Henry james-the-church-of-christ-not-an-ecclesiasticism-london-and-new-york-1861

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST NOT AN

ECCLESIASTICISM.

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST NOT ANECCLESIASTICISM.

A LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE.

SIR,

You and I are equally persuaded, doubtless,that a new church, which according to the tenor ofancient promise, is destined to be the crown andconsummation of all past churches, is now formingin the earth; and if we have equally reflected uponthe characteristic scope and genius of this church,as depicted·in the almost transparent language ofprophecy, we must be equally convinced that it isfull both of sympathy towards every existing formof use or goodness; and of mercy, gentleness, patience, towards every form of ignorance and unconscious error.

For, what is meant by a church, to which thevoice of inspiration does not hesitate to apply themy~tic name of New Jerusalem 1 What is meant

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by a church which may truly be styled the crown

and consummation of all past churches; or whatis the same thing, which shall express God's fullpleasure in humanity 1 Clearly it is not meant tobe a mere rival or competitor to any other church.Clearly it is not meant to be a better church of thesame kind as already exists. Churches of theexisting sort have only dwindled ever since thestately days of Moses and Aaron. Starting fromthat gorgeous prime, they have descended throughthe diminished pomp of the Romish ritual, andthe Anglican attenuation of that, until the acmeof desquamation seems at length attained in thepinched and wintry ceremonial of our own Congregationalism. And even if this sort of churchshould be revived, and redintegrated in its fullMosaic splendor, would it be a work worthy of God1Will the divine name be written as legibly underthese skies on stone and mortar, on 'ephod andbreastplate, as on the fleshly tablets of the busyhuman heart 1 I think not. I think indeed thata church which by dint of holding its breath, orarresting the transit of the divine influx, shouldswell itself to more than Papal or even Mosaicresonance, would only swell itself away from thewhole divine meaning it ever contained For .thetrue meaning of every visible divine institution has

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been, to serve as a witness merely to the invisibleDivine, whom the heaven of heavens canoot contain, much less therefore any house or polity ofman's invention. Consequently any visible church,technically either "old" or "new," which shouldprofess to constitute God's true abode on earth,would only repeat the Jewish mistake, and incurthe like public contempt.

Besides, when we talk of the crown and consummation of a thing, we do not mean any rival orhostile thing on the same plane with itself; wemean some discretely higher thing, say its facultyof use or action. Thus when we talk of the crownand consummation of a plant, we mean its floweror fruit, assuredly not some other and hostile plant.In like manner the crown and consummation ofan animal body is its will or faculty of voluntarymotion, not some new and rival form of animation.And the crown and consummation of the humanorganization is not any new and superior organization which is to supersede the old, but its facultyof virtuous activity, or the fruit of a holy life. Infact, the crown and consummation of any naturalthing, is always the use it effects, is always thesuperb fruit it bears. Thus the crown and conlmmmation of the mineral kingdom is not somenew and precious form of mineral existence, but

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THE CHURCH OF ClIRIST

the vegetable form to whose development all itsuses al'e tributary. And so in like manner thecrown and consummation of the vegetable kingdomis not some rare and splendid form of vegetation.but on the contrary the animal form, to the devf'lopment of which the vegetable kingdom is whollysubservient. And so again the crown and consummation of the animal kingdom is not some newand glorious form of animality, but the humanform, to which all the realm of animal existence is

tributary or subordinate. In all these cases we seeprogressive development to be the intention andmethod of nature. We never see her returningupon herself, or stopping short in her career to

amend the work she has made, and bring out a

second edition of the same performance. We seeher going straight onward from the foundation ofher edifice, through all its successive grades orstories to its roof and skylight, and stopping onl)'when the faultless house stands before you radiantin beauty, and inexpugnable in strength.

Analogically therefore, when we look for a newchurch in the earth which is to be the crown andconsummation of all past churches, we are not wlook for a mere second edition of the existing ecclf'siasticiRm: we are not to look for a new and rivalecclesiastical organization to that of the old church:

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we are not to look for a new and competitive priesthood, nor for a new and competitive baptism, norfor a new and competitive eucharist. This sort ofnewness the church experiences usque ad nauseamevery few yeal'8, upon the occasion of the outbirthof every new sect. No, in looking f9r that newchurch which is to be the crown and consummati~nof all past churches, we are to look for the incorruptible spirit of which these past churches havebeen only the preparatory and perishable letter, forthe ripe and perfect fruit of which they have beenthe temporary and unconscious husks. In shortwe are to look for a spiritual church, which beingidentical with the broadest charity in the life ofman, must alwaYl:! refuse to become identified withparticular persons, particular places, or particularrituals of worship.

Such of necessity is the character of the churchof Ohrist. It is a spiritual economy, and is therefore identical with all that is humble and tenderand easy to be entreated in the soul of man.Heaven is not more distant from earth, than issectarianism, or the desire to separate oneself fromothers, distant from the mind of the true churchman. Instead of saying to Oalvinist or Oatholic,to Methodist or Episcopalian, "Stand aside, wepossess a holier priesthood than you, and put forth

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a more acceptable baptism and eucharist than you,"the true churchman taking counsel of the divinelove in his heart, says, "Draw near, my brother,and let us worship together. There is but onepriesthood known on high, the priesthood of goodness, and one baptism and communion, that which~tes instead of dividing the household of faith.The two outward ordinances which we have receivedfrom the Lord's hand are uniting, not dividingordinances j they are 80 divinely large IlB to accommodate all heavenly truth, and hence to unite intheir equal embrace every true worshipper of God,in every clime, and of every name under heaven.He consequently who claims that they are adaptedto symbolize only the truth he professes, or thatthey lend themselves more willingly to his worshipthan to that of other and less instructed men, virtually claims to possess all truth, and in so doingproves that he is himself an alien from the entirespirit of truth. No, my friend, let us worship together, calling upon one and the same blessed Lorda.nd Redeemer. You possibly do not know manyof the spiritual things contain~d within the ob.scurity of the literal scriptures j but all savingk'lWWledge is amply contained in the letter ofsacred scripture, and is to be drawn exclUBivelyfrMn it,. and you doubtless are IlB sincerely zealous

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of the honor of the letter as I can claim to be.But even if it were otherwise, even if the commondoctrine of the church were not deducible fromthe letter of scripture, but only from its spiritualcontents, I yet know so little of those contentscompared with what is to be known, that the difference between my knowledge and your ignorancein this respect sinks into absolute nought. Andyet on the other hand I know so well the magnanimous and divine spirit of all that truth, thuscontained invisibly to natural sight within theliteral page,-I know so well the boundless loveand charity with which it is all aglow, that I couldnever think of making any amount of superiorinformation I possessed, a ground of glorying overothers, or a warrant for expecting a greater complacency on God's part to my worship than yours.On the contrary, the spirit of all truth is goodness,the substance of all faith is charity, and hence themore I feel the spirit of truth, the less I value allmerely external and intellectual differences amongmen, and the more I value all cordial and vitalagreement.". Now no one can doubt that this is the attitudeof the true churchman. Every one in whom thechurch truly exists is a regenerate man, is a formof charity, and nothing can be more intolerable to

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such a man, than the attempt to separate himfrom others, or give him an ecclesiastical elevationabove others. He cannot be persuaded by anyamount of sophistry, or any force of clerical domination, long to falsify his fundamental instincts inthis particular. He will go on to suffocate andsuffer, until at length he throws off the incumbentmass of ecclesiastical pride and dotage, and emergesfor ever into the lustrous air and warm sunshine ofGod's boundless love. The true Christian allowsothers to separate from him as much as they please,as much as their unfortunate narrowness makes itinevitable to them; but he feels it nece88arJ toseparate himself from no one. His mission is oneof love, and therefore of fusion and unity, insteadof separation or disunity. Hence although heclaims the right to worship on Sundays withwhomsoever he pleases, and to employ for thatpurpose any improved form of worship, he yettakes care to deny all ecclesiastical separation onthat account from those around him, professing hissteadfast allegiance to the same Lord whom theyequally profess to obey. He does not attempt toconstrue his arrangements for an improved socialworship, into a fact of public significance, nor doeshe claim for what is purely conventional and transitory that public importance which is due only to

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what is spiritual and eternal. Hence he remamsin ecclesiastical unity with the people around him,being content to enjoy unimpaired his spiritualfreedom, and the freedom of external worship withwhomsoever and wheresoever he pleases.

