-love ; or, again, it may be an
unselfish love of the neighbor, and a desire to

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 51
do him good and to make him happy ; but love
of some sort it is, and must be. The soul is
the life of the body, and love is the life of the
soul. Rising now to the contemplation of Him in
whose image man is made, we can reach but one
conclusion. Love is the inmost essential princi
ple of the divine life. As writes the apostle
John, " God is love." Love ineffable and per
fect. Love infinite and eternal for all things
that exist. Love that is unwearied in its effort
to bestow on objects outside of itself what it may
of its own blessedness. Love that never ceases
to create, to preserve, to protect. Let any one
ask himself why it is that our Heavenly Father
has taken the pains to create the human race,
and the mighty universe, with all it contains,
for their service and benefit ; and he can find but
one satisfactory answer, which follows as a direct
corollary from the grand fundamental truth that
God in his essence is love. It is this : We live
because the Lord loves us. Not for his own
glory, but for our happiness, has He called us
into being. It is the very nature of pure and
disinterested love to long for that on which it
may bestow itself, for which it may do kind
nesses, and by which it may be reciprocated.
Such is the case even with finite creatures.
What, then, must it be with the infinite Crea
tor ! To say that merely for the sake of exalt-

52 THIRD LECTURE.
ing Himself and building up a great kingdom for
the display of his omnipotence. He performed,
and is performing, the work of creation, is to as
cribe to Him motives which would be unworthy
springs of action even for men. But to say that
this work was the necessary effect of his divine
love of doing good and conferring happiness, of
his unutterable longing to impart from his own
infinitude of joy, is to express what is consistent
with our highest possible conceptions of the holy
and perfect One.
Love, however, does not and cannot operate
alone. It must be united with wisdom in order
to accomplish any of its purposes. In this need
ful alliance love furnishes the impulse, and wis
dom the guidance. Love furnishes the motive
or end, and wisdom the means of carrying it into
effect. As we have seen, man is a thinking, as
well as a loving, being. Or, as we might say
in other words, he has an understanding as well
as a will. Plis understanding is the receptacle
and organ of thought, as his will is the recepta
cle and organ of affection.
The human will and understanding are finite,
imperfect, and prone to evil. But when we pass
from man to his infinite archetype we see plainly
that God's will and understanding must be per
fect. No sinful affections or false thoughts can
exist in the divine mind. Hence, whatever the
Lord wills must be love itself, and whatever He

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 53
thinks must be wisdom itself. Love and wis
dom, therefore, are his interior and essential life.
Moreover, whatever proceeds from the divine
love is good ; and whatever proceeds from the di
vine wisdom is true. Or, to speak more pl-ainly,
his love going forth into act makes itself known
as infinite goodness ; his wisdom manifests itself
as infinite truth. Consequently He is in like
manner goodness itself and truth itself, and the
source of them to men. All the love and wisdom,
or goodness and truth, which appear in any of
his creatures have been communicated by Plim,
who is their exhaustless fountain. When a man
comes into the full order of his creation kis will
receives, in some finite measure, the divine love,
and his understanding, the divine wisdom. He
is, in the truest sense, formed into the Lord's
image by being filled with the Lord's life.
We cannot too clearly apprehend this great
cardinal principle, that just as surely as man in
teriorly consists of will and understanding, the
Lord is love and wisdom. These are his essence,
that which makes him to be what he is. They
are not to be confounded with his attributes.
They are Himself. All other things which may
be predicated of him are referable to these. His
attributes are the attributes of infinite love and
wisdom, or, what is the same, of infinite good
ness and truth. Since these constitute his es
sential nature, corresponding, as we have seen.

54 THIRD LECTURE.
to will and understanding in man. He can do
nothing which is inconsistent with them. His
omnipotence is the power of his love and wisdom.
Hence He is absolutely incapable of evil ; noth
ing can go forth from Him which is not born of
goodness itself. There is no law of right and
wrong superior to Him, to which He is accounta
ble. His goodness is not, like man's, the result of
a choice between good and evil. But whatever
He does is good, from the very fact of his doing
it. Here is a new ground of distinction between
infinity and finiteness, one which has not often
been contemplated by man, but which is full of
instruction with regard to the purposes and meth
ods of our heavenly Father.
If evil cannot be predicated of the Lord, then
He cannot produce pain or suffering, nor can He
be angry or vindictive. Were it possible that
He should be so, then it would be possible for
Him not only to contradict his own nature, but
to fall below even our imperfect standard of hu
man virtue. And yet if we rely on some parts
of the letter of the Scriptures, they may seem
to teach that He is influenced by these unwor
thy feelings. They say that He is a jealous God,
that He executes vengeance, and that He is an
gry with the wicked every day. But again they
say that He is good to all, and his tender mercies
are over all his works ; that He is slow to anger
and plenteous in mercy ; and that He is kind to

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 55
the unthankful and the evil. In the light of the
internal or spiritual sense, which was treated of
in the last lecture, we see that the latter class of
statements is strictly true, and that anything
contrary to them is written according to the
merely natural appearance. That is to say :
Those who in their hearts and lives are hostile
to the Lord will feel that He is hostile to them.
Hating Him and his laws they naturally believe
that He is full of hatred. And the divine truth
of Scripture in its descent to human beings comes
down even to the level of such men as these and
accommodates itself to their low and external
states of mind, seeking to restrain and govern
them by fear when all higher motives and in
centives would be useless. Do we not read in
the Psalms, " With the merciful thou wilt show
thyself merciful ; with an upright man thou wilt
show thyself upright ; with the pure thou wilt
show thyself pure, and with the froward thou
wilt show thyself froward ? "
These views of the divine essence and attri
butes, long lost sight of, were not wholly un
known to men of the early Christian Church.
Origen, from whom I made a brief quotation in
the last lecture, speaks as follows respecting om
nipotence : " God can do anything which does
not contradict his essence as God, his goodness
and his wisdom ; (but he can do) nothing by
¦which He would contradict Himself as God, as

56 THIRD LECTURE.
the infinitely good and wise." So also with re
gard to divine anger he says : " It is a conde
scension of language, designed to convert and
improve " men. " God is described to us as an
gry, in order to our conversion and improvement,
when in truth He is not angry." In the course
of his remarks on this subject he compares the
human race to children, who need to be addressed
in terms adapted to their feebler powers of un
derstanding. The grand foundation truth, that the Lord God
is in his essence love and wisdom, goes far to help
us understand his Providence, or the nature of
his dealings with men. He loves us infinitely.
He can never cease to regard our highest possible
good and happiness ; and if He is infinitely wise
there can be no mistakes or accidents in the dis
pensations of his Providence. Yet our happiness
depends on certain conditions which may or may
not be fulfilled. Man is not a lifeless machine,
but a free and rational being. The Lord, in cre
ating him to be the object of his divine love, did
not intend that he should be a merely passive re
cipient of blessings. Indeed, it is in the nature
of love to desire, not simply to give itself to others,
but to be returned or reciprocated by them. It
is for men not only to be loved by the Lord, but
to love Him on their part. This is their preroga
tive above all other creatures. It necessitates a
state of freedom, for without entire freedom of

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 57
thought and action there could be nothing recip
rocal in any relations which they sustain.
The effect of mutual love is mutual nearness
and conjunction. Those who truly love each
other seek ever to be of one heart and one spirit.
And those who love the Lord are in harmony
with Him. Their love begins with keeping his
commandments. It is made sure by their remov
ing from themselves those things which they can
see, on faithful self-examination, to be at vari
ance with Him. They do not love Him in the
fullest sense until his will is wholly accepted as
their own. When this is done, they are conjoined
with Him in heart and soul ; and there is no
happiness to be compared with that which they
experience. But it is evident that such a consummation,
if ever reached in this world, cannot be long en
joyed here. Our earthly life is quite too short
for that. It must be chiefly in the world to
come that divine love gains, if we may so speak,
its prize. It must be men that have become
angels and are ever to continue so, who mainly
show forth the divine purposes accomplished.
Does it not then follow that the divine Prov
idence of the Lord must have, as its great end
and object, a heaven of angels from the human
race ?
This conclusion would seem to be inevitable.
If God intended that men should be happy, — if

58 THIRD LECTURE.
He created them in order that they might be
happy ; if He designed that they should love Him
with their finite love, even as He loves them with
his infinite love ; if He wished and ever wishes to
unite them closely with Himself in the bonds of
unutterable joy and peace ; if such, in brief, was
the divine plan, then surely it cannot be carried
out in a few short years of earthly existence.
You believe that God is love and from love has
created you, and you cannot help believing that
you and all men are immortal.
Inasmuch as the divine Providence has this
eternal end in view with respect to every man, it
must be that no means are ever left unemployed
whereby it may be accomplished. The perfect
government of infinite love and wisdom is to be
found in the minutest circumstances no less than
in the grand events of life. There is no object
or incident so trivial as to escape it. Year by
year, and minute by minute, ever w'atching for
opportunities to bend us, without breaking us, to
his purpose, God sits above, around, within us.
Not a single event befalls, or can befall us, com
ing from sources beyond our agency and control,
but we may see his i finger in it, pointing straight
to heaven. It may be poverty, it may be sick
ness, it may be death ; and, again, it may be
some petty every-day occurrence ; but, whatever
it be, it is for the time intended as the best and
surest guidance of our souls. If we do but accept

THE DIVINE NATURE AND PROVIDENCE. 59
it, some good result must follow. The incessant
care and watchfulness of Providence are truly
wonderful beyond all power of expression ; but
the thought that they are exercised for no other
reason than that the Lord loves us, and wishes
to make us happy and to bring us into heaven, is
indeed utterly overwhelming.

FOURTH LECTURE.
THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION.
The grand central truth that God is in his
essence love and wisdom, furnishes the key for
unlocking the secrets of all the divine operations.
We have seen that the divine Providence is the
government of the divine love and wisdom of
the Lord. We have also seen that man, made
in the image, after the likeness of God, placed
at the head of all created beings, is endowed
with the capacity of knowing and loving his
heavenly Father, of receiving the divine love
and wisdom and reciprocating them, and thus
of coming into a conscious, eternal conjunction
with Him whose essence they are. As it is a
necessary condition of such reception and recip
rocation, that man should act in freedom accord
ing to reason, he is therefore made capable of
doing so. He is in this respect as well as in
others, an image and likeness of God. The di-
jvine effort, never for a moment intermitted, is
'to lead him by every means consistent with his
"entire freedom, to depart from evil and do good,
and so to become an angel.
The means employed by the Lord in the gov-

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 61
ernment of men are both general and particular
in their character ; general, in so far as they re
late to the human race as a whole, and particu
lar, in so far as they relate to smaller communi
ties and individuals. The latter class of provi
dential agencies comprises all the events beyond
the control of human beings, which from day to
day are permitted to befall them ; for, as was
previously stated, there may be traced, in every
one of such events, the guiding hand of our
heavenly Father. In his perfect sight there is
no such thing as accident. But all things that
come upon us, whether they seem to savor of
good or of evil fortune, are designed to aid our
free and rational endeavors to ascend to a purer
and better state of life.
As regards the general means which Provi
dence makes use of, the first and foremost of
them all, in the opinion of every Christian man
and woman, must be the coming of the Lord.
This event, in whatever light it is viewed by
those who claim to be the followers of Christ,
must appear to them as beyond comparison the
great event of history. It is the burden of all
previous prophecy ; and after-time looks back to
it as the grandest of earthly epochs. To the
consideration of this great subject let us now
address ourselves.
If the Scriptures had ended with the Old
Testament, it would have been hardly possible

62 FOURTH LECTURE.
for human ingenuity to raise any question as to
the divine unity. So plainly is the one God,
Jehovah, set before the mind's eye that there is
little, if any, opportunity to wander from Him.
It is only with the birth which is chronicled at
the beginning of the New Testament that serious
trouble arises. One makes his appearance who
is said to have been begotten of God and born
of the virgin Mary. He is called alike the Son of
God and the Son of Man. He speaks of God as
his Father, and addresses Him repeatedly in
prayer. He cries on the cross, " My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " and in va
rious other ways presents the appearance of a
distinct being or person.
Yet no one who reads and receives the Script
ure record can gather from it that He is a man
like other men. Such a thought is forbidden
both by what He says of Himself and by what is
said about Him. " I am the way, the truth, and
the life; no man cometh unto the Father but
by me." "Before Abraham was, I am." "All
power is given unto me in heaven and on earth."
" Where two or three are gathered together in
my name, there am I in the midst of them."
No mere human being can truthfully talk in this
manner. The very suggestion of such a thought
almost savors of profanation. And when we
read further, that he was the Word made flesh ;
that his life was the fulfilment of all the law and

