THE DAWN OF A NEW DISPENSATION.
We behold the dawn of a new day before we see the sun, from whence the
light proceeds.
The young in the Baptist Church, not having been baptized in infancy, are
brought up to feel that they are out of the Church, and that they have to
be converted, or "to get religion," before they join the Church, instead of
being brought up to feel that, having been baptized, they belong to the
Church and must believe its doctrines, and live the life which they teach.
Thus I remained out of the Church until I was over thirty years of age.
After I was twenty-three years old I attended different churches, as was
most convenient. For a time I attended the Episcopal Church, while studying
medicine; and after I graduated I attended the Congregational Church for
several years more frequently than any other; but I had no thought of
joining that Church, for during those days I always thought that immersion
was the only true mode of baptism.
While practicing medicine in Detroit, a gentleman whose family I was
attending asked me if I would not like to read a work on "Heaven and Hell,"
written by Emanuel Swedenborg, who claimed, he said, to have had open
intercourse with the spiritual world, and to have written of what he had
seen and heard in that world. He said that he had read it, and believed
that the views therein contained were rational and true. If I had ever
heard of them at all, at that time, I had never heard the writings of
Swendenborg spoken of favorably before. Out of respect to the gentleman, I
took the book home with me, but did not feel sufficient interest in it to
attempt to read it through in course, but read here and there a few pages;
and, after keeping it a few weeks, I returned it to the owner, feeling from
what I had read no interest in its contents. Not long after this a lady
whom I was attending asked me if I would not like to read Professor George
Bush's reasons for accepting as true the revelations contained in the
writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Well, I thought to myself, if the gentleman
who lent me "Heaven and Hell," if my patient here, who is a very
intelligent woman, and Professor Bush, whom I had understood was a very
learned man, believe that Swedenborg's writings contain truths good and
useful, it may be well for me to read the pamphlet then before me. So I
took the book home with me and commenced reading it. About that time Rev.
George Field commenced the delivery of a course of lectures on Creation and
the first chapters of Genesis, treating the subject from the standpoint of
Swedenborg's writings. I attended his lectures, which added very much to my
interest, and I read Bush's reasons with care. Then I obtained "Heaven and
Hell," and read it carefully through with the greatest interest. When a
small boy I remember very well listening with fear and trembling to a
discourse delivered by a clergyman, on "God is angry with the wicked every
day," in which the speaker dwelt upon the fearful sufferings which the Lord
had in reserve for the wicked in a hell of fire and brimstone, where they
were to be tortured forever and ever.
When I came to read Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell," I found a very
different and more rational doctrine taught--that heaven consists in loving
the Lord and the neighbor, or in religious obedience to the divine
commandments; and that hell consists in loving one's self and the world
supremely, or sensual and selfish gratification, without regard to use;
that either heaven or hell is within us, according to the character of our
ruling love; that the Lord casts no one into hell, but does all He can,
without interfering with man's freedom, to prevent men from going to hell;
if they go there, they go of their own free choice, among their like, where
selfishness in some form rules the hearts of the inhabitants; they would
not and could not be happy among those who are ruled by love to the Lord
and the neighbor; or by obedience to the divine commandments. The spiritual
world is a more real world than this; therefore, in that world the motives,
thoughts, and intentions of men cannot be hidden as readily as in this
world; consequently, there is a great gulf between heaven and hell. One is
opposite to the other. When love to the Lord and to the neighbor rules in
the hearts of all the inhabitants, there is no need of penal laws or
punishments, for each one is a law unto himself, and all are striving to do
good to each other and to all; consequently, unity, peace, and harmony
prevail.
How different from this is hell, where selfishness prevails; where the love
of dominion over others, or the love of vain show, the love of acquiring
unfairly that which belongs to others, the love of riches for the sake of
being rich, and of selfish and sensual gratification without regard to use,
rules in the hearts of all the inhabitants. We know that such perverted
passions make a hell hot enough here; and, as death does not change the
character of a man's ruling love, they will make a hell hot enough
hereafter. But the Lord, in His mercy which endureth forever, by His angels
governs the hells as well as the heavens, and does not permit vindictive
punishments. All punishments are for the benefit of evil doers, to restrain
and prevent them from doing evil to others and themselves, and from sinking
to greater depths of wickedness; we may, therefore, safely leave the
inhabitants of that world in His care.