The only legitimate newness of the Christianchurch consists in a newness of spirit among itsmembers, not a newness of letter. The letter ofthe church consists unalterably in its two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper. A newliteral church therefore must disown these ordinances, must exhibit new ordinances, instinct withnew meaning. Clearly Swedenborg never contemplated such a church. Never once in the wholecourse of his writings, has he criticized the administration of the Christian ordinances, or declared itdefective, save in respect to the withholding thecup from the laity in the Roman church. Hewaged no war whatever with the church as anecclesiasticism, though I doubt not he had his justProtestant predilections, but only as a corruptspiritual economy. He complained of it only inthat respect wherein the Lord complains of it,namely, as being destitute of the life of charity,and being therefore to all heavenly intents andpurposes dead or inactive. Accordingly you nevPf.find him proposing so cheap and superficial a

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a remedy for so grave a disease, as the creation ofa new ecclesiastical organization. How should anew ecclesiastical hierarchy mend matters 1 Thecomplaint was not against a particular set of persons, as contrasted with another set. The Glomplaintwas not that certain persons called God's churchwere worse men spiritually than certain other perRons; which other persons must therefore be formedinto a new ecclesiastical body, and made to supersede the old one. By no means. The complaintwas that the entire mind of man, as ecclesiasticallyexhibited, was in spiritual ignorance or darkness,and hence the remedy befitting this condition couldnot be a change in the personal administration ofthe church, or a change in the persons composingit, but an entire renewal of its spirit. What thechurch wanted was not a new body, or a new literalconstitution, but exclusively a new spirit, the spiritof unfeigned love.

Hence you never find Swedenborg discussingany questions of ecclesiastical polity, or urging anymeasures of ecclesiastical reform, except that ofthe administration of the eucharist in the Romanchurch. He thought, indeed, that from the circumstance of that church exalting a life of charityin its doctrines more than the reformed churchesdo, it would more easily receive the new truths

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than any other church, provided it would rectifyits administmtion of the eucharist, and dismiss theworship of saints. But all this of course was matterof private opinion. You always find him treating.all questions of ritual or exte~al difference betweenchurches as of no spiritual significance, save ascontributing indeed to the greater unity of thechurch, when charity was its spiritual bond. Heinvariably represents the true Christian, or theman in whom charity dwells, as gratefully andreverently observing the institutions of public worship established in his nation, and on no occasionwhatever does he represent him as finding theseinstitutions inadequate to his need So also whenever he talks of the external of the church, he doesnot represent it as consisting in a Sunday ritual,or a correct liturgical form, but exclusively ingoodness of life. " The church of the Lord," says hein 403 of .A.rcana Explained, "is both internaland external: the internal of the'church consists ofcharity and faith thence derived, but the externalof the church IS THE GOOD OF LIFE, or the WORKS

of charity and faith j" that is, all those thingswhich charity and faith opemte in our social relation!. Consistently with this definition, you findhim throughout his writings making no ecclesiastical complaint of the church, but only a spiritual

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complaint, as to its destitution of charity. Thushe says the existing array of divided churches, asCatholic and Protestant, and the various subdivisions of the~ again, would be perfectly conformableto the divine mind, were they only animated bymutual love or charity. "THE THINGS OF DOCTRINE," he says in his Oelestial .A.rcana, 1790,"DO NOT DISTINGUISH CHURCHES BEFORE THE

LORD,"-that is to say, the Lord knows no difference between a church professing true doctrineand one professing false-" but this distinction iseffected BY A LIFE ACCORDING TO THE THINGS OFDOCTRINE, all of which, if they are true, regardcharity as their fundamental, for what is the endand design of doctrine but to teach how man shouldlive? The several churches in the Christian worldare doctrinally distinguished into Roman Catholics,Lutherans, and Calvinists. This diversity of namearises solely from the things of doctrine, and wouldnever have had place if the members of the churchhad made love to the Lord, and charity towardstheir neighbor, the principal point of faith. Thingsof doctrine would then be only varieties of opinionconcerning the mysteries of faith, which THEY WHOARE TRUE CHRISTIANS would leave to every one tobelieve according to his conscience, whilst it wouldbe the language of their hearts THAT HE IS A TRUE

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CHRISTIAN WHO LIVES AS A CHRISTIAN, that is, asthe Lord teaches. Thus one church would bef01"YMd out of all these diverse ones, and all disagreements arising from mere forms of doctrinewould vanish ; yea, all the animosities of one againstanother would be dissipated, and THE KINGDOM OFTHE LORD WOULD BE ESTABLISHED ON THE EARTH."Think of that, my sectarian friend. These oldChristian sects whom you propose to supersede,Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran, with all theirsubdivisions, were they only enlivened by charityor mutual love, would present no ecclesiastical obstacle to the divine truth, but would really constitute the Lord's kingdom on earth, would constitutethe true and spiritual church which is identicalwith that kingdom. How much wider the sympathies of this great man were, than they arerepresented to have been by those who make useof his name to originate a new ecclesiasticism !

Let us sing a few more brief hymns to the sameblessed tune, from the same general repository. "Allthe members of the primitive Christian church,"he says, A. a. 1834, -<, lived one amongst anotheras brethren, and mutually loved each other. Butin process of time charity diminished, and at lengthvanished away; and as charity vanished, evils succeeded; and with evils falsities also insinuated

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themselves, whence arose schisms and heresies.These would never have existed, if charity hadcontinued to live and rule : JOT in BUch ca8e theywould not have called 8chism by the name of8chism, nOT heresy by the name oj heresy, butthey would have called them doctrines a.greeableto each person's particular opinion, or wa.y of thinking, which they would have left to every one'sconscience, not judging or condemning any fortheir opinions, provided they did not deny fundamental principles, that is, the Lord, eternal life,and the Word, and maintained nothing contraryto divine order, that is, to the commandments ofthe decalogue." "The false principle within thechurch," he says, A. O. 2351, "which favors evilsof life, is that goodneBB or charity doth not constitute a man of the church, but that churchmembership is effected by truth or faith." '''.ABman becomes internal and instructed in internalthings, externals are as nothing to him, for hethen knows what is sacred, namely, charity, andfaith grounded therein." Again he says in A. O.3122, "The regenerate man makes no account ofthe things of faith or truth;" that is, of course,holds them to be wholly subordinate to a life ofcharity. " Faith, in the Word, means nothing butlove and charity: hence doctrines and tenets of

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faith are not faith but only appurtenances of it.

-A. 0.2116." Love to the Lord cannot possibly be separated

frmn love to the neighbor, for the Lord's love istowards the whole human race, which he desiresto save eternally, and to adjoin entirely to himself,so as for none of them to perish: wherefore WHO

SOEVER HAS LOVE TO THE LORD, HAS THE LORD'SLOVE, and cannot h.elp loving his neighbor."

A. a. 2023."When it is said there is no salvation in any

name but that of the Lord, it means that there issalvation in no other doctrine; that is, IN NOOTHER THING THAN MUTUAL LOVE, which is thetme doctrine of faith."-A. a. 2009.

" The essential of worship is hearty adoration ofthe Lord, which does not exist save in so far as theheart be principled in charity or neighborly love.

.All true worship is adoration of the Lord, for theLord is never present in external worship unleBBinternal worship be contained in it."-A. a. 1150.

"Many say 'that there is. no internal worship'without external, when yet the truth of the case is,that there is no external without internal.'''A. a. 1175.

" The new church is to be established only amongthose who are in a life of good."-A. a. 3898.

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"The church is one, notwithstanding its diversities of doctrine, when all acknowledge charity asthe eB8ential of the church, or, what is the samething, when they have respect to life as the end ofdoctrine, that is, when they inquire HOW A MAN OF

THE CHURCH LIVES, and not 80 much what arehis 8entiment8."-.A. O. 3341.

., The church must needs vary as to doctrine,one society or one man profe!lSing one opinion, andanother, another. But as long as each liveB i11

charity, HE IS IN THE CHURCH AS TO LIFE, whethe1'he be as to doctrine or not, and consequently, theLord's church or kingdom is in him." -.A. O. 3451.

"Doctrinals are not designed to direct thethoughts so much as the life, for what is theirend but that a man may become what they teachhim to be 1"-...1.. O. 2982.

Again, in his latest work, entitled "The-.rrueChristian Religion," 784, when expressly describingthe formation of the church, he says, "that thiscannot be effected in a moment, but in proportionas the false8 of the fornwr church are removed;and this must first take place among the clergy,and by their means among the laity."