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 63
the prophets, and that He baptized with the Holy
Ghost and with fire, to say nothing of countless
other statements and inferences with which the
gospels teem, the idea that He belongs to the
class of common, finite men becomes less and less
tenable and more and more revolting.
No appearances should be allowed to frighten
us from the grand central truth of all religious
faith ; that the Lord our God is one Lord. Not
for an instant should any theory respecting the
Son of God be entertained which in the least de
tracts from the absolute oneness of the divine
essence and personality. Holding up this doc
trine as a candle, and reading the gospel by its
light, we see clearly that the birth of Jesus Christ
was simply God's own ivay of bringing Himself
into the world. That "holy thing," which was
begotten of Jehovah, and born of Mary, and ap
propriately called the Son of God, was not a be
ing distinct from the Father, but the outward
natural embodiment of the Father, — a human
form and nature assumed by the Father for the
purpose of bringing Himself down to men in the
time of their great need.
God, as we know, is life itself. He not only
created men in the beginning, but forever and
continually creates them by the renewal of their
life. His is the inmost life, which is the foun
tain of all other life ; and no living thing could
survive a single instant, if this life should cease

64 FOURTH LECTURE.
to flow. By appointed .mediums and through
various channels, it comes to finite creatures.
It is transmitted from one generation to another
by means of natural parents. The law of birth
is, that from the father proceeds the inner vital
principle, which receives an outward form or
body from the mother. All men have human
fathers. A finite medium, a secondary cause of
life, comes between them and the infinite source.
But it was not so with the Lord Jesus Christ.
His life came directly from the divine Father,
with no human agency intervening, and found
a receptacle in the natural body, which, with its
attendant faculties, was born of Mary. His hu
manity differed from other humanity in this re
spect : That all that part of it which was derived
from the Father, — that is to say, the interior
life and essence — was divine. But the external
part, which came from the mother, was finite,
imperfect, and prone to evil. Inasmuch as no
human father intervened between him and the
divine and infinite source of being, therefore his
connection with that source was always unbroken
and perfect. His internal and essential life was
that of divinity itself flowing down immediately
into the humanity. There was no distinction of
persons in the common acceptation of the term,
but only, to a certain extent, the outward ap
pearance of such a distinction. This appearance
is wholly unavoidable ; for every one can see that

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 65
God could not possibly clothe Himself in finite
human form without making it seem that an
other being, separate from Himself, had been
created or manifested. But even the appear
ance grew less and less during the brief period
of his life on earth, until at last it wholly passed
away. The doctrine that Jesus Christ is God made
manifest in the flesh is not a figment of man's
imagination, but rests on the emphatic declara
tions of Scripture : " Unto us a child is borri,
unto us a son is given ; and the government
shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty
God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace." " Behold the Lord Jehovih will come
with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for
Him." " Behold the days come, saith Jehovah,
that I will raise unto David a righteous branch,
and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall
execute judgment and justice in the earth. In
his days Judali shall be saved, and Israel shall
dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he
shall be called, Jehovah our Righteousness." " I
am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour." " As for our Redeemer, Jehovah
of Hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel."
" I, even I, am Jehovah, and besides me there
is no saviour." " I am Jehovah : that is my
name : and my glory will I not give to another."
S

66 FOURTH LECTURE.
Such are some of the voices of prophecy in which
the one God Jehovah is represented as the only
Redeemer and Saviour of men, and the Messiah,
who was to come, is identified with Him. And
when He comes, we do not fail to hear the same
things repeated. By common consent, his ad
vent is the fulfilment of all prophecy. He is
called " Immanuel, God with us." He says of
Himself, " I and the Father are one." To one
of his disciples, begging Him to show them the
Father, He replies, " Have I been so long time
with you, and yet hast thou not known me,
Philip ? He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father; and how sayest thou then. Show us the
Father ? " Again : " He that seeth me, seeth
Him that sent me." Paul, also, in his epistles,
confirms the teaching in many ways ; as, for in
stance, when he says that " God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself," or that " in
Him," i. e. the Lord Jesus Christ, " dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
Thus the Lord our God is one Lord, and Jesus
Christ is He. The term " Son of God " is used,
according to the natural appearance, to desig
nate the humanity which He assumed, but not
as indicating a separate divine personality. This
humanity was, to the fullest possible extent, the
earthly tabernacle of infinite divinity. The lat
ter was, as it were, projected into the former, to
the utmost of its capacity to receive it. And all

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 67
that set any limits to this capacity was the finite
and fallible nature of that external part of the
humanity, — including the body and the lowest
regions of the mind, — which was derived from
the mother. From her were inherited all the
tendencies to evil, which any man may inherit
from the corresponding source. If it had not
been so, the Lord could never have been tempted
by the devil, for there can obviously be no temp
tation where there is no inclination toward an
evil influence. But He uniformly resisted and
overcame his temptations. By the divine strength
which was in Him, he conquered all the pow
ers of darkness when they assailed Him. This
work, however, was accomplished by degrees,
and not suddenly. As men cannot throw off
all their evils in a moment, neither did He at
one stroke remove every evil tendency, which
came as his maternal heritage. But the effect
of each victory over temptation was to weaken
the power of resistance in the lower human nat
ure, and to bring it more and more under the
influence of the indwelling divinity, until at last
all that was of imperfect, earthly origin was put
away from it and the whole humanity became
divine. Then was it, indeed, the adequate and
fit abode of the infinite and eternal One. Neither
the narrow sepulchre, nor even the earth itself,
could contain the glorified form of Christ. But
all of divinity was comprised in the divine human-

68 FOURTH LECTURE.
ity, like an infinite soul in an infinite body. Hu
manity made perfect became the means whereby
divinity, which was always perfect, is brought
down to the poor and feeble comprehension of
men. He who in thought sees the Lord Jesus
Christ sees the Father, for He is the outward em
bodiment and presentment of the Father. " No
man hath seen God at any time ; the only be
gotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him."
It is not to be expected that we should be able
to understand immediately all the particulars of
the divine incarnation, or of the means by which
it was accomplished. Our insight into any such
subject must of necessity be very limited. It
is but little that we know even about our own
souls and their connection with our bodies, —
the method in which they, so to speak, are in
carnated. But all the knowledge that we have
of our own spiritual nature will help us to un
derstand the divine human nature of the Lord.
One important truth may be apprehended with
considerable clearness. It is, that every man is,
as it were, two men. That is to saj"^, each one
of us has in himself a distinctly twofold nature.
There are natural faculties, appetites, and desires,
which are closely associated with the body ; and
there are spiritual or heavenly faculties, affec
tions, thoughts, and aspirations. The one class
of faculties is external, the other internal. By

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 69
virtue of the one, man is allied to the beasts that
perish ; by virtue of the other he is made a com
panion and equal of the angels. These two
planes or degrees of life imply a double con
sciousness. And, indeed, nothing is more com
mon than for a man to be divided -against him
self, — to be iigitated at one and the same time
by diverse and conflicting emotions, — to be con
scious of two distinct sets of desires struggling
within him for supremacy. The higher nature
has also the power of scrutinizing and judging
the lower, and of bringing it into harmony with
itself. This is always done when men are re
generated. The animal in them becomes wholly
subject to the angel. The outward and earthly
plane of their being is pervaded and animated
by the deeper spiritual life. '
Likewise in the Lord Jesus Christ we discern
a twofold nature, which presents in some re
spects a far wider and sharper contrast. His
natural humanity is seen in connection with abso
lute divinity itself, not with finite spiritual fac
ulties. Outwardly man, He was inwardly God.
Assuming an external human nature. He did not
leave his place in the heavens, nor lose that in
most divine consciousness, whereby He presides
over the universe. He had provided a form of
life, — a human form, his own image and like
ness, — with which He dwelt in immediate con
tact, and into which his divine spirit or influ-

70 FOURTH LECTURE.
ence could gradually descend, until he had wholly
filled it with Himself, and made it his own per
fect receptacle and embodiment. Until that con
summation was reached, there must needs be
separation, and even conflict, between the divine
and human natures which coexisted in Him. But
afterwards there was only unity and peace.
A knowledge of this dual nature, which was
embodied and expressed in Jesus Christ, enables
us to understand many apparent contradictions
in his life, which would otherwise be inexplica
ble. We see how He could be truly called " the
mighty God, the everlasting Father," and also
" a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief ; " how
at one time He could undergo the torment of
temptation, and at another could stand on the
Mount of Transfiguration, his face shining like
the sun, and his raiment white as the light. He
presents to us alike the realities of divine glory
and of human suffering. Those who looked on
Him in this world beheld a human form like their
own. Sometimes they saw that form bowing in
prayer to God. They heard Him say : " My
Father is greater than I," and rebuke the young
man who saluted Him as " Good Master." The
language varies according as the divine or the hu
man nature is primarily treated of. Before his
humanity was made divine, and while He had
still a work to do in overcoming the evil tenden
cies which clung to it, Jesus was not good as God

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 71
is good ; the Father was greater than the Son,
even as the self-subsisting and life-giving divinity
was greater than the not yet glorified humanity
which it had begotten. The Lord prayed to the
Father because in the external parts of his nat
ure which were tempted He had the same need
of divine help that all men have. Our own ex
perience may aid us in perceiving what his must
have been. At times we are borne down by the
weight of our iniquity and the appalling sense of
our wickedness. Our natural minds are dark
ened, and seem to be out off from the spiritual
sources of light. Then may the cry go forth al
most unwittingly from our lips, " My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? " But after
a while, perhaps, a higher region of life and
thought is opened within us, and we are able to
look down as from a mountain-top upon our for
mer troubles. We, at our best, are only spirit
ual and heavenly beings, whereas the Saviour
was divine.
These various states are to be noticed in Him,
until on, the cross He gave up the ghost. When
He rose from the dead, it was no longer the same
with Him as before. His treatment of men and
their treatment of Him are changed, as He ap
proaches that perfect union with the Father
which was completed at his final ascension. He
has no word of reproof for Thomas when he ex
claims, " My Lord and my God ! " but simply

72 FOURTH LECTURE.
says, " Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast
believed ; blessed are they that have not seen and
yet have believed." His disciples have an evi*-
dent perception of his greatness and holiness,
which they have not previously experienced. It
is written that meeting Him upon a certain moun
tain, they worshipped Him. But some doubted;
and then it was that Jesus spake unto them, say
ing, "All power is given unto me in heaven and
on earth."
But whatever may be thought or imagined re
specting the philosophy of the incarnation, or
the manner in which it was effected, the great
fact itself remains for the enlightenment and
comfort of all who are able to receive it. To
one who can appreciate nothing more, it is of in
calculable value to know, simply, that God, the
creator of all things, is fully revealed and mani
fested in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
thoughts take a definite form when they rest on
such a God. He is not a distant, shapeless, mys
terious shadow, but an infinite, divine man, living
as near to us as one being can live to another,
h-aving been brought thus near by assuming a nat
ure similar to our own, and by passing through
similar experiences. He is one whom we can
worship with a clear understanding and a devout
heart. And what shall we say of the work which He
came on earth to do ? One thing is certain in

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 73
the first place. It was prompted by infinite love
and directed by infinite wisdom ; for He himself
is love and wisdom. He must have come because
He loved men and they needed help. This was
the sole end which He had in view, the single im
pulse which moved Him. There was no mixture
of motives any more than there was a division of
persons and offices. Hence there could be no di
vine anger to be appeased, even if He were capa
ble of anger; nor any offended justice to be sat
isfied ; nor any outraged majesty ; but only love
which could no longer hold itself back from sin
ning and suffering creatures.
The Scriptures speak in no ambiguous terms
with regard to the purpose of his coming.
" Thou shalt call his name Jesus : for He shall
save his people from their sins." " The day-
spring from on high hath visited us, to give light
to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world." His eternal plan was im
perilled. The freedom which He had given to
men, in order that they might reciprocate his love
and join themselves to Him in the bonds of heav
enly life and happiness, had been perverted and
misused. Little by little they fell into evil,
transmitting sinful tendencies to their descend
ants, and increasing the inheritance from one
generation to another until they were almost