No man or woman can read "Heaven and Hell" attentively, carefully, and
prayerfully without great benefit. It is clearly shown that, to escape
hell, an evil man has but to repent, to look to the Lord and shun evils as
sins against Him, and that the Lord is no respecter of persons, but that He
gives to every man the ability to do this, if he is willing. When we
examine ourselves carefully in the light of the Sacred Scriptures, and
discover an evil, if we shun that evil as a sin against the Lord, He keeps
us in the effort to shun all evils, and enables us more clearly to see
other evils to which we are inclined. Here is an open door for approaching
the Lord, free to all; there is no mystery about it. If an evil man is to
be reformed, he must repent or face about and commence a life of shunning
evils as sins against God; otherwise, there will be no radical change, but
a miserable shuffling from one evil habit to another. Even if a man shuns
one evil habit, like the smoking or chewing of tobacco, because it injures
his health and is likely to destroy his life, and not because it is a sin,
and without the acknowledgment that it is a sin, he is almost sure to seek
as a substitute some form of intoxicating drinks--opium, strong coffee, or
tea. We make a great mistake, as Christians, if we try to substitute
coffee- or tea-houses for saloons; not that the effects of coffee and tea
are as pernicious as intoxicants, but they are unnecessary, and often
diseases and great suffering result from their use. We should strive to
show men and women, in the light of this day, what substances are
unmistakably injurious to health and endanger life, and strive to lead
them, by precept and example, to shun their use as sins against God.
After reading "Heaven and Hell" I read the "True Christian Religion," which
is the last work that Swedenborg published, containing the essential
doctrines of the New Christian Church, or the New Jerusalem now descending
from God out of Heaven, "making all things new." In this work it is clearly
shown that God is one in essence and in person, and that in the Lord Jesus
Christ that one God is manifested to men. God is love. "In the beginning
was the Word and the Word was, with God and the Word was God." Here we have
the Father or Divine Love, the Son or Divine Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit or
Divine Proceeding, flowing from the Father because He is a being of
infinite love, wisdom, and power, through the Son, a trinity in unity. The
Divine Being is no more three persons than a man is three persons, because
he is created in the image of God and has affection or love, an
understanding, or thoughts, words, and acts that flow from his love through
his understanding out toward his fellow men. All the doctrines of the New
Christianity are based upon the Sacred Scriptures and appeal to our highest
reason; and we are to receive them because we see them to be true and in
strict harmony with the Word when the latter is correctly understood.
But I have neither time nor space to discuss these doctrines here. I will
simply say, that when we come to see clearly that there is but one God
whose name is one, who was manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that whoso seeth Him seeth the Father, then a number of false
doctrines which proceed from and cohere with the doctrine of a tri-personal
Deity will disappear like mists before the rising sun; and we shall be
prepared to see and understand the rest of the beautiful and rational
doctrines taught in "The True Christian Religion," and the mystery of
Babylon and all man-made creeds will disappear before this new revelation
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
After reading the "True Christian Religion" I read the work on Divine
Providence, which gives such a clear view of the Lord's providential care
over men that it strengthens and encourages the earnest seeker after truth
wonderfully. It is a book which should be read by every Christian man and
woman.
Next, "The Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and Wisdom" throws a
flood of light on the origin of the material universe and all created
things. In this work we are clearly shown that the Lord is Love itself,
because He is Life itself: and "that angels and men are recipients of
life;" and "that all created things in a certain image represent man," and
"that Love is the life of man."
But Swedenborg's "Apocalypse Revealed" was one of the most satisfactory
works I ever read. It opened up to me a new world of thought, of
expectation, hope and joy. The reading of this work and the first volume of
his "Arcana Celestia" satisfied me that the Sacred Scriptures are divine or
a special revelation from God to man, and differ from all merely human
writings as much as a living man differs from a statue; for they are filled
with a Divine spirit. The Lord says: "My words are spirit and life."