Now, surely, this whole strain of observation isinconsistent with the notion of any just stigmaattaching to the Christian church, considered as

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an ecclesiastical constitution, and utterly forbidsthe conception of the new church, therefore, as anew and militant ecclesiastical polity. Noone,indeed, can read Swedenborg at all intelligently,without being convinced that the Christian ordinances of Baptism and the Holy Supper werenever given by the Lord for the purpose of symbolizing a particular creed, or celebrating a certaindoctrinal consensus on the part of his professedfollowers. They were given to be a sign or memorial of the universal spirit which, under all varietiesof doctrinal and ritual observance, reigns amonghis followers, namely, a regenerative spirit, a spiritwhich proceeds upon the putting away the evils ofthe natural heart as sins against God, typified bybaptism, and tlie consequent reception of goodsand truths from the Lord, typified by the eucharist.These ordinances have thus a most universal scope,being addressed solely to the foreshadowing of thegreat facts of life in which all God's children are

, one, and not in the slightest degree to the foreshadowing of those minor facts of doctrine, as towhich all God's children, simply because they arehis children, must eternally differ. It is thisuniversality of scope in the Christian ordinanceliiwhich fits them to symbolize the new or spiritualand universal Christian church; because what this

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church primarily regards is the life of charity, or aspiritual new birth in man, and the ordinances ofbaptism and the supper are the express imagesand types, are the divinely appointed signs :andseals of this regenerate life. No matter how mucha man may misconceive the literal text of scripture,no matter how full of absurd traditions or superstitions his ecclesiastical memory may be, so longas he professes to believe in the Lord, and avoidsevils as sins, he is a perfectly proper recipient ofthe Christian ordinances, let them be administeredwhere or by whom they may; as proper a recipient,let me add, and one as precious in the Lord's sight,as if, instead of his own native ignorance on thesesubjects, he possessed the angel Gabriel's plenaryillumination. We may well fee~ therefore, howmerited a scorn shall one day betide any communion which excludes such a man from it in theLord's name. We may well feel what scorn shallespecially betide any corporation, which, assumingthe sacred name of New Jerusalem, yet seeks todivert these divinely appointed vessels of the Lord'shouse aside from their benign and universal uses,to the service of its own ecclesiastical pomp andvanity.

Now, my friend, if the spirit of the new economybe as I have' described it, if charity be the all of

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the true Christian church, the all of its life and theall of its doctrine-and I defy anyone rationallyto gainsay this-then it is highly incumbent onthose who profess to be devoted to the interestsof true Christianity, to inquire what hinders thespread of it among men. Let us proceed brieflyto do this.

Now, mark! the inquiry we propose to make isnot as to the obstacles which defeat the spread oftrue religion in the world generally. Undoubtedlythe main obstacle to the spread of true religion inthe world, is a very prevalent indifference to theconcerns of man's spiritual history and destiny,growing out of the unsanctified lusts of self-loveand the love of the world. This obstacle you andI, in common with all the rest of the world, experience to the life of true religion in our souls. Truereligion is of so heavenly a genius, its temper is sohumane, so instinct with the vital breath of charity,that it necessarily encounters the stupid antagonismof the natural heart in all of us, and is alwaysobliged to conquer, therefore, wherever it takespossession. But this is not the point we are nowto consider. It is a most interesting point, doubtless; but we have one still more interesting beforeus, which is this: what obstacles exist in the mindsof religious people-people who are sincerely

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anxious to know and do the will of God-tothe reception of new-church light, as that lightstands diiiclosed in the remarkable writings ofSwedenborg 1 This is our question. We findmultitudes of tender, generous, and profoundlyreligious minds in all the divided Christian sect.B,who are consciously starving and perishing uponthe slender fare which is hebdomadally served outto them; and we ask what is it which hindersthese persons immediately receiving the stupendous consolations of the new and spiritual church 1

Now, my friend, permit me to say that I thinkthere can be but one answer to this enquiry, andit is, that these personl' are continually taught tolook upon the new church, not as a spiritual andtherefore universal church, but simply as a newChristian sect, and upon the writings of Swedenborg, consequently, as tbe ravings of a fanatical ordisordered brain. I say, these persons are taughtto take this view of the new church pretensions.And if you ask me how they are thus taught, Ianswer, by the purely ecclesiastical aspect which isgiven to the new church idea, by so many sincerebut inconsiderate admirers of Swedenborg. Thetechnical or self-styled new church assumes beforethe world simply the attitude of a new ecclesiastical organization, or a new organization for external

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worship, claiming a new clerical order, and a morevirtuous or valid administration of the Christianordinances than pertains to any other sect. Thusthe world is led to consider the new church, not asa new and regenerate life of man, not as a life ofspiritual conformity to the divine will, to be exemplified only in the broadest charity, or in everyform of domestic, social, civil and religious use, butonly as a new visible sect, having a local habitationand a name, and capable, therefore, of being geometrically de£ned and demonstrated. And, accordingly, when you go to a person whose thoughts areexercised about in£nite truth and goodness, or whoBuffers in soul from the violence which is done tothese interests by the spirit of sect-when you goto such a person and set before him the claims ofthe new church to his regard, be replies at once," Do you mean by the new church the sect thatworships in such or such a place, and seeks toprocure itself a name by outwardly separatingitself from all other worship 1 Because if youmean that, 1 really do not see that you promiseme any improvement. The persO,llS who composemy present ecclesiastical connection are very goodpersons generally, very good neighbors, very goodcitizens; and besides all that are too niodest toclaim before the world any peculiar ecclesiastical

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nearness to God, as the sect in question does. Ihave no fault to find with my ecclesiastical connection, consequently, at least, no such fault aspromises to be remedied by °a mere change ofconnection. In short, my troubles are not at allecclesiastical, but spiritual. One ecclesiasticism isquite as good as another to me, were the vital spiritof it only divine. What I lack in them all is thatclose internal fusion or sympathy of the members,which could not fail to be felt in them all if charitywere their life and not an unchastised ambition formutual preeminence. How should I be helped,then, by going among the people in question 1Do they not pretend to offer God a more acceptable worship than the Presbyterians or Catholicsor Episco.palians? Do they not claim a newministry? Do they accept Presbyterian or Methodist baptism? Will they allow Bishop Wainwrightor Dr. Dewey to administer the Lord's supper tothem? If all these things are so, will you tell mewherein this self-styled new church differs in spiritfrom all the older sects, unless, perhaps, in beingrather more sectarian? And if it do not differ inspirit from the older sects, why then, of course itis nothing new under the sun, but something onthe contrary-very stale, flat, and unprofitable. Anew church must prove itself such by 'ne1cmesS of

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8pirit, by a spirit of universal charity-a charitywhich shall loathe to be preeminent even overPagam and Turks, let alone its fellow-Ohristiana.Any spirit short of this, any spirit which virtuallysays to sincere Christian worshippers of whatevername,-' Stand aside! we claim to offer a moreacceptable worship than you!' is an extremelyancient spirit, is as ancient at least as that unhappyPharisee we read of in holy writ, who approachedthe temple of divine worship, saying, 'Father, ITHA.NK THEE that I am not as other men,' &c.,and who therefore went down to his house considerably disadvantaged from other men."

I say therefore, because if a man so mistakes thedivine character as to suppose Him a respecter ofpersons, and to give Him thanks accordingly forprivate or personal favors, it is manifest that theman's worship is animated by self-love, and thedivine name consequently grossly profaned. Ofcourse it is the dictate of true religion to refer allgood. to the Lord, and all evil to the devil: buttrue religion dictates no comparisons or contrastsbetween ourselves and others, nor indeed does shetolerate any such comparisons, declaring them, onthe contrary, utterly incompatible with her heavenlytemper. When. I feel disposed to thank God forgreater ecclesiastical privileges than my neighbors,

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or what is the same thing, a nearer access to Himthan my neighbours enjoy; whenever, lookingupon Dr. Potts or Dr. Hawks, I felicitate myselfupon the knowledge of a rival priesthood superiorto theirs;. or whenever, looking upon the ordinances of the universal church as administered bytheir hands, I congratulate myself that they aremore efficaciously administered elsewhere-it is nolonger religion which animates me-it is no longerthe blessed spirit of charity, but the accursed spiritof sect, or a temper of genuine self-love, which, ifleft unchecked, must issue in confirmed diabolism.

Do not misunderstand me. It is very far frommy intention, because it is very far from my desire,to cast disparagement upon any institutions ofsocial worship. It seems to me entirely properand inevitable that those who sympathize witheach other's views of Christian doctrine, shouldcome together at suitable times and places forsocial worship. Nothing could be more delightfulthan an assembly of this sort, when animated solelyby a spirit of charity towards all other assemblies,and having nothing to gain by disparaging themin public estimation. An assembly like this, unitedin cordial adoration of the Divine Love, and intentonly on celebrating His ineffable perfection, wouldIlf,and in an attitude of the tenderest sympathy

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towards all other assemblies. Jt would neverdream of impugning the truth of their worshipby publishing itself as the only true church of Godin New York; but it would strive on the contraryto shew them the riches of spiritual consolationwhich are embodied in the Christian ordinanceswherever administered, and prove how every particular of their own worship is fragrant with theinward acknowledgment of divine mercy and peace.No, let us worship together in this spirit to ourhearts' content, and under whatever orderly routinebefits our taste. Let us have architecture, let ushave music, let us have singing, let us have preaching, and the concerted voice of prayer; let us have,in short, whatever graceful and glowing forms maybe deemed suitable to express a worship so cordialand therefore so cheerful,' so rational and thereforeso profoundly reverential, as that which is inspiredby the new truths must necessarily be. All thisis right and sweet and beautiful; and I can'timagine anyone but a sour and surly sectarianobjecting to it. No one, indeed, can object to it,unless he be disposed to deny freedom of worshipaltogether. Every one, on the contrary, must seethat it is a suitable and decorous thing for personswhose intellects are forming upon the same generalclass of truths, to seek each other's sympathy in