74 FOURTH LECTURE.
overwhelmed by their iniquities, and there was
danger lest the human race should spiritually
perish. The order of Providence had always been that
man should be free and able to shun evil, if he
would. No parent, however wicked, could en
tail upon his children anything more than the
tendency to evil. It is forever true, as is written
in Ezekiel, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
.... The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity
of the son ; the righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the
wicked shall be upon him." But at length there
came a time in the history of mankind when evil
so far preponderated over good, and hell over
heaven, that even freedom itself was well-nigh
lost. Right and wrong were so confounded with
each other that men were hardly able to distin
guished between them. Scarcely any one knew
God or cared to know Him. Scarcely any one
knew the way of life or cared to walk in it.
Evil men outwardly and evil spirits inwardly
had a controlling influence in human affairs.
We read of persons who, even as to their bodies,
were possessed with devils. The picture is a
fearful one, and cannot be exaggerated. It an
swers to the awful language of prophecy : " Je
hovah looked down from heaven upon the chil
dren of men, to see if there were any that did

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 75
understand and seek God. They are all gone
aside, they are all together become filthy ; there
is none that doeth good, no, not one."
This was the time of the Lord's coming, and
his purpose was, as we have seen, to save men
from their sins. Mark the words, from their
sins, not merely from the effect or punishment
of their sins, though this must needs be a sec
ondary result. And how could He save men
from their sins so effectually, as by placing Him
self where He could directly fight against those
sins ? The question is its own answer. Ac
cordingly He took upon Himself the nature of
those who so much needed his assistance, — as
sumed a humanity, which inherited on its mater
nal side all the evil tendencies which men in
herited, and was subjected to temptations from
the same infernal spirits who had almost com
passed the downfall of mankind. Thus He set
Himself face to face in battle with our spiritual
enemies. And He overthrew them utterly. He
drove them back to their own dark realm. He
destroyed their predominant influence over hu
man beings, and restored the freedom which
they had so nearly subverted. He showed anew,
to all who were willing to learn it, the difference
between good and evil, and made sure to them
the capacity, if they should choose to exercise it,
of doing the one and shunning the other. He
did not effect any immediate or miraculous change

76 FOURTH LECTURE.
in them ; but He altered the circumstances by
which they were surrounded, purifying the spirit
ual atmosphere in which they lived, causing new
light to dawn upon their minds, revealing to
them the precious truth of the gospel, establish
ing another and better order of things, and giv
ing to his whole human family a fresh impulse
towards the heavenly life.
Not by his death merely, but by his entire life.
He brought salvation to the world. The passion
of the cross was only the last of the series of
temptations and conflicts whereby He overthrew
the power of darkness and made his humanity
divine. How grievous a temptation it was is
clearly shown by his agony at Gethsemane, and
by his despairing words on the cross, " My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Surely
it was not simply the anticipation of natural
death that caused so much suffering, and made
his sweat like great drops of blood falling down
to the ground. It was not simply the cruel in
dignity which He received at the hands of men
which drew from Him that wail of despair.
Lesser martyrs have borne these things without
complaint. But as He prayed and suffered, the
hells themselves had broken loose upon Him,
and it must have seemed like the dark valley of
spiritual death, which He as to his humanity was
passing through. The nature of his temptations
is briefly outlined in the account which is given

THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION. 77
of them at the beginning of his ministry. Forty
days and forty nights He is said to have been in
the wilderness, tempted of the devil. After
wards it is affirmed that the devil left Him " for
a season." And that he returned again with
fearful power is indicated by subsequent sayings
and events. In short, his whole life, interiorly
regarded, consisted of combats with evil, and
victories over it.
One Heavenly Father, whose essence is love
and wisdom, having the constant and immutable
purpose of drawing us upwards into a state of
eternal conjunction with Himself, so far as He
can do it with our free cooperation, — this is our
God. Taking on Himself our nature, with all its
inherited tendencies to evil, and its consequent
temptations, He confronted the spiritual foes of
mankind, and overpowered them, thus becoming
our Saviour and Redeemer Deliverance from
the influence of evil spirits, and the implantation
of what is good and pure and holy, not only at
that particular time of the world's great need,
but ever since in the heart of every man who
has such faith in Him as to do his will and to
keep his commandments, — this is his work of
redemption.

FIFTH LECTURE.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION.
The last two lectures have treated of the es
sential nature of God, and the general character
of his dealings with men. They have also at
tempted to explain his coming in the flesh, and
his glorification of the humanity which He as
sumed. If they have been at all successful in
their purpose, they have served to show that the
terms Father and Son, as applied to the Lord
God, do not signify two distinct persons, but
two essential parts or elements of one divine
person. These two parts are to each other like
soul and body in man. By the Father is to be
understood the inmost divine nature or essence,
such as it is in itself, wholly above and beyond
the sight and comprehension of finite beings, and
by the Son the outward human form and em
bodiment, by which the Father is brought forth
to view. This human nature, assumed from
Mary, was itself glorified or made divine by re
sisting and overcoming evil. As one man is
made known to another by his bodily form and
presence, so the infinite Father of all flesh is
made known to his children through his divine
humanity or the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 79
But while we have thus tried to understand
what is meant by the Father and Son, scarcely
any allusion has been made to the Holy Spirit.
And surely no one who has a proper regard for
the teachings of Scripture can doubt that our
knowledge of the Supreme Being is incomplete
until we have some idea as to what the Holy
Spirit is. For not a little is said about the Holy
Spirit in the gospel narratives. In the formula
of baptism, as given by the Lord himself just
before his ascension, it is most pointedly and
significantly mentioned in connection with the
Father and the Son. " And Jesus came and
spake unto them, saying. All power is given
unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, there
fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit." Frequent reference is also
made to the Comforter, called likewise the Spirit
of Truth, or the Holy Spirit, which the Lord
promised to send to his disciples after He himself
should go away. It behooves us, therefore, if
we would have a .full and correct' conception of
the God of our worship, to inquire particularly
into the nature and office of the Holy Spirit.
Again calling to remembrance the grand un
derlying principle of the absolute unity of the
divine Being, we see that the Holy Spirit must
be something which pertains to the one God, and
adds to his fulness and perfection without in the

80 FIFTH LECTURE.
least suggesting the idea of a distinct person
ality. We would, therefore, ask ourselves. What
third thing is necessary to complete the divine
ideal which has been heretofore presented ?
What is there in God beside the inmost, life-giv
ing divinity, and the divine humanity by which
that divinity is revealed ? What is it in ad
dition to the soul and the body, which is needed
to finish the conception of the infinite Father of
creation filling and governing his universe ? It
can be only the outflowing life, energy, or influ
ence wliich makes his presence everywhere felt,
and by which He does his ceaseless work. Even
a finite man is not like a dumb statue, from
which no vital power proceeds, to leave its im
press on other creatures. The streams of fife
course through us all, and sensibly affect every
one who comes within the range of our infiuence;
And if this is the case with men, must it not be
immeasurably more so with the Lord himself ?
If beings who, at their best, are but imperfect
images and likenesses of their Maker give forth
life, how can He fail to give it forth in infinite
abundance who in Himself is life ?
There can be nO doubt that a comprehensive
view of our Heavenly Father must include what
goes forth from Him as well as what is in Him.
We cannot rightly consider Him apart from his
constant operation and influence. And these
are what is meant by his Holy Spirit. Indeed,

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 81
the primitive signification of the word " spirit "
would naturally suggest this idea. In Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, and many other languages, the
word for "spirit" originally meant "breath."
In our common version of the Scriptures, it is
rendered by one or the other, term, at the pleas
ure of the translator. The first place where it
occurs is in the second verse of the Bible, where
we read : " The earth was without form, and
void : and darkness was upon the face of the
deep ; and the spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters." Almost the next place in which
we find it is in the following chapter, where it
is written : " Jehovah God formed man of the
dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the hreath of life." We might say with equal
correctness, " The hreath of God moved upon the
face of the waters," or " He breathed the spirit
of life into man's nostrils." Clearly enough, a
certain divine proceeding influence is signified in
both cases. So in many other passages of the
Old Testament, as for example : " By the word
of Jehovah were the heavens made ; and all
the host of them by the hreath of his mouth."
" Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created,
and thou renewest the face of the earth."
Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither
shall I flee from thy presence ? " And when we
come to the New Testament, we perceive no
essential difference; as, for instance, in the nota-
6

82 FIFTH LECTURE.
ble passage in John : "The wind bloweth where
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither
it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the
spirit." Here the word translated " spirit " is
precisely the same as that translated "wind," so
that we might rightly say : " The spirit breathes
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell -^hence it cometh, and
whither it goeth." Again, on one of the occar
sions after his resurrection, when the Lord ap
peared to his disciples, we are told that He
breathed on them, and said : " Receive ye the
Holy Spirit." (I prefer the term " Holy Spirit "
to " Holy Ghost," not because it differs at all in
meaning, but because it is a more modern, and
therefore a more intelligible, form of speech.)
These several examples should give a very def
inite idea of the Holy Spirit and its operations.
What more perfect picture could we have than is
afforded by the Lord breathing on his disciples ?
What clearer comparison could be suggested than
that of the all-pervading atmosphere, whose in
fluence is ever felt, though it is itself unseen ?
And when we remember that the Lord, wishing
in his book of divine truth to give us a concep
tion of his spirit, makes use of the common word
for breath, or wind, or atmosphere, the conclu
sion is one from which there is no escape. The
Holy Spirit is the outflowing life by virtue of

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 83
which the Lord God goes, as it were, out of and.
beyond Himself, and makes his power and pres
ence felt in every part of the universe. He is
like the sun — the great central sun — which is
the infinite fountain of creation. But He does
not anywhere dwell in splendid isolation. Like
the solar rays of heat and light, a perpetual in
fluence goes forth from Him to the ends of the
earth and to every class and condition of his
creatures. This influence can be nothing but the
extension of his own life of perfect love and wis
dom seeking to give itself to others, and chiefly
to gain admission into the hearts and minds of
men. The finite life of man, the spirit which
he manifests, the influence which goes forth from
him is full of imperfections. Not so with the
Lord. His spirit is, in fact as well as in name,
the Holy Spirit.
I believe that no one can thoughtfully and
candidly examine the passages in the Bible which
treat of the Holy Spirit, without acknowledging
that the sense, in a large majority of instances,
emphatically demands that the idea of a divine
proceeding influence should be substituted for
that of a divine person. In the numerous places
where men are said to be full of the Holy Spirit,
or to receive the Holy Spirit, there is no intelli
gible meaning, except by this construction. We
can be filled with the divine influence, the sphere
of infinite love and wisdom can rest upon us.

84 FIFTH LECTURE.
bringing us into close and intimate conjunction
with the Lord our God. But if by the Holy
Spirit in these passages is to be understood a
divine person, we may well be at a loss how to
explain them.
Indeed, it is difficult to see how the idea of
the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit should
ever have sprung up in the minds of men. Even
the passages which seem to favor it the most are
more easily explained on other grounds. When,
for instance, it is said that at the Lord's baptism
" the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape
like a dove upon Him," which is the more likely,
that the dove was actually a third person in the
Godhead, or that the proceeding life or infiuence
of the essential Divinity, which is the Father, in
being communicated to the Humanity, which is
the Son, was made to appear for the time being
in this particular form ? Why is it not a repre
sentative picture of the prophecy contained in
these words from Isaiah : " The spirit of the
Lord Jehovih is upon me, because Jehovah hath
anointed me, to preach good tidings unto the
meek ? " In his Apocalyptic vision, John saw
the Lord as a Lamb that had been slain ; but no
one has ever supposed that this lamb could be
anything more than a representative or symbol of
the Lord, or of some one of his divine characteris
tics ; and surely the appearance of the dove is
most naturally accounted for in the same manner.