The Sacred Scriptures are written in accordance with the law of
correspondence between spiritual and natural things. The spiritual is the
cause, the natural is the effect; and effects must correspond to their
causes in every particular. The Lord is the sun of the spiritual world and
the creator of all things: consequently our natural sun corresponds to the
spiritual sun, or the Lord. From the Lord, or the spiritual sun, love and
wisdom proceed, and give life to man's spiritual body; from the natural sun
flow natural heat and light which enable the natural body to live; natural
heat and light therefore correspond to spiritual heat and light, or to love
and truth, which are heat and light to the spirit of man. Through the
natural clouds and atmosphere which surround the earth we receive natural
heat and light from the natural sun, as we receive spiritual heat and light
or love and truth from the Lord through the literal sense of the Sacred
Scriptures; Consequently the clouds of heaven in which the Lord was to come
are the literal sense of his holy Word, unfolding its spirit and life and
manifesting the Father clearly to His children. The sun which was to be
darkened was not the natural but the spiritual sun, or the Lord obscured to
man's spiritual perception. When men in their creeds separated the Lord
into three persons, and framed doctrines in accordance therewith, which, in
their estimation, would enable them to reach heaven by believing certain
dogmas, instead of by a life according to the Divine Commandments, then was
the sun indeed darkened in the minds of men. Then a true faith or knowledge
of the Lord was destroyed and the moon became as blood. A true faith
reflects the light or wisdom of the Lord upon man, as the natural moon
reflects the light of the natural sun. Water corresponds to truth upon the
natural plane of the mind, for it cleanses the natural body as truth
cleanses his spirit; it also circulates throughout the natural body,
conveying nourishment to all the structures of the body as truth circulates
through the spiritual body, conveying that which is good and true to
strengthen and develop the spiritual body. It is owing to this
correspondence that water is used in the ordinance of baptism, for it
performs the same office for the natural body that truth does for the
spiritual body; it cleanses and conveys nourishment; and therefore baptism
by water signifies that man is to be regenerated by receiving and living
according to the truth. It is also the Christian sign--a sign that one
baptized is of the Christian Church, or professes the Christian religion.
The "Fruit of the Vine," or pure unfermented or unleavened wine, has been
organized by the Lord in the vegetable kingdom; it therefore not only
contains water, but also organized nourishment for the structures of the
body, which supply in a most remarkable degree the wants of the body, like
a mother's milk to her infant child; it therefore most beautifully
symbolizes blood, and corresponds to spiritual truth, united with good from
the Lord, which nourishes and builds up the spirit of man, when he drinks
or appropriates it, or when he lives as divine truth teaches, shunning
evils as sins against God. It is consequently used appropriately in the
Most Holy Supper.
It has been my aim above to simply give the reader a glimpse of this most
wonderful and beautiful of all sciences, and really the foundation of all
sciences-the science of correspondence between natural and spiritual
things. He who reads carefully and without prejudice the "Apocalypse
Revealed" and the "Arcana Celestia," with a desire to know and live
according to the truth, cannot fail to see that the Sacred Scriptures are
plenarily inspired, and are a special revelation from God to man; and that,
different from all merely human writings, they contain within the letter a
connected spiritual sense. That the science of correspondences was once
understood by the inhabitants of our earth, is to be seen in the relics
which remain in a more or less perverted form in the hieroglyphics of
Egypt, the idolatry among many nations, and sun-worship, where the
spiritual signification has often been lost and men have come to worship
the natural objects instead of the spiritual, which they represent. The
mythological writings of many nations, and even Masonry, contain remains of
this once well known science. The first chapters of Genesis and the entire
Word are written in strict accordance with this science. The first chapters
of Genesis, like the Parables of our Lord, were not intended to be
understood literally; the very names therein show this clearly. A tree of
life, a tree of knowledge of good and evil, a talking serpent, how can any
man for a moment suppose these to be natural trees and a natural snake? Do
serpents ever talk? the garden eastward in Eden, and an Ark which would not
hold the hides and teeth of all the animals on earth--were these to be
understood literally?