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public or social worship. But what every one hasa right to complain of as an unsuitable and indecorous thing, is for this company thus comingtogether for worship to arrogate to themselves thename and authority of the Lord, in any such senseas prejudices the equal right of any other worshipping assembly to do the same thing. I believevery truly in the interior truths of the Scriptureas they .are unfolded by Swedenborg, and I instructmy family in the knowledge of those truth~ so faras their tender understandings are capable of receiving them. Have I thereupon the right to saythat my family worship is one whit truer or moreacceptable in a heavenward way than that of mynext door neighbor, who never heard of any interior sense in the Scripture, or if he h~ deemsit a very great snare and delusion, and steadilyworships, notwithstanding, according to the plenaryPresbyterian platform 1 Assuredly not. Shall thetruth of any man's reverence and worship of thegreat Being who creates and redeems and preserveshim, hinge upon his possessing adequate conceptionsof the divine perfection~ and offering a homagetherefore which shall be worthy of those perfections 1God help the best of us in that case! say I. Forthis is to place worship in a new ground entirelyno longer in a sense of the profound wants of the

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heart-no longer in the deep and cordial andoverwhelming sense of our own deficiencies, of ourown relative nothingness and vanity, and of God'sboundless sufficiency-but rather in one's intellectual acquisitions, in the sentiment of possessing asuperior illumination to other people.

But if I have no right to defame my neighbor'sfamily worship on the ground of its utter unconsciousness of the new truths, if I have no right tosuppose that the Lord views my family worshipwith more complacency than he does that of myPresbyterian neighbor; what right have I andthose who socially worship with me, to supposethat He views our social worship with any morecomplacency than He does that of the Baptists,Catholics, Unitarians, Presbyterians, or Mahomedans 1 What right have we to claim in our socialcapacity, a comparative nearness t.o God over othersocieties, which we have no right to claim in ourfamily capacities! If I myself, with all my heartydelight in the new truths,. do not contribute anyelement to my family worship which makes itcapable of disparaging my neighbor's family worship before God, do pray tell me how any fifty orfive hundred of us assembling for social worship,shall contribute any element to that worship whichshall have the effect to disparage any other sincere

[ 137 ]


worship before God 1 If I have no right in myprivate devotions to stigmatize my neighbor's devotions as old and worthless and dead, what righthave I to do so in my public worship 1 Whatright have I to advertise my public devotions asnew and living and valid, and his by implication,as old, spiritless, and unprofitable?

Of course it is perfectly proper for people whosympathize in any particular views of divine truth,and who desire to express that sympathy in formsof social worship, to advertise their place of meeting,for the benefit of all persons interested. Or if wewish to assail the popular doctrines by means oflectures, sermons, and so forth, let us clearly advertise our intention. But let us not put forthimmodest hand-bills, informing the world that herethe true church is to be found, and inferentiallytherefore not anywhere else in the city, underpenalty of affronting the most intimate spirit ofthat church.

You may very properly say to the world, if youplease, that you are about establishing, or havealready established, external Christian worship insuch a place on an improved basis, or with a spiritmodified by new church light. Bnt to say thatany amount of such worship gives you the slightestclaim to the world's recognition as the" new Jeru-

[ 138 I


salem," as the grand end and achievement of alldivine promise and prophecy, gives you the slightestright to arrogate to yourselves one particle of theconsideration which belongs to that divine and immaculate economy, is to say what only a completeignorance of the spirit of that economy prompts.The new church in man, is a regenerate life, a lifeof brotherly love or charity, a life which is no moreconsistent with the claim of superior ecclesiasticalmerit before God, than it is with that of superiormoral or physical merit. I am ashamed to gobefore God saying that I am a better man morallythan John Smith, and that I should like thereforea superior celestial position to his. Why am Ithus ashamed 1 Because the plea insultingly implies that God is a respecter of persons, thus, thatone of His creatures is less dependent upon Himthan another. By what infatuation is it, then,that one is not ashamed to do ecclesiastically, thatwhich he is thus ashamed to do personally 1 Oneis not ashamed every Sunday to claim before theworld, and challenge the world's recognition of thefact, that he is ecclesiastically much nearer to Godthan the Catholic bishop Hughes, the Presbyterianbishop Phillips, or the Unitarian bishop Bellows.What, I ask, is the explanation of this scandalousincongruity 1

[ 139 ]


The explanation is to be sought in the prevalenceof totally erroneous or sectarian views of the church.The sectarian idea of the church is, that it is primarily a visible corporation, hierarchically constituted, whose life lies in Sunday worship, and whoseproper activity consists accordingly in promotingall the resources and interests of that worship.According to this conception of the church, a manis what he is, chiefly by virtue of his connnectionwith that visible body; that visible body standsbetween him and God, and is the medium of thedivine blessing to him, so that he may be calledupon to honor it as his spiritual mother, with precisely the same propriety that he may be calledupon to honor God as his spiritual Father. Wefind the conception everywhere diffused, and hearit expounded and enforced from all sorts of pulpits ;but the only consistent and worthy representativeof it is the Roman Catholic church. No personwho holds this theory of the church, who holds theecclesiastical conception of it, and maintains it ea;

0JI'IJimw, has any logical right to disclaim the paternal authority of bishop Hughes, and must eitherin this world or the next filially submit himself toit. He may call himself a Protestant against thechurch of Rome, and may protest till he is blackIn the face; but when he at last finds that the

[ 140 ]


church of Rome is the only logical exponent of hisidea of the church,-when he finds that all logicand all experience and all testimony go to substantiate her sole claim to the name of church in thisview,-when, in short, it comes to the choice ofthe church of Rome or no church at all of thatsame general type or pattern; he will infalliblyswallow the nauseous medicine, I haven't a doubt.

I cannot, indeed, understand how anyone whoholds to the ecclesiastical conception of the church,can for an instant deny the paramount claims ofthe Romish hierarchy upon his allegiance. If thechurch of Christ possesses of necessity an ecclesiastical constitution, or, what is the same thing, aninseparable external organization, based upon thedistinction of clergy and laity, then the Romanchurch is the only true church, because it alonepermanently secures such an organization. Hadthe Protestant been as stoutly pushed atergo asthe Catholic has been pushed by him, and as hehimself bids fair to be pushed in the future, hemust long ere this have acknowledged that theonly consistent ecclesiasticism is that of Rome.The Roman Catholic makes the church to consistwholly in the pope and his inferior clergy, just asthe old theories of the State left out the people, oras the little boys when they form amateur military

[ 141 ]


companies, make them to consist wholly of captains,lieutenants, and corporals. We may smile at thisinfantine simplicity on the part of the church, orweep over its boundless spiritual arrogance, as weplease, but it affords nevertheless the only i¢'alliblerecipe for the church's perpetuity, considered as anecclesiastical institution. If we want convictionon this point, we have only to refer to the utterdisorganization which the hierarchical idea, or thechurch considered as having an inseparable ecclesiastical organization, encounters at Protestant hands.The Protestant democratizes the idea of the church,making it to consist not of one power alone, not ofthe clergy simply, but of the clergy and peoplejointly. But this theory by commixing the twoorders, and leaving their respective parts whollyundefined, like a military company whose officersand privates should possess a joint authority, isdestructive of all discipline, and has actually endedin the complete disorganization of the church, asan ecclesiasticism. What is your own ecclesiasticalpretension in fact but a proof of this 1 Your ownsect is a striking fruit and exemplification of thepurely disorganizing tendencies of Protestantism.In the first place, a handful of laymen reared inthe bosom of Protestantism, and united in nothingbut a profession of faith in the remarkable writings

[ 142 ]


of a very remarkable man, combine by mutuallybaptising each other, to establish a new ecclesiastical organization which shall have the effect tosupersede all the older organizations, and vacatealike t~e authority of their priesthoods and thesanctity of their sacraments. But as these personscan legitimately claim no other warrant for thisnew organization than their own wills; as theyexhibit no diviDe sanctions for it in the shapE' ofnew baptisms or other sacraments distinguishingthem from the old organizations; as, in short, theyare only a new Christian sect to all the recognizedintents and purposes of a sect, they cannot of coursepropagate any but sectarian offspring, and musttolerate every schism and division and heresy whichmay subsequently arise to rend their own bowels,and deliver them in their turn an easy prey todissolution. Accordingly I know no sect so youngthat gives such unequivocal proofs of senility asyour own; I know no sect so inconsiderable inpoint of numbers, which has already bred so many"doting questions and strifes of words." For thisresult I say you are indebted only to your inherentProtestantism, or the mother that bore you. :Foras Protestantism was not a new church, spirituallyconsidered, but only a new form or modification ofone and the same ecclesiastical spirit, so your more

[ 143 ]


limited movement exhibits no spiritual advanceupon the older Protestant sects, but only a highlyrational and comfortable modification of their ritualobservances. Thus you have no right to gloryover the Protestant sects, through which ~ yourown ecclesiastical validity is derived; just as theyhave no right to glory over the Catholic church,seeing that whatsoever hierarchical virtue theypossess, is but a puny rill of that once affluent butnow moss-grown and dishonored fountain. Neitherof you has the slightest reason for boasting overthe other, save on the ground of a spiritual superiority, or a more eminent life of charity; andeminence in that life is scarcely consistent withecclesiastical or any other sort of boasting, beingidentical in fact with the greatest personal humility.