THE HOLY. SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 85
Again, what is said of the Paraclete, or Com
forter, may possibly appear to furnish some little
support to the doctrine of a personal spirit. But
the slightest examination and comparison of pas
sages should be enough to dispel the idea. It is
true, the Lord speaks of another Comforter, even
the Spirit of truth, which was to come, when He
had ascended. But in connection with this dec
laration, and indeed, as a part of it, He says, " I
will not leave you comfortless : I will come to
you," thereby affirming that the descent of the
Holy Spirit is but his way of drawing near to
men, and dwelling in them.
It can hardly have escaped the notice of care
ful readers of the New Testament, that, in the
first place, the Comforter or Holy Spirit, is pecul
iarly associated with the Lord in his divine hu
manity. It is the Lord Jesus who promises to
send it, or to cause that it shall be sent. Sec
ondly, there is an obvious connection between
the coming of the Holy Spirit and the Lord's
glorification and ascension. He said to his dis
ciples, " It is expedient for you that I go away :
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come
unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto
you.'' In another place it is written, that " the
Holy Spirit was not yet, because that Jesus was
not yet glorified." But after He was risen from
the dead. He clearly and confessedly communi
cated the Holy Spirit to those who were with

86 FIFTH LECTURE.
Him. It was then that He breathed on his dis
ciples, and saith unto them, " Receive ye the
Holy Spirit." And in the Acts of the Apostles
further accounts are given to the same effect.
Now what can be the meaning of this remarka
ble circumstance except that the Lord, by his as
sumption and glorification of humanity, brought
down the divine influence to men more nearly
and more powerfully than ever before? He,
being one with the essential divinity, or the
Father, was preeminently the medium of the
divine life. But it was not until all the finite
imperfections of the human nature had been re
moved through temptations, that the union of
the Father and Son, of the essential divinity and
the divine humanity, was fully consummated.
When this was done, then without let or hin
drance the divine influence could descend to all
the degrees of life which humanity comprehends,
and the Holy Spirit could be truly said to exist
in its fulness on earth.
By an easy and natural transition we pass
from the consideration of the Holy Spirit to that
of regeneration. The two subjects are closely
related to each other, and are significantly joined
together in the Word. " Except a man be born
again he cannot see the kingdom of God." " Ex
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 87
is born of the Spirit is spirit." No one can be
lieve that anything less than a universal law of
human life is here stated. Every man who lives
in this world has a spiritual work to do. We
are not born with all our faculties fully developed
and perfected. We are not introduced all at
once into the highest capabilities of our nature.
But time, and the growth which comes with
time, are needed, in order to bring a human be
ing to the full measure of a man, that is, of an
angel. So much as this is true under the most
favorable circumstances in which men can be
placed. It would be true, if there had never
been any sin or disorder upon earth. But at
the present day, almost as soon as we begin to
live, we not only find ourselves surrounded by
various influences, many of which are evil, but
perceive that we have within us tendencies,
neither few nor feeble, toward what is evil. It
is a revelation of personal consciousness to every
one that he has certain selfish and external de
sires, in the indulgence of which he naturally
places his highest hopes of happiness. The slight
est reflection will also show that unless these de
sires are somehow mastered they will gain the
mastery. Where such a result is reached, the
whole n-ature is perverted. The body, with its
senses and appetites, and all the lower mental
faculties which deal only with the things of this
world, though forming a necessary part of the

88 FIFTH LECTURE.
human organism, were designed to be its servants,
not its rulers. Until they have been brought
into their proper position of subordination, man
cannot be in the true order of his creation ; he
is in constant danger of violating the command
ments, — of dishonoring father and mother, of
killing, stealing, and bearing false witness, — in
thought and desire if not in act. But let a
heavenly life be quickened in himi, let the spirit
ual man obtain dominion over the natural, and
he becomes a true image and likeness of God,
fulfilling the highest purposes of his existence.
Nor is there any one, hovrever strong his hered
itary evil propensities may be, to whom this con
summation is not possible.*
It should be evident, however, that a work of
such magnitude and importance cannot be ac
complished instantaneously ; nor do the Script
ures furnish any tangible ground for supposing
that it can. The operations of divine Providence
are never sudden. Sometimes the manifestation
of them may appear sudden to men, because it
was unforeseen and unexpected. But the events
themselves never come to pass without due fore
thought and preparation. Consider, for instance,
the processes of natural production and growth,
which are suggested by the very word " regen
eration," and presented in the Bible as its type.
There is a particular moment in the life of each
individual when he begins to breathe the air of

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 89.
this outer world. Yet in reality that moment
is but one in a long series of moments, and rep
resents but one in a long series of developments,
of which he is the subject. Birth would be im
possible but for the previous embryonic life ; and
if one were born and nothing more, he would be
forever a most imperfect specimen of humanity.
Somewhat so must it be with the process by
which man is made a complete spiritual being.
The change cannot but be a gradual one. It
may or may not be marked by striking incidents,
which serve as the distinct signs of progress.
One may, nor may not, be able to recall some
particular circumstances which led him to turn
from evil ways and to begin a new life. There
is no inflexible rule which applies to all alike as
regards the details of their conscious experience,
but there must be a general resemblance in the
manner in which men are regenerated. Little
by little their sinful inclinations and habits must
be overcome, and good and true influences be
insinuated in the place of them.
First must come a consciousness of evil, and a
desire to repent. The man must learn by, self-
examination, and by other means which will not
be wanting to him, what particular evils are the
most powerful, and threaten the greatest danger
to his soul. Then he must faithfully and ear
nestly apply himself to the resistance of them.
True repentance, be it observed, is not a mere

90 FIFTH LECTURE.
general confession of sinfulness, but the acknowl
edgment of one's own particular sins, accompa
nied by the sincere desire and effort to be deliv
ered from their influence. It is easy for anybody
to say of himself that he, in common with all
other men, is a miserable sinner; but it is not
so easy for him, if he finds that he is inclined to
be self-willed, or passionate, or domineering, or
covetous, or avaricious, to rise up against the evil
in the earnest endeavor to put it away. Yet
this is what must be done if he would truly re
pent and be born again.
When any one is thus repentant, knowing that
he is a sinful man, and wishing from his heart to
be freed from his iniquities, he becomes humble,
and all self-confidence departs from him. He
feels the need of a higher power than his own,
and is ready to enter into a deep vital and
personal relationship with his heavenly Father.
Intellectually he may, in a certain sense, have
believed in Him before ; but he cannot have had
the same genuine belief which he has now. " All
religion," says Swedenborg, "is of the life." If
this is true, then there can be no real religion
which is not of the life ; no religion worthy of
the name which does not make its infiuence felt
in every daily duty. And is it not most mani
festly true ? Is it not what the Lord himself
teaches when He says: " If ye love me, keep my
commandments." " Not every one that saith

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 91
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king
dom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my
Father who is in heaven."
If a man is rightly instructed he will regard
the Lord God as the one perfect being, to whom
all evil stands in direct opposition. He is good
ness itself and truth itself. Hence no one can
wilfully do or cherish any evil without being
guilty of sin against Him. " Against thee, thee
only, have I sinned, and done evil in thy sight,"
says David in the psalm ; and the same may be
truly said by every one who deliberately violates
or disregards what he knows to be divinely just
and right. "Shun evils as sins against God," is
the great law of spiritual life for those who would
be regenerated. Shun them because they are op
posed to his holy will and subversive of his divine
order. Shun them in affection and thought, no
less than in outward actions. All evil, whether
seen or unseen by mortal eye, is sin against the
Lord, and there is a heavenly reason, if not an
earthly one, for putting it away. Evidently no
such work as is here proposed can be effected
without internal conflict. The higher and lower
parts of our nature — the heavenly man and
the earthly man within us — cannot fail to be
brought into antagonism with each other. The
unregenerate natural will is not content to fall
into its normal and proper position of subservi
ency. It is, however, mercifully provided by the

92 FIFTH LECTURE.
Lord that the understanding shall be, at first,
elevated above the will. The memory is stored
with the knowledge of what is good and true;
and the ability to see the right is given in ad
vance of the willingness to do it. Yet by dil
igently conforming to the truth, even when its
behests are outwardly most unwelcome, the life
is gradually changed, till finally we love, with
the whole mind and heart, the things which
were previously repugnant to us. So is the man
born again, his baser nature taking its right
place as the willing servant of the nobler, its
appetites subdued, its restless longings satisfied,
its false and persuasive reasonings, which would
convert good into evil and evil into good, ban
ished and driven out of sight.
One important truth remains to be considered.
It is that man's regeneration is the Lord's work.
But it will naturally be asked : How can this be,
if man is a free agent and master of his own
thoughts and actions ? Truly, as we have pre
viously seen, freedom is an indispensable condi
tion of human existence and progress. Without
it man would not be man ; that is, he would not
be the loving and thinking being who alone,
among all living creatures, can lift up his heart
in gratitude and praise to his heavenly Father.
For, from their very nature, love, worship, thank
fulness include the idea of freedom. If they are
not free and spontaneous they are nothing. Still

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 93
it is not man who regenerates himself. It is the
Lord who causes his regeneration.
For to the Lord belong all life, goodness, wis
dom and power. He is the infinite source ; men
are the finite recipients. Whatever goodness,
wisdom, or power men have is from Him. It
seems to them like their own ; it is given to them
to use as their own ; but it is really the Lord's
in them. They live, not from themselves, but
only as from themselves. His Holj^ Spirit — the
influence of his love and wisdom — flows forth to
them without ceasing. In the region of their
mental consciousness they have the power either
to receive or reject it ; and on the choice they
make their present and future happiness depends.
If they receive it, they are conjoined with the
Lord. If they reject it, they are separated from
Him. It may not be known to them as the
Lord's operation, or as anything divine, but only
as an inward impulse which, if they yield to it,
will lead them to depart from evil and to do good,
to seek peace and to pursue it. In its largest
sense, it may be said to comprise all good influ
ences by which their spiritual states may be af
fected. If they disregard its promptings, they are
confirmed in selfish and sinful states, which are
but another name for hell. Yet, in case they
choose the better course, they cannot justly claim
any merit to themselves. The feeling which im
pelled them had not its origin in their own hearts,

94 FIFTH LECTURE.
but was imparted by the Lord. The truth which
guided them was not the invention of their own
minds, but came by <?ivine revelation. They have
simply consented to be governed by good, instead
of evil influences.
The process is not unlike that by which the
fruits of the earth are produced. The farmer
ploughs the ground, sows the seed, and removes
the weeds from time to time. Then he anxiously
watches every sign until the crop is ripe for har
vest. But when his barns are full and running
over, of what has he to boast ? Did he cause the
grain to grow ? Did he infuse the spirit of life
into a single kernel of it ? Or is it the wonderful
productive power which is in. nature that has done
all the work ? He indeed has done little or noth
ing more than to avail himself of that power.
He knew that it was lurking in the sunlight and
rain and the bountiful earth, awaiting an oppor
tunity to operate, and he gave it an opportunity.
This is the extent of his efforts : he has given an
opportunity to the living soul of nature to utilize
its deathless and untiring energies.
Even so with man's regeneration. Divine and
heavenly influences are always descending to
every human heart. The Holy Spirit, like heat
and light from the sun, flows forth unceasingly
and without measure. In it is the power and
the burning, quenchless endeavor to form anew
the spirit of every man, that is, to reform and

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND REGENERATION. 95
regenerate him. It waits only for opportunities.
It waits only for the man to yield himself up,
and, of his own free will, to become a consenter
and cooperator with it. When he does this, the
appearance is that he has accomplished a great
work by his own unaided efforts. But it is not
really so. The work is the Lord's, as much as
if man had no freedom, although it could never
be performed were he not in freedom.
Did Jehovah bring the children of Israel out
of Egypt ? Assuredly he did. But did not they
take every step of their own free volition ? Did
they not voluntarily submit themselves to his
guidance ? There can be no doubt of it. In like
manner, if we take the corresponding spiritual
journey, it will be because we freely consent to
do so. Yet the Lord is our leader all the while.
He brings us, by means of our free agency, not
in spite of it, from our natural house of bondage
to his holy land of eternity.

SIXTH LECTURE.
THE SPIRITUAL WORLD.
It is a common impression among Christian
believers that, while we live in this world, little
or nothing can be known about the life to come.
Dense clouds of worldliness and materialism have,
during the bygone centuries, so gathered around
and imprisoned the human consciousness, that
but little knowledge or perception remains of the
spiritual skies above and beyond them. The
same cause has also operated to obscure the
meaning of Scripture. Men have not seen how
full it was of information concerning the other
world and its inhabitants. They have not no-^
ticed the many statements and inferences on this
subject, which lay waiting in the very letter of
the Word, for some one to come and find them.
Yet there they are, like gold on the surface of
the ground.
Let us begin our consideration of the matter
by endeavoring to see what the Scriptures teach
us. Throughout the Old Testament it is no un
usual thing to find mention made of supernatural
beings. Angels are often represented as appear
ing to men. They came to Lot at Sodom, to

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 97
Hagar by the fountain in the wilderness, to Ja
cob in his dreams. They were seen by Gideon
and Manoah, Ezekiel and Zechariah. The angel
of the Lord was said to go before the Israelites
in the desert. David is led to sing in the Psalms :
" Because thou hast made Jehovah who is my
refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation ;
there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any
plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall
give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in
all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their
hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."
Again we read : " The angel of Jehovah encamp-
eth round about them that fear Him, and deliv-
ereth them." In short, the reader or hearer of
the Jewish Scriptures could not have failed to be
familiar with the thought that there are beings
called angels, unseen by natural eyes, who are
closely connected with men on earth and deeply
interested in their welfare.
When we come to the New Testament, we
find still more conclusive and abundant evidence.
The very first chapter tells us that " the angel
of the Lord " appeared to Joseph in a dream.
To Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist,
and to the Virgin Mary, angels presented them
selves with divine messages. An angel appeared
to the shepherds keeping watch over their flock by
night, and they heard the joyful songs of a mul
titude of the heavenly host. Indeed, the opening
7

98 SIXTH LECTURE.
chapters of the gospel narratives have been poet
ically styled " the overture of angels." Nor do
these heavenly appearances and ministrations
cease, as the story proceeds. It is said that after
the Lord's temptations " angels came and minis
tered unto Him." In the agony at Gethsemane
" there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven
strengthening Him." As at his entrance on the
scenes of earth, angels were present and promi
nent, so was it at his departure. They met the
women who came sorrowing to the sepulchre with
the announcement, " He is not here. He is risen."
John the evangelist saw many angels. In one
place in the Apocalypse he describes them as
" ten thousand times ten thousand and thou
sands of thousands." Nor is it angels alone who
make their presence felt. The Lord is constantly
represented in the gospels as contending with evil
spirits, not only in direct personal warfare, but
as He met them possessing the bodies and tortur
ing the souls of human beings. It is written that
as a general rule " He suffered not the devils to
speak, because they knew Him." Yet sometimes
they did speak by the mouths of those whom
they possessed, saying : " Let us alone ; what
have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?
Art thou come to torment us before the time ?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of
God." In fact, the New Testament introduces
us to a whole world of invisible beings, good and

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 99
evil. Not the least significant passage is that in
which the Lord, speaking of little children, says:
" Take heed that ye despise not one of these lit
tle ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of my Father
who is in heaven."
But where are these angels and evil spirits,
and how do they come to us ? The answer is
clear. They are in the spiritual world, and that
world is in intimate relations with the natural.
It is not far off in space, but here, close at hand,
within and around us. We cannot see it with
material eyes, nor feel it with material hands;
for it is not a material world. But spiritually,
that is interiorly, we come in contact with it ;
and its inhabitants are always with us. For we
ourselves are spiritual beings. We are not made
solely of flesh and bones. But we have a higher
life and a higher nature within these corporeal
frames. The essential man is a loving and think
ing being, — in other words, a spirit, — who, for
a time, dwells in a natural body. We do not
see the angels ; but neither do we see the spirit
ual part of one another, — the real vital part,
which makes us to be what we are. Our nat
ural eyes can help us only to see natural things ;
they do not look beyond the body to the soul.
He who would behold spiritual objects must use
spiritual eyes. And such eyes V)elong to every
man, as a part of his human organism. They

100 SIXTH LECTURE.
are in his spiritual body, of which Paul speaks
when he says, " There is a natural body, and
there is a spiritual body." The spiritual body
is something which now is, not something which
will be solely in the future. Its eyes are not
usually opened, nor its other senses and faculties
consciously exercised during man's life on earth.
The reason is, because he has a special work on
earth to do. Were it not so, he would never
have been placed here. It is the work of prepa
ration for heaven. As the foundations of a house
must be laid in and on the ground, so upon this
earthly life of ours the eternal foundations of
character must rest. The natural body is the
means of bringing man into connection with the
external world. As long as he is held in asso
ciation with it, he looks through its eyes, and list
ens through its ears, and none but natural sights
and sounds are reported to him. Yet it is possi
ble, and, in rare instances, it has been permitted,
that the senses of the spiritual body should be
opened while one is living on earth.
Again seeking the testimony of Scripture, we
shall find it most direct and convincing. On a
certain occasion the prophet Elisha and his serv
ant were in great apparent danger on account
of their enemies, the Syrians. Elisha's prophetic
power had several times been the means of sav
ing his countrymen from the stratagems of their
foe, and had attracted the attention of the Syrian

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 101
king. One of his servants had said to him,
" Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the
king of Israel the words that thou speakest in
thy bedchamber." Against Elisha, therefore, his
efforts were especially directed. Learning that
he was in Dothan, he sent thither " horses and
chariots, and a great host : and they came by
night, and compassed the city about." Then the
narrative continues as follows : " And when the
servant of the man of God was risen early, and
gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city
both with horses and with chariots. And his
servant said unto him. Alas, my master, how
shall we do ? And he answered, fear not : for
they that be with us are more than they that be
with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, O Je
hovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may
see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young
man ; and he saw : and the mountain was full of
horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
There they were, the armies of the Lord, and
the protectors of Israel, ready to do the service
required of them. No one but the prophet had
beheld them, or been conscious of their presence.
But when the young man's eyes were opened, he
beheld them too. Not, however, with natural
eyes. These were open before. Some other eyes
must have been brought into use, in order to see
the heavenly host. And what eyes could they
have been but those of the spiritual body?

102 SIXTH LECTURE.
What beings could have been revealed to his as
tonished vision but spiritual beings, inhabitants
of the spiritual world, whose guardian care had
been extended over him, without his knowl
edge? So likewise, according to the record of the
Apocalypse, John was in the spirit on the Lord's
day, in the Isle of Patmos. As a consequence
of being " in the spirit," heaven, as he says, was
opened to him. He beheld one like unto the Son
of Man. Angel after angel passed before his
sight. In the whole account there is no indirect
ness or obscurity. But supernatural scenes are
witnessed, and supernatural voices are heard by
the beloved disciple. He was not the sole inhab
itant of Patmos, but no others could see the
things which he saw. Wonderful as they were,
they were all unknown to every one excepting
him. For his were the only spiritual eyes that
were opened. Had they not been opened, the
Apocalypse had never been written, and all the
events described in it would have passed unper-
ceived by men, like other spiritual occurrences
which are taking place continually.
From these plain scriptural premises we can
form but one conclusion ; and that is, as was
previously stated, that the spiritual world is
an inner world, a world which includes our own
spiritual selves, a world which could not possibly
be nearer to us than it is, and whose inhabitants

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 103
are our constant, though unseen, companions.
Understanding this, we have an explanation of
all the angelic or other preternatural appearances
of which the Scriptures speak. There was an
opening of the spiritual sight of those who wit
nessed them. Such, indeed, is the natural infer
ence in eveiy case. Zacharias was executing the
priest's office before God in the order of his
course, when, as it is written, " there appeared
unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the
right side of the altar of incense." This angel
did not come flying down from the skies and
walk into the temple through the door. If such
had been the manner of his approach, he could
not have escaped the notice of those who waited
outside for Zacharias, wondering that he tarried
so long. But when it was time for him to ap
pear and deliver his message, there he stood, and
the spiritual eyes of the aged priest were opened
to behold him. The angel who announced to the
shepherds the glad tidings of great joy, and the
choirs that joined with him their songs, were not
visitors from other planets. He " came upon"
the shepherds, it is not said whence or how; but
suddenly it was made evident that he was not
alone. Their eyes were opened to see the heav
enly forms, and their ears to hear the heavenly
voices. We need look no farther, nor try to
conjure up any more elaborate theory to account
for these and similar occurrences.

104 SIXTH LECTURE.
The same facts are sufficient to explain all the
phenomena of death. It is man's natural body
only that dies. His spirit is withdrawn and sep
arated from that body, but otherwise suffers no
change. He goes to sleep as to this world, that
he may awake to the clear knowledge and per
ception of the other world. His natural senses
are closed, never again to be renewed, and his
spiritual senses are opened, never again to grow
dormant and imperceptible. The earth, and all
that is upon it, fade away from sight, and the
inner world of spirit dawns upon his conscious
ness. The faces of his friends who still live in
the body disappear from view, and he cofnes into
open communion with those who have gone be
fore him ; he sees the angels who have guarded
him in life, and have attended him through the
valley of the shadow of death.
It is a mistake to suppose that natural death
is a curse. No such narrow meaning can be
rightly drawn from any expressions of Scripture.
When we read in Genesis that God said respect
ing the tree of knowledge, " In the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ; " — what
ever be our method of interpretation, we cannot
rationally understand that natural death is re
ferred to ; for it is an evident fact that, in the
day of their eating the forbidden fruit, they did
not naturally die. The only death which is to
be feared is that which comes to man when he

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 105
violates the laws of divine order, and wilfully
places himself outside the pale of divine influ
ences. But the death of the body takes "place
in accordance with the originally established
conditions of our being. It is as perfect a man
ifestation of the Lord's love and wisdom as birth
itself. It is an orderly step in human progress.
' To those who have lived as the Lord desires and
teaches them to live, it is a joyful change, giving
opportunity for the full and unrestrained devel
opment of their faculties, and opening before
them endless possibilities of happiness. Not
cursed, but " blessed are the dead who die in the
Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit,
that they may rest from their labors ; and their
works do follow with them."
One who passes into the other life is in all es
sential respects precisely the same human being
us before. He exists in human form, and pos
sesses every bodily as well as mental faculty.
But his body, as was explained, is now spiritual,
not natural. He finds himself surrounded by
men and women, who, like himself, began their
life on the earth. There are no angels but hu
man angels, no devils or evil spirits but those
who have gone from the natural world. When
God made man in his image, after his likeness.
He reached the crowning work of his creation.
It is not possible that there should be any creat
ure higher than the image and likeness of the
Creator.

106 SIXTH LECTURE.
Let us again turn to the Scriptures for instruc
tion on the various points which have been men
tioned. First, as to the fact that death is but
the continuation of life. What could be more
explicit than the Lord's declaration to the Sad-
ducees : " Now that the dead are raised, even
Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the
Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God
of the dead, but of the living : for to Him all
are living." Here is a direct statement to
the effect that those whom men call dead are
really alive. In God's sight, if not in man's,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living at the
time when the Lord was in the world ; and they
are living still. Moses and Elias also were seen
by the three disciples on the Mount of Transfig
uration. David said of his little son that died,
" I shall go to him, but he shall not return to
me." In the Prophet Hosea we read : " After
two days will He revive us ; in the third day He
will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight."
The Lord himself also rose on the third day
and appeared to his disciples. They could not
have seen Him with their natural eyes, for He
stood in the midst of them when the doors were
shut. He was visible only to the spiritual sight.
He had previously said, " In my Father's house
are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 107
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, ye may be also." He had said, fur
thermore, to Peter, " Whither I go thou canst
not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me aft
erwards." Again, " Because I live, ye shall live
also." " Whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die." There is nothing equivocal in
these sayings. They all point in one direction.
They all go to show that there is an eternal life
beyond the present life, and that death is but
the passage from the one to the other.
It is also a noticeable fact that angels and
spirits have appeared in human form, when they
have been seen by men. Manoah's wife beheld
" the angel of the Lord." Afterwards, in telling
her husband of the circumstance, she said : " A
man of God came unto me." Again : " The
angel of God came unto the woman as she sat in
the field; but Manoah, her husband, was not
with her. And the woman made haste, and ran,
and shewed her husband, and said unto him. Be
hold, the man hath appeared unto me that came
unto me the other day." Nor is this the only
passage in which angels are spoken of as men.
Those who came to Lot, as he sat in the gate of
Sodom, are called by both names. So, too, in
Luke's Gospel, it is said that the women who
sought the Lord's sepulchre on the morning of
his resurrection saw "two ?7iew in shining gar-