Do I- complain of these unhandsome quarrels,however 1 Do I regret the grand original fact ofProtestantism 1 Do I regret the great subsequentfacts which have marked her history, and developedher true or characteristic tendencies 1 God forbid !I look upon them all as facts full of blessed significance for the true church of God, for the true lifeof God in the soul of man. Had we not hadCatholicism in the first place, or an ecclesiasticaleconomy paramount to the civil and politicalregime, the human mind must have lacked the

[ 144 ]

NOT AN ECCLESlASTICISM.

necessary germ or egg of the true idea of the church.We could never have conceived in that case of thedivine life in man, as destined eventually to controland sanctify his civil and natural life. Had wenot haQ Protestantism again, we should have hadno disorganization of this primary and beneficentgenu, nor consequently any development of themiraculous spirit which infonus it. I have indeedno doubt that the Providence which governs humanaffairs is altogether divine, for I see throughout allhistory the unswerving march of a great spiritualend or purpose, which is so high above man'sthought as to find its stepping-stones alternatelyin his wisdom and his folly, and so high above hisbest affections, as to make his very vices contributean equal furtherance with his virtues, to itB finalevolution.. f

I need not say to you that I look upon this endor purpose of the Divine Providence, as identicalwith that new church of which the world has solong and so reverently read in ancient prophecy,and of whose advent the roseate dawn is at lengthflushing the entire mental horizon of humanity;that new and everlasting church, the crown andconsummation of all past churches, which is consti~

tuted solely by a regenerate life in all her members,or a heart full of love to God and love to man.

[ 145 ] 11


It is identical with what the mystical scriptures callthe New Jerusalem, meaning by that carnal symbolnothing indeed appreciable to the carnal eye, "norat all germane to the carnal heart, but a trulydivine life in the soul of man. "It is also called anew church, both because it is the crown and fulfilment of all past churches, and because a churchin the spiritual idea invariably signiiies a regeneratelife in man, or the life of charity. This church isnot aristocratically constituted like the RomishChurch, nor yet democratically like the Protestantchurches. It is not made up of clergy alone, norof clellq' and people jointly; but simply of goodnessand truth in the soul of every individual member.It is not made a church by any amount or anyexactitude of ritual worship, any more than I ammade a'ather by the number of kisses I give mychildren. No man can say of it 10 here! or 10there! any more than he can limit the path ofthe lightning which now shin:es in one part of theheavens and now in the opposite. For as all her "members are born of God, they can only be spiritually discerned, and hence the new church mustpeI'listently disclaim all identification with particular persons, particular times, or particular places.

Unlike the typical "churches, this perfect churchfinds its t.mest abode and expression in the indi

[ 146 ]

NOT AN ~IASTICISlL

vidual soul. The existing ecclesiaBtical politiell,both Catholic and Protesta.n~ stand between Godand the individual man, claiming to be the mediumto him of the divine blessing. The true church,on the contrary, derives its most general or aBBO

ciated form from the individual life of which it iscomposed, only from the purer individual fibres ofwhich it is the gross aggregation. It consequentlyconfesses a total inability to confer life, or do anything else but receive it. There is no stone so dead,no dolt so absolute, in respect to whom this newchurch claims or is conscious of one jot of superiority. Because her first, second, and third estate,or her beginning, middle, and end, are unmixeltdependence, and beget nothing accordingly batunmixed humility. She is only what her individus:lmembers make her; and as they are all regeneratemen, or men in whom charity rules, and self-seekU::gis dead, so she of course can only be a stupendousform of charity, whose life lies not in receiving,but only in communicating.

No baptisms and no sacraments give admissionto this church, but only those things which allbaptisms and sacraments do but typify, namely,charity and a faith which itself is charity. All thebaptisms and sacraments that ever were administered, and all the priesthoods ever consecrated, veil

[ 147 ]


their servile heads before the true divine presencein the soul of the humblest of men, confessing theirutter impotence to approxima.te their subject: tothat suprema bliss. Nay, more j were the Lordhimself once again in finite form upon the earth,and the actual administrator of the Christian ordinances, they would still remain utterly inoperativeto give the slightest. approximation to his spiritualpresence. For all true approximation in thatdirection is spiritual, depending 'upon the existenceof neighborly love in our hea.rt:.'l, and a new andtrue church therefo~e will place her distinctivemarks, not in the possession of any baptisms orsacraments or other ca.rnal observances of any BOrt,but only in the sincere and saintly life of hervotaries. It is totally impossible, if she be a truechurch, if she be anything else than a spuriouschurch, or a mere representative economy, that shecan have any manifestation apart from the manifestations of charity in the daily life of her members.If charity teaches her subject to blow trumpetsbefore him in the public streets, proclaiming thathe is a regenerate man j if it teach him to invitepublic attention by printed handbills, whenever heseeks to celebrate the Divine Perfection by praiseand prayer j if it teach him to advertise himself asGod's true child, in contradistinction to others who

[ 148 ]


only falsely profess to be so; if it teach him toacknowledge the divine life only in those whoentertain the same theological opinions 88 himself,or read the same theological books: why then, ofcourse, the greater church will do the same things,that is to say, will soon render the name of "newchurch" the synonyme of whatsoever is sectarianin temper, or vulgar and disreputable in manners.But if charity prescribe no such behavior to hervotaries; if the truly regenerate man, or the manin whom charity rules, be, from the very nature ofthe case, the least conscious of the difference between himself and other men, and the least disposedto magnify such difference; if he be disposed tohide the shortcomings of his brother, and discoveronly the things that make for peace and universalunity; if he perceive in the law of God a heightand depth, a length and breadth of spiritual perfection, which laughs to scorn the bare thought of meritin God's sight, and makes our truest wealth to lie inthe unaffected consciousness of our utter want: whythen, ofcourse, the new church will everywhere intensify these individual characteristics until she utterlysink from all identification with persons or placesor rituals, and stamp herself 88 one only with whatsoever is pure and unsullied in human inspiration,and manly, just, and generous in human conduct.

[ 149 ]


In short, the true or final church is not in theleast degree an ecclesiasticism, is not in any outward sense a hierarchical institution. Were it so,it would have existed from the beginning of theworld, for the world h8.8 never been without authen..tic hierarchies, or true ecclesiastical institutioIl&I do not see what rea.sonable fault is to be foundwith either the Jewish worship, or with that of theCh.zmian church, if they are to be replaced onlyby other external worship. The Jewish priestsreflected, no doubt, the prevalent arrogance andselfishness of the national hope, but, I presume,were otherwise a superior class of men. And theChristian priesthood, although the temptations incident to their conventional elevation have servedto devel~peamong them many of the subtler formsof evil latent in the undisciplined human heart,have yet, on the whole, been lustrous with manyvirtues. You will occasionally find one amongthem with a conscience like the hide of a rhinoceros, and a lust of dominion able to surmount thetallest star, and annex it to the bishopric of hisconceit. And, what is remarkable, the smaller thesect, the plentier you find this sort of men, 8.8 ifthe divine Providence purposely limited a stomachso gigantic.to the meagerest possible pasture. But,on the whole, what sweetness h8.8 baptized the

[ lliO I

NOT AN ECCLESIASTICISlL

clerical function in the past! What fortitude, whatself-denial, what patience, what labor in seasonand out of season, have been the heritage of thegreat ma.es of these men! What stores of learningthey have accumulated; what splendid additionsthey have made to the best literature of every land;how they have enriched the sciences by their observation and studious enquiries; how they havekept the flame of patriotism aglow; how they haveencouraged the generous ambition of youth, anddirected it to worthy and useful ends; how theyhave dignified the family altar, and cherished thepurity of woman, and diffused through society thecharm of honest and gentle manners: all thesethings must be cordially acknowledged by everyone competent to speak on the question. Wherewould be the sense of ousting such a body of men,native, as it were, and to the manor born, inheriting a grace and dignity from their time-honoredplaces, embalmed in the kindly reverence andgood-will of the community, only for the purposeof introducing a new and undisciplined body, honestand well-intentioned, no doubt, and in many re

spects intellectually well qualified; but aggreBBiveby the very nece88ity of their birth, contemptuousand insulting by the inseparable theory of theiroffice 1

[ lIH ]

THE CHURCH OF CHRlST

All the world' will bid God-speed to the new3.'lpirantB, provided they will honestly and modestlyapply such teaching-faculty 88 they posseBB to thedissemination of original truths on the su~ject ofman's relations to God and his fellow-man. Butif they are not content with this-if they immodestly claim to be a newer and more authenticpriesthood as well; if, instead of simply sheddingnew and grateful light on previously insolubleproblems, they 8eek a private end also, which isthe exaltation of their oum order in public regard,and to this end represent baptism and the Lord'88upper to P088es8 a different virtue, a divinerunction, under their administration than underthat of the existing priesthood: then the insultedcommon sense of the public will conclude thattruth informed and urged by such a temper canhardly be worth a reasonable man's attention; andthat if we can never attain t<> a newne88 of 8p'ih-itin religious matteI"B without necessitating a >corresponding newne88 of letter also, the sooner we abandon all hope of spiritual progreBB the better, and BO

get well rid for ever of the interminable quarreland fatigue.