108 SIXTH LECTURE.
ments ; " but in John, the expression is, " two
angels in white." Thus not only were the an
gels in human form, but they were clothed. Not
only did they look like men, but spoke words
which men could understand. Still further, we
may read in the Apocalypse of an angel of such
majestic presence that John was impelled to fall
down and worship him. But the angel said :
" See thou do it not ; for I am thy fellow-serv
ant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of
them which keep the sayings of this book ; wor
ship God." Which of his fellow-servants, or
which of his brother prophets, this angel was, we
cannot tell. It is enough that by these words he
places himself on the level of humanity.
These considerations lead to the belief that
heaven and hell are from the human race. There
is no ground for supposing that angels are a su
perior race of beings, or that devils are fallen
angels ; but they all belong to the one great fam
ily of man. The ancient word for "angel" lit
erally means " messenger," and it is often so
translated in the Scriptures. John the Baptist,
for instance, was the messenger or angel sent be
fore the Lord, to prepare the way before Him.
All who are the bearers of divine messages or
influences to men, — who, in a spirit of love and
self-forgetfulness, minister to the needs of oth
ers, — are, in the widest sense, the Lord's angels.
Chief among them, as we should expect, are those

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 109
whose earthly life is finished, and whose outward
visible home is heaven. They are not a distinct
class, except so far as all good men are a distinct
class, by virtue of being always ready and eager
to do the will of their Lord. Nor are there any
evil spirits or devils which were not born of the
race of man. The words "Devil" and "Satan,"
meaning, respectively, by their derivation, " ac
cuser " and " adversary," signify no particular
being, but the aggregate power of evil and fal
sity as embodied in hell. Men who have sepa
rated themselves from the Lord by disobeying
his commandments cannot find a home in his
heaven of angels. They make for themselves
another and altogether different abode ; and the
influence which goes forth from them is diabol
ical and infernal. There is no other source of op
position to our Heavenly Father but that which
they create. When it is said that the Lord,
while in the world, was tempted of the devil, the
meaning is that all the concentrated evil of hell
put forth its utmost efforts against Him. Evil,
whether in the abstract or the concrete, is the
one great " adversary " of man. Evil is his sole
" accuser " before God and his brethren. Men,
so far as they embody evil loves or false princi
ples, may be correctly termed devils or satans.
Hence the Lord, addressing his disciples, says,
" Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you
is a devil ? " Again, speaking on a certain oc-

110 SIXTH LECTURE.
casion to Peter, he exclaimed, "Get thee behind
me, Satan : thou art an offence unto me : for
thou savorest not the things that be of God, but
those that be of men."
Leaving, however, this branch of our subject,
let us pass to some other points which it naturally
suggests. If heaven and hell are from the human
race, and if those who go into the spiritual world
are substantially the same beings that they were
on earth, it follows that the happiness or misery,
the harmony or discord, of their life must depend
on essentially the same conditions as before. In
other words, what gives them pleasure here will
give them pleasure hereafter ; what causes pain
or suffering here will cause pain or suffering
hereafter. And there, as here, the rule will hold,
that happiness is determined by the inward state,
rather than by outward circumstances. Truly
does Milton saj'', —
" The mind is its own place, and, in itself,
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Nothing, as we know, is more common than
for those who possess every external blessing to
be mentally restless and wretched; while, on
the other hand, many a peasant is happier than
many a king. To be placed in Paradise itself
would be no passport to eternal bliss, unless the
mind and heart are at peace. So vs^e may feel
sure that, in order to come into the exterior life
of heaven with any capacity for enjoying it, we

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. Ill
must first come into the interior state of heaven ;
or, rather, that state must, somehow or other, be
produced within us. This is what the Lord
teaches, when He says : " Behold, the kingdom
of God is within you." In a word, heaven and
hell are, in their essential nature, states of mind.
Nor is it difficult to see what kind of states they
are. The Bible shows that love to the Lord and
love to the neighbor are the two great principles
on which hang all the law and the prophets.
Such being the case, they must be the cardinal
laws of life for angels as well as men. The or
der and happiness of heaven must depend on the
observance of them. No one can be a true citi
zen of the heavenly kingdom who does not love
the Lord above all and his neighbor as himself.
A man's love is his life. His ruling love deter
mines the quality of his life. That which he
chiefly loves is the central object of all his efforts,
and the source of his greatest pleasure. Accord
ingly those who are governed by the two loves
which have been referred to must find in the
exercise of them their highest enjoyment.
But what does this imply ? Love for others
is not a mere sentiment, an ecstatic feeling of
good will, which is content to remain shut up in
the breast without going any farther. But like
the divine love itself, of which it is the finite im
age, it can be satisfied only with doing good and
imparting happiness. We are therefore brought

112 SIXTH LECTURE.
to the conclusion that the life of heaven is a state
of active usefulness. In the many mansions, —
that is, the numberless societies or communities
of which our Father's house consists, — every
loving heart and hand is busy with joyous work.
This is the final fruitage of human life and
growth. There is no happiness in this world or
the next, to be compared with that of making
others happy.
The uses or employments of the angels must
be as numerous as their opportunities for doing
good. Not only in their societies, where they
are brought into constant and intimate relations
with each other, but outside of them, in countless
ways, they find occasion to exercise their love.
Allusion has been made to their guardianship of
men on earth. So universal and assiduous is it,
that no change can take place in the state of
those with whom they are connected, without
their feeling it ; insomuch that it is written :
" There is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner that repenteth." One of
their ministries is to attend those who are leav"-
ing, or about to leave, the natural world, from
whom they seek to drive away all feeling of dan
ger and fear, surrounding them with the peace
ful atmosphere of their own presence. Another
ministry is to take care of the infants and little
children who are daily passing by hundreds into
the spiritual world, and of whom the Lord has

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 113
said : " Suffer the little children to come unto
me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the king
dom of God." In accordance with this saying,
they are taken up into heaven, where angel-moth
ers must nurse and tend them, and angel-teach
ers instruct and guide them in the way of eternal
life. In truth, there are no limits to the service
which angels may perform for their brethren
who stand in need of it.
But those who yield to their evil inclination,
and confirm themselves in selfish and worldly
loves, will take no pleasure in these pure delights.
Heaven will be no heaven to them ; for they are
inwardly at variance with it. What they de
sire is an eternity of self-gratification, not of
neighborly love ; unlimited power over others,
not the means of doing them service. And so
they turn away from heaven, in search of some
thing more in agreement with their own life ;
and the home which they make for themselves
is hell. It is not a place of punishment, into
which they are forced by the arbitrary will and
power of God ; but they go to it of their own ac
cord, as the abode which suits and pleases them
best. They are not punished nor tormented, ex
cept so far as is necessary for the maintenance
of external order, and for each other's protection.
Hell-fire is no outwardly consuming flame, but
the inward burning passion of self-love, which
will not allow itself to be quenched. Thus every
8

114 SIXTH LECTURE.
man judges himself. He who loves goodness,
loves heaven ; and he who loves evil, loves hell.
Goodness is its own reward. Evil is its own pun
ishment. There is no other condemnation than
that which is mentioned in the gospel : " This
is the condemnation, 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."

SEVENTH LECTURE.
DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND JUDGMENT.
From the general doctrine of the spiritual
world, as explained in the last lecture, follow
many definite conclusions, which it may be use
ful and interesting to consider somewhat in
detail. By way of considering them, let us at
tempt the task of watching, with the mind's eye,
the departing spirit of a human being, from the
moment of death until he reaches his final abode
in heaven or hell.
Death, we must remember, affects only the
natural body. It does not in any respect change
the essential man himself. Sometimes the body
is prostrated by sudden disease or accident. But
more commonly its forces are gradually spent.
The man lies on the bed of sickness ; day by
day he grows weaker and weaker, till at last his
physical life ebbs away from him. While this
experience continues, there is often much bodily
suffering. One thing, however, which is most
pleasant to contemplate, has been frequently no
ticed by physicians and others who are familiar
with the scenes of death ; and that is, that when
the brain is clear and active, and physical pain

116 SEVENTH lecture:
is not too intense, a calm and peaceful happiness
finally settles down upon the soul, all doubt and
fear respecting the coming change are taken
away, and the man feels that it is good for him
to die. Instances are not rare in which the spir
itual sight is actually opened, and the departing
spirit has momentary glimpses of coming real
ities. AH of us can doubtless bear witness to
the placid expression, amounting sometimes even
to a smile, which often illumines the lifeless coun
tenance after the last struggle is over, as if in
visible hands had smoothed away the furrows of
care, and blotted out the remembrance of suf
fering. If we believe that the spiritual world is ever
near, that its inhabitants are in constant attend
ance upon us, and that death is but the awaken
ing of a human being to the consciousness of his
spiritual surroundings, then we can hardly help
believing that the angels of heaven have their
part to perform in the process of transition.
They themselves have been, as we have seen,
men and women living upon the earth. Some
of them in their celestial mansions have been as
sociated, as unseen guardians and helpers, with
their brethren whose fleshly garments are not
yet cast off. The ruling principle of their life
is love to God and man. Their chief happiness
consists in making others happy. And shall
they.be indifferent to the resurrection into spir-

DEATH. 117
itual life of even the least among the children
of men ? Shall they offer no welcome to the
new-comer ? Shall they extend to him no help
ing hand ? Such suppositions are incredible.
The angels are the loving and gentle messengers
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has all
power in heaven and on earth. He is the res
urrection and the life. He has shown to all who
believe in Him that there is no death. He has
said to every one of his true disciples, " I go to
prepare a place for you  Because I live,
ye shall live also." The Lord is the only source
of strength and comfort at the time of death, as
at all other times. From Him proceeds the deep
sense of peace which sustains man's soul. And
the angels are forever working with Him, the
willing mediums of his holy influence. We can
not surely doubt their blessed ministry at the ,
critical period when the spirit is withdrawn from
its earthly tabernacle. Their mission is to bring
quiet and assurance, not only to him who is re
moved, but to all who are in such interior sym
pathy with him that they can enter into his joy
and open their hearts to the heavenly benedic
tion. The angels who sat, " the one at the head
and the other at the feet, where the body of
Jesus had lain," and who consoled the sorrowing
women at the sepulchre with the message, " He
is not here ; He is risen," are not the only ones
who have tried to comfort saddened hearts, al-

118 SEVENTH LECTURE.
though no visible form has appeared, and no
audible word has been spoken.
The dying person, then, comes first into a state
of the most perfect tranquillity. He seems to
fall asleep. There is no doubt that he is for a
while unconscious of all that goes on around him,
while the process of severing the ties between
his spirit and his body advances to its comple
tion. The heart no longer beats ; the blood no
longer flows ; all motion ceases. But the resur
rection from the dead is not usually effected un
til the third day. " After two days will He re
vive us ; in the third day He will raise us up, and
we shall live in his sight." Here we have a clear
declaration of our universal human experience,
made even more clear and emphatic by the ris
ing of the Lord himself on the third day, and
his being seen by his disciples with their spirit
ual eyes. As the going to sleep was gradual, so
the waking up must be. Little by little a state
of full consciousness returns, and the man per
ceives that he is not dead, but living. Persons
and objects reveal themselves to his open sight,
not unlike those which he has been accustomed
to see in the natural world. For the doctrine of
the relationship and interdependence of the two
worlds — of nature and of spirit — carries with
it the idea of their essential similitude as regards
all visible things. Both of them are made to be
the abode of man, and are in perfect conformity

RESURRECTION. 119
with his condition and needs. As the natural
body is vivified by the spiritual body, so the nat
ural world draws its life from the spiritual world,
and must bear an unmistakable likeness to it.
But to proceed with our account of man's res
urrection. We must remember that he who rises
is precisely the same as he who dies. He has
left behind him no part of himself but his ma
terial body. All his mental faculties — his affec
tions, desires, hopes, and aspirations — remain un
changed. More than this, the particular state
of thought and feeling in which he was when
death came upon him is continued into the other
life. His natural memory is quick and active.
The recollection of his earthly existence, with
all that pertains to it, is vividly present with
him. As soon as he is made aware that he has
come into the other world, his thoughts turn to
those who have come before him. He proves
the truth of what David said respecting his little
son, " I shall go to him, but he shall not return
to me." Parents and children, husbands and
wives, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaint
ances, who have, for a time, been separated from
each other, are all brought together again, and
remain together as long as they desire. Nor can
they fail to recognize one another. Though the
natural face and form are wanting, the personal
characteristics will shine out through the linea
ments of the spiritual body with transparent