But let us go a little deeper int<> the problem.Let us inquire the meaning of th~ great phenomenon which we call THE CHURCH; let us inquire in

[ 162 ]


what sentiment of the human soul it takes its rise,and to what rational issues it inevitably points. Ifwe thoroughly master these inquiries, we shall haveno remaining doubt as to the genius of the truechurch of God in heaven and on earth.

The vis formativa in the church, the foundationstone of all religion, is a certain sentiment in thebreast of man of disproportion or disunion betweenhim and God, between him and the Infinite. Thissentiment underlies every church in history, underlies the entire religious life of the world. It hasgiven shape to all man's distinctive hope, to all hisaspiration, to all his best activity. He has the ideaor inward sense of infinitude, of perfection, of a lifewhich is not derived from without, and which isconsequently above all vicissitude or perturbation,and he feels in all his bones that this is not thelife which nature gives him. Hence a conflictbetween him and nature, between the ideal withinhim, and the actual without him. For man alwaysfeels himself bound to realize his ideas. To makethe ideal actual, to bring forth the dim and nebulous radiance of the soul into clear bodily shapeand act, is the very distinction of human life. Thebrute obeys only the life of the senses. Man, whenhe is truly man, when he is emancipated from thepurely animal life to which his inherited tendencies

.[ 153 ]


condemn him, obeys his ideas, acts from within,from the impulse of taste, from the inspimtion ofGoodness. His life lies in clothing the outer worldwith the glory which he brings from the inner, orin making his ideal actual. Hence, when hecherishes the idea of So life higher than he yet experiences, he inevitably aspires, aims, and hopes tomake it actual. Did he not 80 aim, aspire, andhope, he would perish. For the idea is there tobe realized. It is not there merely to mock himwith its stem impo88ibilities; it is not there simplyto taunt him with his hopele88 infirmities; but, onthe contrary, to educate his. nascent and UDBU8

pected powers, to stimulate his hopes, and leavehim no rest until he has amply actualized it.

Man, then, has the idea of infinitude, of perfeotion, of a life infinitely superior to that whichnature gives him. And hence, the beginnings ofthe church in him, the beginnings of his religiouslife, or of his attempts to conciliate the Infinite,involve a. conflict between him and nature. Naturegives him So life underived from within, derivedfrom past ancestry,-a life depending on a. myriadexternal things, and hence subject to a myriadpains, disquiets, and disappointments. His soulwhispers to him of a. hi~her life than this, the lifeof God, a life which flows wholly from within the

[ 154 ]


subject, depending upon no outward circumstanceswhatever, controlling a.ll outward circumstances infac1; and subject therefore to no pain, no disquiet,and 00 meanness for ever. By all the attraction ofthe latter life over the former, he aspires to placateit, to draw it nearer to him, to win its blessedness.And he knows no way so direct, so full of influencetowards this end, as the denial of the natural life,or the persistent mortification of its desires, ambitions, and splendors. This life, he says practically,which I derive from nature, shall not be my life.I hate it, I abhor it, I banish it. I know of aserener, of a freer, of a higher life than this, andall my instincts bid me crave it. Hence I will killthis mortal natural life within me. It ma.y forlong years yet invest my body, but my soul shallhave no participation with it. My soul 8hall mournin itsjoys and rejoice in its sorrows, if so be thatI may thus get deliverance from it.

Hence it is that you see the church throughouthistory disclaiming any natural basis, built uponthe practical denial of nature. Hence it is thatyou see the religious life, under whatever skies itmay flower, involve more or less of asceticism.This makes the unity of all churches, Pagan andChristian, Jew and Gentile, that they all declareman to be separated from God by nature, and not

[ 155 ]

"

,THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

connected with Him. They ~l affirm the necessityof regeneration. They all say, of course not in thesame, but equivalent terms, Ye must be bom againbefore ye shall see the kingdom of God. Accordingly, in the earlier and ruder stages of humanhistory, you find the eminent parts of divine worship to consist in sacrifices and offerings, the sacrifice or offering up t<l the Deity of some naturalpossession greatly prized by the worshipper. Thedumb instinct of a paramount spiTit'/.l..al unity between God and man, led the latter to cast incessantdishonor upon his natural affections, which werefelt somehow to obscure tha.t higher bond. Henceit was common, in some regions, for the parent tosacrifice his child as his dearest natural possession.In others, the most shocking mutilations and lacerations of the body have been practised. In others,the most beautiful virgins in the community weresacrificed. In others again, the lower sacrifices ofanimals t<lok place, and, as it was believed that thecostlier the sacrifice the more grateful it was to thegods, 80 hecat<lmbs, or an offering of a hundredbulls at once, came into vogue. On all sides theDeity was felt to antagonize the merely naturalman, and every curious and cunning effort wasmade, therefore, to anticipate his will by the volun.tary mortification of natural desire.

[ 156 ]


You have heard, no doubt, of the famous ring ofPolycrates, king of Samos, which being thrown byhim into the sea with a view to propitiate thedivine friendship, came back to him in the bellyof a fish. The letter of his friend Amasis, king ofEgypt, which had induced him to sacrifice the ring,is worth quoting. "Amasis says thus to Polycrates :It is pleasant to hear that one's friend prospers,yet your exceeding good fortune pleases me not,knowing as I do that the Deity is a jealous being;and I could wish that both myself and those I loveshould be fortunate in some of their doings, and inothers miscarry, and so pass their lives in changesof fortune, rather thap be always fortunate; for Ine'ver yet heard talk of anyone who with goodfortune in everything, did not come to his endmiserably with an utter downfall. . Do you therefore follow my advice, and in respect of your happychances do as I tell you. Look out well for themost precious thing you have, and that which youwould most take to heart the loss of; and thenaway with it in such sort that it shall never morecome before the eyes of men. And if after this,your success should not take turns, and go evenlywith your mishaps, still remedy the matter in theway here proposed." Herodotu8, iii. 40. Her~

upon Polycrates threw his ring which he valued[ 167 ]


very highly into the sea, and when Amasis learnedthat it had been restored to him by It fish, he atonce renounced the friendship of a man so clearlymarked out for misfortune.

In reading this touching letter of Amasis, kingof Egypt, one fancies that he is listening to a stmmof modem piety, so exactly akin is the true religious instinct in all time and all space. It wasnever better illustrated than in thi~ document oflong mummied royalty. Its starting point or inspiration is the conviction of God's dissatisfactionwith the merely natural life, and' its method ofconciliation is as Amasis describes it, assiduously" to seek out the most precious thing one has, thepossession dearest to one's heart, and then awaywith it in such sort that it shall never come beforethe eyes of men." Thus the Roman Catholicascetic under the fervent inspiration of this temperbetakes himself to convents and nunneries, andunder its ordinary exhibitions to fasting and pen·ance. And the Protestant ascetic under the sameinfluence devotes himself to the ministry or themissionary enterprise, and persistently denies him.self the delights of music and the dance. Theopera is a snare to him, and the theatre little shortof certain destruction. Ritually of COUI"l!le or intheir ecclesiastic practice, both the Catholic and

[ 158 ]


Protestant Mcetic differ very widely from the Paganworshipper. But they are all very closely allied inspirit, since they all alike aim to please God by anincessant depletion of the flesh, or an incessantmortification of natural desire.

Such then is the universal attitude of the churchof God throughout the past, an attitude of aversiontowards the joys of the merely natural life. Suchis the invariable aspect of the religious sentiment,ere it has degenerated M among us into sentimentality and cant, an aspect of patient and profoundself-sacrifice as to all the things men naturallycovet. Churches may exhibit inter 8e the greatestpoBBible ritual and political diversity, but none 'ofthem has any claim to be considered a churchunleBB it be baptized with this spirit. This is thereason, independently of its denial of the Lord'sdivinity, why the Unitarian church gets so littleuncultivated recognition, and impresses so slightlythe popular imagination. Its theory of Christianitysoftens the depravity of human nature~ which depravity to the popular mind is the neceBBary antithesis of the divine magnanimity, and .the verynucleus therefore of gospel consolation. HenceUnitarianism never gets beyond the respectableclasses. Even where it conquers the bedroom andparlor floors, it leaves the attics and kitchen all the

[ 169 ]


more obstinate Baptifilt and Methodist. It is a.good profeBSion for those in whom culture andprosperous circumstances have somewhat overlaidthe natural discrepancy between flesh and spirit,or self-love and brotherly love, so enforcing a milderand more decorous doctrine upon that subject.But evidently the chief historic praise of Unitarianism is negative, consisting in its destructive criticism of some Calvinistic errors, and in its stillfarther toning-dmvn the prevalent ecclesiasticalidea of the church, and so preparing the way forthe recognition of the Lord's spiritual advent.

From this survey, then, it is evident that theconstituent principle of the church is the convictionof the inadequacy of the merely natural life of manto attract the divine complacency.· The obvioussentiment which underlies all man's religious life,is that of a total disproportion between God andhimselfconsidered as the subject of nature. Humannature universally confesses a conscience of sin, andhence regeneration becomes the prime necessityand aspiration of the religious profeBBion. Thesetwo words, a conscience of sin, and an ardent desirefor a new birth-Bu~ up the entire ecclesiasticaldevelopment of the race. The church has begottenand maintained only these connected convictions,and consequently when you ask it for any distillctive

[ 160 1

NOT AN ECCL»lIASTICISM:.

life, for any life which shall confess the operationof its own peculiar spirit, it consistently refers youon the one hand to the tears of humble penitence,and on the other to the anticipations of cheerfulfaith. It disclaims' all present vital satisfactions.I t is content to transact a ritual or forensic approximation to God through the periodical ministrationsof its clergy, and patiently postpones the directrealization of its faith and hope to a post-1n<Yrtem

existence, or the dawn of the soul's to-mOITOW.Now, the great service which Swedenborg has

rendered the intellect, is in brief this: that he haspenetrated the darkness which overlays the originof the religious instinct, and proved that all itscroppings out, so to speak, in the forms of penitential wo.rship, are so many effects of strictly intelligible spiritual causes. That is to say, he hasproved that all the facts of man's ascetic experience,all the facts of his properly ecclesiastical conscience,all those facts which imply God's physical exteriorartion to man, belong to the infancy of the soul's life,and bear therefore the same relation to its maturity,as the rude and gnarled trunk of a tree bears to itsexquisite bloBBOm and tender fruit. Let me makethis clear.

The soul, according to Swedenborg, is an organicor ilUbstantial existence in human form. I t is,

[ 161 ] lZ


indeed, a much more substantial or real existencethan the body, because its substance is the DivineLove which alone is creative. The Divine Love isnot the attribute or quality of a material subject.God is not a finite, physical subject, of whom weproperly say, as we say of ourselves, that He feelsan emotion of love. He IS Love. His existenceis not first given, and then His character or personality. He is not first a passive existence, aswe are, and only afterwards and upon occasion acharacteristic and active subject of that existence.He has no nature apart from His personality, asyou and I have. His personality absorbs his nature.He is personality itself, thus essen~ially active, oractive in Be, instead of obeying an outward motive.In short, the Divine Love is not emotional, butcreative, and hence His operation, or going forth,is not arbitrary, wilful, irrational, but on the contrary strictly rational and formative, proceedingfrom ends by means to effects. It is exerted onlyin creating subjects or forms receptive of itself, andhence its procession is invariably from within towithout, and not the contrary: it is not like thepower of a carpenter or sculptor modifying preexisting materials, and proceeding therefore fromthe circumference to the centre of his work: it resembles rather the phenomenon of natural growth,

[ 162 ]


which proceeds upon the liberation under suitableconditions of an invisible spiritual germ, and itssubsequent orderly expansion into root and stem,branch and leaf, flower and fruit. In short, thedivine power is the power primarily of an inwardand spiritual life, and only in strict subordination to this the power of an outward and naturalone.

God is a spirit, and his creation therefore mustbe primarily spiritual. He is essential Love andWisdom, and His creatures therefore must be as totheir essence, derivative forms of love and wisdom.But one cannot be born spiritual: he can onlybooO'me so. I am not made loving and wise byvirtue of my natural generation, but by virtue ofculture, or the patient subjection of my outwardlife to the inspirations of interior goodness andtruth. Hence time and space become necessaryelements of the creature's self-consciousness. Hisspiritual evolution exacts~ external or inferiorfield of existence, by means of which this culture~r self-discipline may take place; and Nature, orthe world of time and space, is the fruit of thisexaction. Accordingly while the mind is underthe dominion of Nature, and supposes the laws oftime and space to be absolute, man is in a stateof spiritual infancy, incapable of forming a single

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right conception on the subject of the Divineexistence and character. This is not the place totrace the historic steps by which the mind of man,through the grad~l preponderance of self-loveover charity, lapses under this dominion of nature.Weare here only concerned with the fact of thelapse, in order to show how neceBBarily all thesubsequent judgments of the mind, in regard toGod and Ris relations to us, become colored by it.I flimply take the fact of such lapse, then, as indubitable by every one who has duly estimated thesubject, and I say that so long as it remains fullypronounced, that is, 80 long as the mind looks uponthe laws of physical existence, or the laws of timeand space, -as absolute, it neceBBarily regards themas essential to all existence, and consequently tothe Divine. Conceiving of himself as a purelyphysical existence, and at the same time perceivinga life or being superior to, and creative of, himself,man instinctively inve~,> this superior being withall excess of physical attributes, by intensifying inits favor the only elements of existence known tohimself under the names of time and space. Manhimself occupies seventy years more or less of time,and six feet more or less of space; his Creator,therefore, being so superior, must occupy a greatdeal more of both: yea, being perfect, He must

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,occupy all time and all space, and so be avouchedeternal and infinite.

Of co~e, then, in the soul's infancy, the DivinePerfection is exclusively material, being identicalwith the utmost possible amount of time and space.And equally, of course, therefore, in this state ofthings, when spiritual love and light in the soulare so completely overlaid by natural love and light,the more devout one is, or the more he acknowledgesthe Divine, the greater must be his conviction ofthe disproportion between God and himself. Man'saffections and intelligence are completely dominated by the things of space and time, turning himin fact into a mere form of self-love; but as, in thisstate of ignorance, he necessarily attributes to Godan infinitely greater subjectiqn to the same laws,so consequently God becomes to the carnal imagination a huge overshadowing form of self-seeking,intent upon His creatures' incessant diminution.Hence, I repeat, the profounder one's conviction ofthe Divine existence is at this period, and the pmfounder his conviction of his own dependence, thedeeper will be his sense of their irreconcilableantagonism, and the more he will strive to hidethe implacable enmity of his heart under the profferof a servile and interested devotion.

Such being the attitude of a purely natural mind[ 165 ]


towards God, it is very easy to see how the peculiarecclesiastical development of humanity comes about.Man looks upon God only as a larger self, or as agreat corporeal existence, full of superfluous andebullient self-love, and capable, therefore, of verymischievous determinations towards His insignificant creatures. It necessarily follows from thisthat every true revelation of God to the naturalmind, every revelation of Himself at all adapted topopular credence, must consult these carnal conceptions, and wear an extremely accommodated aspect.The final elevation of the mind out of nature depends upon this merciful descent and accommodation of Divine Truth to carnal conditions. Henceyou find God's name or glory in the earlier stagesof history associated with some exclusiv'e people,,and His worship made purely sensuous, or at best,merely representative of spiritual things. This.people may be a capital type or figure of the trueor spiritual people; but if they pretend to be anything more, if they pretend to fulfil the spirit aswell as the letter of the Divine promise, they become an insufferable stench in the nostrilB, compared with which Gentiledom were sweet andvernal. A spiritual tie with minds so carnal mustof course be preposterous, and hence the Deity isalways revealed as in eminent spiritual hostility,

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as in the 'lnost pointed private antagonism andquarrel, with the very people upon whom Hisname is publicly written. God is exclusivelyspiritual, being essential Love and Wisdom, andtherefore He incessantly repugns physical attributes, seeking to elevate His creature to morespiritual conceptions. But this can be done onlyin the most gradual manner, only in so far as thecreature himself, by virtue of the discipline to whichhe subje~ts the principle of self-love in his bosom,regains his primal status, or becomes spiritua.llypronounced by becoming a form of brotherly love,or charity, and thus learns to conceive of God nolonger as a huge physical and passive existence,but as the sum of spiritual and active perfection,as the perfection of character or personality, inshort, as perfect Man. Meanwhile, therefore, Godcan consent to place His name upon any specialpeople only with a view to the utter abasement ofits pride or carnal righteousness, only with a viewto demonstrate, by the contrast of its proper vileness,the character of the true and spiritual worship Hecraves. Hence, I repeat that you will always findGod revealed as in intimate spiritual hostility toevery church or people with whom his name isoutwardly identified. The total pith and authenticity of every divine institution upon earth, stands

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in its purely insubstantial or promissory character,--stands in it'3 being a figure or emblem of divinerthings to come. For abundant illustration on thispoint read the history of God's" chosen people"in the Old Testament, and observe how, whenJesus came offering a full and direct revelation ofthe Divine Spirit, he provoked the measurelessscorn of that deluded and self-righteous people.In fact, as we very well know, he was obliged tohide the pure spirituality of his mission even fromhis own kindly but unintelligent followers, wasobliged to wrap it up in apologue and parableand mystic action, and finally bequeath it to theworld's memory in the disguise of two ceremonialrites, baptism and the eucharist, under penalty ofhaving it utterly obliterated and forgotten.