120 SEVENTH LECTURE.
clearness. As surely as the spirit of Samuel was
recognized by Saul, when brought to view by the
woman of Endor, so surely shall we be able to
know our friends who have gone in advance of
us, when we too come into that land whence no
traveller returns.
The fact that every man after death continues
to be himself leads to certain other inferences.
One is, that comparatively few are ready to go at
once to their final place in heaven or hell. Lit
tle children, concerning whom we read that " of
such is the kingdom of God," are taken up im
mediately into the Heavenly Father's house,
where they abide forever. We can conceive also
that there are some adult persons, even in this
degenerate age of the world, who are so far
purged of all earthly dross that, as soon as they
die, they are in every sense already angels. On
the other hand, it seems but too apparent that
there are human beings so completely given over
to their sinful lusts and passions that they must
pass into the spiritual world possessing the mani
fest nature of devils. But the great majority of
those who are removed by death in mature age
present, at least to the outward appearance, a
mixture of good and evil, truth and error. Not
that the character is unformed. But it abounds
in inconsistencies, which must be removed before
the man can show himself to be what he really
is. In other words, there are clinging to almost

RESURRECTION. 121
every human life certain worldly accretions, which
veil or obscure its essential nature. The exter
nal manifestation is not a true index of the in
ternal quality. One who is interiorly good may,
for instance, have formed such false ideas con
cerning God that he is by no means prepared to
go and live among the angels, all of whom love
the Lord with the whole heart and soul. In this
category are to be included the thousands who
are dying yearly from heathen lands. It is im
possible to believe that an infinitely loving Father
has called them into being only that they may per
ish eternally, because, through no fault of their
own, they are without the direct knowledge of
Him and his precepts. But the truth is, that none
of them are left in total darkness, and that those
who walk according to the little light they have
— which involves at least some slight conception
of a distinction between right and wrong, and
some sense of accountability to a higher power
— illustrate the principle contained in the Lord's
declaration, " Behold, the kingdom of God is
within you." The essence of heaven is in their
hearts ; and when they come into the other life
they are ready to receive the truth of heaven also.
But they cannot do this in a moment. The ac
cumulated effects of their untoward circumstances
cannot be instantaneously swept away. So they
must wait awhile on the threshold of the spirit
ual world, until they are suitably instructed and

122 SEVENTH LECTURE.
prepared for their eternal homes. Others again,
who at heart are evil, loving themselves su
premely, and having no genuine regard for the
divine commandments, may have the outward as
pect of children of light. They, too, must wait
in the ante-chamber till their internal and exter
nal life come into agreement with each other.
Evidently there cannot be many of the human
family, constituted as it is at this day, who have
no disguises to cast off before they can be seen
altogether in their true colors.
This reception-room, or entrance-hall, of the
spiritual world, if we may so designate it, is
called by Swedenborg the world of spirits. It is
neither heaven nor hell, but is intermediate be-
I .....
tween them. Its necessity is implied in all that
we know of human nature. Its existence may
be inferred from many things which the Script
ures teach. Take, for example, the subject of
judgment. Unless we believe in the resurrection
of the material body and in a final judgment of
all men in the natural world, we are forced to
the conclusion that there must be in the spiritual
world some particular place where judgment is
effected. That place cannot be heaven or hell,
for man does not go to heaven or hell till after
he is judged. Without reference to the manner
in which the judgment is accomplished, it is
enough to say that to every one coming into the
spiritual world must be given full opportunity

RESURRECTION. 123
for the determination and manifestation of his
character, while at the same time there is pro
vided for him a definite place of departure to his
heavenly or infernal abode.
He whom we suppose to have died, finds him
self, therefore, with returning consciousness, in
the world of spirits. He enters into active asso
ciation with those who are there, and remains a
longer or shorter period, according to the nature
and extent of the work which needs to be done
in him. His first state is, as we have seen, a
continuation of his state in this world. He is,
interiorly and exteriorly, exactly the same that
he was here, except that he has relinquished his
natural body. If he is in internal and real accord
with the angels, there are yet things outwardly
adhering to him, which are not angelic. Per
nicious habits, ignorantly and thus innocently
formed, wrong conceptions of God and religion,
false ideas of fife and duty, — these or other exter
nal defects unfit him to go immediately to heaven.
After a while they become apparent to him, and
he wishes to be freed from them. The compar
atively external state in which he was at first,
passes away, and is succeeded by a more internal
state, in which he beholds himself truly as he is,
and seeks wise guidance and instruction. Every
false and evil influence which has hitherto had
a superficial hold upon him loses all its power.
This second state is one of perfect transparency.

124 SEVENTH LECTURE.
and is described by the Lord's words, " Beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be
revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known."
All concealment becomes impossible. Man's in
most thoughts and feelings shine forth as in clear
day. The light of heaven, which is divine truth,
searches him through and through, and he has
no alternative but to bring his external actions
into accordance with what that light discloses.
He whose ruling love is evil, being no longer
able to hide it, joins himself to his like, and acts
out his nature without restraint. He whose rul
ing love is good, being freed from all external
incumbrances, is like one set at liberty. He
rejoices in the truth and in all that it reveals,
gladly opens his heart to its influence, and as
sociates himself with those who are in deepest
sympathy with him.
This is the judgment. No arbitrary decree
goes forth from the Almighty, calling some to
everlasting happiness and consigning others to
eternal misery. Such is not the divine method
of dealing with men, either here or hereafter.
But together with the natural body the curtain
¦which hides the internal character of every man
is swept away, and he stands forth in the clearer
light of the spiritual world self -judged. There
will be strange disclosures in the world of spirits
when the veil is thus withdrawn, and each one

JUDGMENT. 125
is revealed to himself and to others exactly as
he is. Truly does the Lord say respecting that
time, " Many that are first shall.be last, and the
last first."
When, therefore, he who has departed from his
natural body and passed through the preliminary
period of existence in the world of spirits comes
at length into that state in which his interior
nature is clearly laid open, he is judged by pass
ing judgment on himself. If heaven is within
him he goes and makes his home in heaven. And
he goes to his own particular place there. In all
the infinite creation of God no two persons or
things are exactly alike. Every man differs in
some respects from every other man. Each one
is made with capacity to fill a certain place
throughout eternity, which can be filled by no
one else. Accordingly, heaven consists of in
numerable societies or communities of angels, as
the Lord plainly tells us when he says, " In my
Father's house are many mansions." All the
angels in their various societies are animated by
the one unselfish impulse of love to the Lord and
their fellow-men ; and all the societies are held
in definite and orderly relations to each other by
the same universal feeling. Whoever goes to
live among them must likewise find his chief joy
in doing good and adding what little he may to
the sum of human happiness.
But those who scorn these pure delights, —

126 SEVENTH LECTURE.
whose hearts are given over to sinful desires and
passions, — who care not for their neighbor's wel
fare, but only for their own selfish interest and
pleasure, — will turn away from heaven in the
other world even as they turned away from it in
this. It is natural for all men to think that they
wish to go to heaven ; but such is far from being
the case. It is precisely what many of them are
wholly unwilling to do, and cannot by any means
be persuaded to do. All the time that they are
living on the earth they close their hearts to
heaven and its influences. Heaven is goodness,
truth, purity, innocence, love, and usefulness.
Unless this heaven is within us we shall never
see any heaven round about us. Passing into
the other life, we shall have the same aversion to
it which we had here. Its pure atmosphere of
loving kindness will fill us with pain and loath
ing. The only reason why hell exists is because
there are those among the children of men who
are unwilling to accept heaven. They reject the
gracious invitation which is ever extended to
them, and deliberately casting true happiness be
hind them, form communities of their own where
they may with the least possible restriction act
out their evil nature. They are pursued by no
divine thirst for vengeance or demand for retri
bution. He who is " kind to the unthankful and
the evil" cannot permit even them to endure any
needless suffering. He can inflict, or cause to be

JUDGMENT. 127
inflicted, on them no punishment beyond what
is for their good, as serving to withhold them
from acts of malice and violence, and to main
tain external order.
One more topic remains for our brief consider
ation. It is that of the constant connection of
angels and spirits in the other world with men
on earth. The friend who leaves us at death
does not take any long journey. He is not nec
essarily separated from us at all, except as to the
natural appearance. So far as our relation to
wards him is that of true spiritual love and sym
pathy, he con.tinues to be near us ; and we are
helped and strengthened by his presence. In
that inner world of spirit, which holds the whole
great family of man, our souls are joined to his
by ties which cannot be broken. It is true we
do not see him with our eyes. We have no out
ward conscious dealings with him, or with any
other spirits and angels. Their influence de
scends to us as something internal and impersonal,
like that of the Lord himself. Open and direct
intercourse with the inhabitants of the other
world (except in the few instances where it may
come unsought, being permitted for special prov
idential purposes) is abnormal, dangerous, and
unlawful. To seek such intercourse, or to hanker
after it, is entirely contrary to the true order of
our being. Those who accept Swedenborg as a
teacher have little or nothing in common with

128 SEVENTH LECTURE.
the so-called " Spiritualists," although not unfre-
quently confounded with them. But while we
are forbidden to lift the veil which divides the
other world from ours, there is inestimable com
fort in knowing that that world is close at hand,
around and within us, that the loved ones who
have passed from natural sight are not far off,
that death is but a sleep and an awakening, no
more to be feared than any other step in our
progress, and finally, that the Lord God is not an
arbitrary despot, but a kind and loving father,
whose mode of dealing with us is forever the
'same, and whose Providence is as watchful and
tender hereafter as here, following us if we as
cend up into heaven, and not forgetting or for
saking us though we make our bed in hell.

EIGHTH LECTURE.
MARRIAGE.
Ant consideration of the system of religious
truth contained in Swedenborg's writings would
be incomplete if no mention were made of his
teachings concerning marriage, or the laws of
divine Providence in the distinction and rela
tion of the sexes. One entire volume, written
when he was about eighty years old, is devoted
to this subject ; and occasional allusions to it are
found here and there throughout his published
works. I am further impelled to speak on this
point on account of the frequent misrepresenta
tions (often arising, doubtless, from an imperfect
examination and understanding of the facts in
volved, rather than from any deliberate intention
of falsifying them), which have been made and
circulated respecting it.
Let me then say at the outset, that Sweden
borg presents a conception of the relation be
tween man and woman, which is pure and ex
alted beyond that of any other writer, — that he
regards the marriage covenant as something pe
culiarly sacred, never to be lightly entered into,
and never to be dissolved except for reasons

130 EIGHTH LECTURE.
which are morally and legally sufficient, — and
that he invests with new significance the Chris
tian institutions of family and home, while he
reiterates and emphasizes their transcendent im
portance. If he distinguishes among the ways
in which the laws of marriage are violated, rep
resenting some of them as lighter and less fatal
evils than others, he does no more than many
moralists have done and are doing in their at-
telnpts to deal with a vexed problem of social
science. Turning, as ever, to the Holy Scriptures, he
bids us observe that the distinction between the
sexes is fundamental. " From the beginning of
the creation God made them male and female."
That the human race should exist in two great
halves, one of which is man and the other
woman, was a part of the original plan of the
Creator. It enters into the eternal design of
building up a heaven of angels from the human
race. It is an important means of bringing men
into the true image and likeness of God. Ac
cordingly we read in Genesis : " In the day that
God created man, in the likeness of God made
He him ; male and female created He them ; and
blessed them, and called their name Adam (or
man) in the day when they were created." He
called their name man. Not the male alone, or
the female alone, was the full imasce of the di-
vine Father, but both together, from the very
day when they were created.

MARRIAGE. 131
Now what do we mean by an image and like
ness of the Lord ? Something more, surely, than
any mere physical resemblance. The body of a
man is, as we know, the least important part of
him. It is, indeed, scarcely a part of him at all,
but simply the material covering which he wears
during his earthly life. The man himself is a soul
or spirit, whose inner and essential life consists
of affections and thoughts, which need the body
merely as an instrument for giving themselves
outward expression. It is the soul, therefore,
which must be specially designated, when man is
said to be made in the image, after the likeness
of God.
In previous lectures due consideration has been
given to the subject of the divine nature. We
have seen that the Lord God is, in his essence,
love and wisdom. These two constitute, if we
may^ so speak, his mind and life. They are Him
self, — his infinite and perfect personality. They
are imaged, as we have also seen, in the mind,
or spiritual nature, of every human being. As
God is love and wisdom, so man is will and un
derstanding. His will was formed to be the re
ceptacle of divine love or goodness, and his un
derstanding to be the receptacle of divine wisdom
or truth. In proportion as he suffers this inten
tion to be effected in him, he is filled with the
Lord's own life, and moulded more completely in
the Lord's own image.

132 EIGHTH LECTURE.
But the duality which is here indicated does
not exist merely in the individual. It is found
in even a more marked degree in the human
race considered as a whole, and it is also found
throughout the entire domain of nature. The
name we there give it is bisexuality. The male
is one half, and the female is the other half, of
the divine image and likeness. Hence, when we
are told in the Scriptures that " God created man
in his own image, male and female created He
them," the meaning is that man and woman are
to each other relatively as love and wisdom are
in Him from whom their life proceeds. Not that
either of them is exclusively a form of wisdom
or a form of love, or consists of will alone, or of
intellect alone, or is wholly destitute of mental
qualities which the other may possess in greater
measure. But there is a difference in the ways
in which they receive the Lord's life and in the
proportions which its two essential elements bear
in their respective natures. In man's nature,
wisdom, truth, and intellect take the lead. In
woman's nature, love, goodness, and affection take
the lead. No inspired teacher is needed to tell
us that the prominent masculine characteristics
are those which centre in reason and judgment,
and that the distinctive traits of the feminine
character have their basis in feeling and emotion.
Man is therefore, by comparison, hard, dogmatic,
unyielding, aggressive. Woman is gentle and

MARRIAGE. 133
sympathetic. He reaches his conclusions by slow
and labored processes of thought ; she, by quick
perception and intuition. His nature is relatively
large, strong, and coarse ; hers is delicate, subtle,
refined. Bravery in him is fortitude in her. His
greater strength is offset by her greater endur
ance. Their physical differences are but the
types of mental and spiritual ones. In creating
a man, the Lord does not fashion a body, and
then summon a soul to come and dwell in it.
But the flow of life and the direction of all crea
tive effort are from within outwards, — from the
internal to the external, — from the spiritual
to the natural. The body lives from the soul,
not the soul from the body. The two come into
existence together ; and out of the very depths
of the soul — from the inmost recesses of its be
ing — proceeds that influence which determines
whether the bodily form shall be moulded after
the pattern of a man, or receive the softer out
lines of woman's grace and beauty.
Here, then, we have our starting-point in the
consideration of this great subject. The distinc
tion between the sexes is a radical one, — a dis
tinction of minds and souls. There is nothing in
man which is not masculine, nothing in woman
which is not feminine. But though they are
thus unlike, they are not unequal. They are the
two halves of a great whole, one of which was
designed to complete and supplement the other

134 EIGHTH LECTURE.
It is impossible for them to exchange places.
The man can never be a woman, and the woman
can never be a man. They are not fitted to fill
the same positions in life, or to discharge the
same duties. In their education and training
the primary question to be considered is not one
of natural rights and privileges to which either
of them is supposed to be entitled ; but rather,
how can the distinctive qualities of each be
brought to the highest perfection ? The object
should be to make the boy most thoroughly
manly and efficient in the work which belongs
to a man ; and to make the girl most thoroughly
womanly, and capable of performing those duties
which, from the very necessities of her nature,
commonly fall to a woman's lot.
These considerations bring us to our second
main proposition, which is, that man and woman,
regarded as spiritual beings, were divinely in
tended for each other. When the Lord Jesus
Christ was living visibly upon the earth. He gave
definite instruction on this point. He said :
" Have ye not read that He who made them at
the beginning made them male and female, and
said, for this cause shall a man leave father and
mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they
twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore they are
no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore
God hath joined together let not man put asun
der." For this cause, — that is, for the reason

MARRIAGE. 135
that mankind were created male and female —
they are to live two by two, man and wife, joined
in the holy bonds of marriage. This is the true
order of their being, the divine law of their mut
ual relationship. If we ask why it is so, the
answer should not be difficult to find. In the
first place, the institution of marriage lies at the
foundation of social order and happiness. With
it are indissolubly associated the ideas of family
and home. By means of it human beings are
brought into the world under the conditions most
favorable to their development and progress.
The marriage of one man with one woman con
duces to these good results ; but it was also de
signed to accomplish very much more. It was
intended to be a spiritual as well as a natural
covenant, — a constant source of the deepest and
purest joys of mind and heart.
That men and women are capable of entering
into a relationship of this kind, follows from the
fact that they are endowed with such essentially
different natures. The union of husband and
wife should be a union of souls. The one pos
sesses mental and spiritual qualities which the
other lacks, or does not possess in the same man
ner or degree. For which reason they can be
of the greatest possible service to each other.
When they are truly united, their two minds are,
as it were, but one mind. They understand each
other's thoughts, and are responsive to each

136 EIGHTH LECTURE.
other's feelings ; and what the one loves best the
other also loves best. No man can fail to see
that such a relationship as this must be one of
the most powerful of all agencies in promoting
the spiritual and eternal welfare of those who en
joy its advantages and its delights. It is one of
the Lord's chosen means of carrying out his cher
ished purpose of establishing a heaven of angels
from among men. Toward it unmarried persons
should look as a precious object of desire. That
is to say, it should be the effort and prayer of all
those who have not yet entered into the marriage
relation, to set before them this highest ideal,
and to seek no other union than that which rests
on the basis of spiritual nearness and sympathy.
A firm belief in the divine providence of the
Lord, as extended over the least particulars of the
life of every human being, must carry with it the
conviction that marriage was riot designed to be
a hap-hazard arrangement, wholly dependent on
the doubtful issue of fortuitous circumstances,
but that "individual men and women are created
and born with a special fitness for each other.
Every young man may rightly feel that there is
in the opposite sex some one person above all
others, the stream of whose life may be mingled
with his own to their greatest mutual benefit and
satisfaction. This is, indeed, the simple unper
verted instinct of all pure-minded youth. When
it appears that the beloved one is found, there

MARRIAGE. 137
comes a feeling of assurance that her place could
be filled by no one else in the wide world. Sub
sequent experience may strengthen this convic
tion or prove it baseless. The selfish desires of
unregenerate hearts brought into close contact,
the indulgence of sinful passions or the predomi
nating influence of worldliness may weaken or
destroy it. But the love of one, and one alone,
is nevertheless a heaven-born feeling, implanted
in all human souls by the very law of their crea
tion. Be it remembered, moreover, that whether
a marriage results happily or otherwise to the
parties concerned in it, it is a compact which has
been made for better or for worse, as long as this
natural life shall last, and is never to be broken
on any other ground than that which is implied
in this precept of our Lord : " Whosoever shall
put away his wife, except it be for fornication,
and shall marry another, committeth adultery."
One more inference is to be drawn from the
doctrine that the distinction of sex is fundament
al, and pervades the entire nature of a human
being and that is, that it will continue forever.
In the future life man will not cease to be man,
and woman will not cease to be woman. The
masculine mind will still be masculine, and the
feminine mind will still be feminine. There will
also be the same adaptability of the one to the
other. Nor can we doubt that the saying will
be fully verified, "What God hath joined to-

ibS EIGHTH LECTURE.
gether let not man put asunder." But do not
the Scriptures teach the opposite of this ? If
not, how are we to understand the Lord's decla
ration that " in the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage ? " My answer
is, that the saying means exactly what those
who heard the Lord speak, and to whom He was
replying, would naturally suppose it to mean.
They were the Sadducees, the most worldly-
minded of the Jews, the sceptics and materialists
of their' time, whose habit of thought is suffi
ciently attested by the question they had just
asked respecting the seven brethren who succes
sively took the same woman to wife. It is liter
ally and exactly true that in the other life there
can be no marrying or giving in marriage, in anj'
sense in which it would be possible for the Sad
ducees to understand it. It is equally true that
in heaven there can be no such thing as marriage
in the common acceptation of the term at this
day. Human destiny cannot there be decided by
a custom which on earth allows a father to bestow
his child on whomsoever he will, regardless of
her wishes (this is meant by giving in marriage),
or permits two persons, by virtue of a certain
ceremony, to live together in the most intimate
of all relations, on the basis of mere worldly com
fort and expediency (which, generally, is meant
by marrying). But to say, on the authority of
the passage referred to, that hereafter all sexual

MARRIAGE. ' 139
distinction will be blotted out, that every sweet
and tender relation which springs from it will
come to an end, and that there will be no pure
love between man and woman, whereby two souls
and two lives are blended in one, no realization
of that divine law by which man is made a more
perfect image and likeness of his Maker, — is to
draw from it altogether too sweeping deductions.
The New Church doctrine on this subject is in
full accord with the intuitive feelings and per
ceptions of men. All true affection has in itself
the distinct assurance of its immortality. No
husband and wife who are held together by the
bond of deep interior sympathy can ever be made
to feel that in the life to come they are to be to
each other nothing but acquaintances. Listen to
the testimony of Charles Kingsley. Speaking of
the verse which we have been considering, in re
lation to marrying and giving in marriage, he
says: " Matthew xxii. 30, has been to me always
a comfort. I am so well and really married on
earth, that I should be exceedingly sorry to be
married again in heaven, and it would be very
needless. All I can say is, if I do not love my
wife, body and soul, as well there as I do here,
then there is neither resurrection of my body nor
of my soul, but of some other, and I shall not be
I." Again, in a letter to his wife, his language
is ; " In heaven they neither marry nor are given
in marriage, but are as the angels of God. And

140 EIGHTH LECTURE.
how are the angels of God in heaven ?• Is there
no love among them ? If the law which makes
two beings unite themselves, and crave to unite
themselves, in body, soul, and spirit, be the law
of earth — of pure humanity — if, so far from
being established by the fall, this law has been
the one from which the fall has made mankind
deflect most in every possible way; if the resto
ration of purity and the restoration of this law
are synonymous ; if love be of the spirit, — the
vastest and simplest exercise of will of which we
can conceive, — then why should not this law
hold in the spiritual world as well as in the
natural? In heaven they neither marry nor are
given in marriage; but is not marriage the mere
approximation to a unity which shall be perfect
in heaven ? Read what Milton says of angels'
love in books vi. and vii., and take comfort.
What if many have been alone on earth ? May
they not find their kindred spirit in heaven, and
be united to it by a tie still deeper than mar
riage ? And shall we not be reunited in heaven
by that still deeper tie ? "
This is in exact agreement with the doctrine
presented in Swedenborg's writings. In every
unperverted nature is implanted a desire for con
junction with one of the other sex, who shall be,
as it were, a second self, that may be loved un
selfishly. What may be called the conjugial
principle (the word " conjugial " being always

MARRIAGE. 141
used by Swedenborg in preference to the more
common term " conjugal ") is the inheritance of
us all. A most important work for each one is
to preserve it in himself pure and undefiled. It
points ever to a spiritual union with one hus
band or one wife in the other world, if not in
this, and points away from all lower and grosser
ideas of the sexual relation. It looks through
time to eternity. As one of the Lord's best gifts
to men, it is in its essence wholly pure and chaste.
But how terribly it may be perverted, all history
and experience but too plainly show. No one
needs to be told what a large share of human
misery comes from the degradation and abuse of
that conjugial principle which was designed to
be the source of man's highest happiness. In
thought and feeling, no less than in deed and
word, we must strive to shun all impurity as sin
against God. " Who is the happy husband ? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'T was faithful to his future wife."
It rests with every adult person, whether man
or woman, young or old, married or single, to
choose his position with respect to this matter,
by deciding whether he will cherish in his heart
this noblest principle of his nature, or, by sink
ing down into the slough of naturalism and
worldliness, suffer the precious jewel to be lost.

142 EIGHTH LECTURE.
No small incentive toward spiritual progress is
afforded by the knowledge that just in propor
tion as any one sets before him his loftiest ideal
of holy marriage, and is true to it in his life, it
will become to him in heaven a living reality and
a joy forever.
The book in which Swedenborg treats of the
subject under consideration is divided into two
parts. The first and principal part is entitled
" The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conju
gial Love," and sets forth the doctrine which I
have endeavored briefly to expound. The sec
ond part deals with the perversions and abuses of
conjugial love, which are coupled in the title with
" pleasures of insanity." They are spoken of as
altogether evil ; but because a distinction is made
among them, and some of them are presented as
less grievous than others, and as the means of
keeping sensual men from falling into still lower
deeps, and thus as being in a certain sense per
missible, it has been hastily inferred that Swe- ¦
denborg opens the door to license. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. In what he
says on the dark side of the question there is
doubtless much true philosophy and practical
wisdom ; of which, it must be confessed, the
world stands greatly in need. But the only
teaching which he holds out for the direct per
sonal guidance of Christian men and women

MARRIAGE. 143
walking in the way to heaven, is that of the ex
alted nature and inviolable sanctity of marriage
as one of the principal agencies ordained by the
Creator for promoting human happiness here
and hereafter.

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