Had it not been accordingly for these two carna.lordinances, snatched by the Lord's hand from thewreck of the Jewish worship, and modified intosymbols or memorials of His own blessed spirit,the church of Christ, that great multitude in earthand heaven ransomed from sin and death by his'majestic suffering, could have had no embodimentin nature, no material basis of existence, and hencecould never have come to spiritual consciousness.For as nature is the seminary of the spiritualworld; as no conscious spiritual existence takes

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place without a previous natural germination; so,consequently, had it not been fDr this provisionaland symbolical embodiment of the church affordedby the two rites in question, it must have utterlylacked all natural body or germ, must have remained for ever unincarnate, for the simple reasonthat the spirit of Christ was so infinitely above thatof his followers, that its only true incarnation inthe fruits of a regenerate life, or the works ofcharity, was absolutely impossible. Such is theentire philosophy of religion considered as a CUltU8,

and not as a life; such the sole justification of thechurch regarded as an ecclesiasticism, and not as aliving society or fellowship.

Swedenborg's whole labour, accordingly, is virtually given to the extrication of the Divine spirit,which is latent in these carnal ordinances of theChristian church. He shews that they are utterlyworthless save for their spiritual contents, andvindicates their existence and use only on theground of this mystic significance. The spirit ofChrist was Divine and Infinite Love. Now thisspirit becQmes possible to finite man only throughthe hu~iliation of his natural lusts, only in so faras he puts away evils of life from a sentiment ofreverence towards God or Infinite Goodness. Hemay put away these evils apparently, that is, in

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obedience to merely prudential motives, motives ofoutward profit and 10l'lll, but all this does not invitethe Divine Spirit. To put away one's evils truly,one must put them away from an interior motive,or a sentiment of their contrariety to Supreme andInfinite Goodness; and just in proportion as onedoes this, the Divine spirit, the spirit of InfiniteLove, flows into him interiorly, and builds him upinto a living and miraculous tabernacle; immortallyadequate and pliant to the Divine inhabitation.

But who was there at Christ's day to comprehendor receive these truths 1 How totally averse 'werethey to the entire strain of the Jewish mind! Andhow little prepared the Gentile mind also was fortheir entertainment, may be augured from the factthat Christ's professed followers had scarcely gotstanding-room in Gentile tolerance, before theybegan to give his mission a palpably secular determination, and merged the glimmer of spiritualpromise it exerted in the lust of a mere earthlydominion. Indeed, for that matter, we may say,how few minds are even now prepared to receivethese high spiritual verities! You will doubtlessfind numbers of very amiable people professing tobe "converted," and able, moreover, to put theirfingers on the time and place of its transaction;but how rarely do we find our men of intellect

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living in the habitual acknowledgment of the Divine _name, or putting away their native evils from anyother than worldly ends! The pride of intellectsays, "Be ye yourselves as gods, determining goodand evil;" and in missing humility consequentlywe miss all true exaltation. The house that towershighest towards the skies must first go down thedeepest in the earth; and the life that lays thesurest hold on heaven, is that which has the mosthonestly subjugated hell.

If, therefore, the mind of man be still so carnaland stupid, how was it possible for the Lord tohave communicated the grand mystery of the spiritual birth, at that early day, in any other than afigurative or symbolic manner 1 Clearly the thingwas impossible, without fatally disgusting even themost adhesive of his few and perplexed disciples.Either the great arcanum must have remainedwholly untaught, the very effort being abandoned;or else it must be taught in accommodation to themental stature of the race, that is, carnally orfiguratively. Accordingly, Christ instituted the tworites of baptism and the supper, one symbolizingthe negative or initiatory side of the regenerativeprocess, the other the positive and consummateside of it. Baptism was designed as a sign ormemorial of the elimination or putting away of

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THE CHunCH OF CHRIST

natura.l evils requiElite in spiritual regeneration;and the eucharist, or the mystical feeding on thebody and blood of the Lord, as a sign or memorialof the influx of Divine goodness and truth conS&quent upon such elimination. They were bothalike mere signs of this regenerative process, merememorials of it, destined to survive until hi1!mystical second coming; that is, until he shouldcome in the power of his Spirit, to claim the spiritual allegiance of his worshipper, or, what is thesame thing, take possession of his heart and understanding.

Now, what must we say of a self-styled newchurch which, in face of all these palpable facts,and while avowedly acknowledging the spiritualadvent of the Christ, does not hesit2l.te to grasp

these literal symbols or memorials of his truth,and convert them into its inseparable and eternalsubstance 1 Why, we can only say with the Apostle,"that he is not a Jew who is so outwardly, andthat circumcision is truly nQt of the letter, but ofthe spirit." The sole glory of the Christian sacraments lies not in themselves, but in their spiritualsignificance. When, therefore, that thing whichthese sacraments signify is, by your own avowal,come, why seek to re-enact the accomplished symbol1 Especially, why should you claim a more

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authentic hold upon the symbol, than they whodeny the Lord's second or spiritual advent, andwho, therefore, very pertinently cherish his appointed memorials 1 If your hold upon these ordinan~s be really more authentic than that of theEpiscopalian and Baptist, it can only be becauseyour relation to Christ is more carnal and sensuousthan theirs. These ordinances were intended onlyfor the carnal mind, or those who had no spiritualapprehension of the Divine Truth; and if, therefore,your administration of them exhibit any specialfitness, it must lie wholly in your spiritual inferiority to the older sects.

But the whole pretension is unfounded. A memorial is of value only during the absence of thememorialist. When he returns to us, and exhibitsevery day and hour the love of his llllveiled heart,the memorial grows instantly wan and faded, andfalls of necessity into disuse. How sinister a compliment should we seem to pay to his friendship,if we persisted in cherishing a gift after the giverhad made himself wholly ours! He would say," Clearly, the gift has been prized not for my sakepurely, but for some private en,d; otherwise itsvalue would cease by my re-appearance." It wasso with the Christian ordinances. Their worth wasinestimable during the long spiritual night which

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invested the church from the time of the apostlesto the splendid Pentecost of the last century; forthey served, as Swedenborg says, to secure anorderly spiritual connection for their subject, andprotect him from the incursion of heterogeneousinfluences. But since that great Pentecost, sincethe passing away of these old heavens and theformation of new, and the consequent immediateintercourse of the Lord with man in nature, to whatecclesiastical end can these ordinancesminister1The truths of the new heaven are internal anduniversal truths, as intelligible and acceptable tothe Turk as to the Englishman; they are spiritualtruths, as applicable, therefore, to the conscience ofthe Hot1{lntot and Laplander as to the Frenchmanor American. Accordingly, the new heavens, asSwedenborg reports them, are made up of Gentilesand Christians alike ; and hence mere ecclesiasticalChristianity, Christianity which stands in orthodox ritual observances, has utterly lost all celestialvalidity. A man may be, as to his ecclesiastjcalmerits, a stanch Roman Catholic, or a stanch Presbyterian, or a stanch" New-Churchman," and bearevery infallible ear-mark of these several persuasions; but, however various the form of these men,it is evident that their spirit is one, the spirit ofseparatism or sect, and this spirit must necessarily

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exclude them all alike from the new heavens. Theonly spirit which qualifies one for admission to thatharmonious company, is the spirit of mutual loveor charity; and where this spirit does not exist,the new heavens are not only invisible, they arealso incredible. If you doubt this, go and introduce the subject of the new heavens, the heavensto which charity alone gives admission, to thelearned attention of anyone in whom the ecclesiastical spirit prevails, and you will infallibly "hearthings easy to be understood." No doubt, sectarians of every complexion will always find falseheavens of every name, new and old, suita,ble totheir exact temper; but the truth of the angelicheavens is no more prejudiced by the number ofspurious ones, than is the worth of bullion prejudicedby the existence of any amount of brass and tinsel

But I must draw to a close. No observantperson can doubt that what is ordinarily calledInfidelity is rapidly on the increase in this country,and that it is chiefly fed by the immigration fromContinental Europe. Religio~ bas been so muchidentified with the secular power in Europeancountries, the churcb has been so pliant a tool ofthe state, that the popular mind, in reacting againstthe tyranny of the one, unhappily finds itself arrnyed in equal hostility also to the other. We

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.seem destined to reap some of the fruits 'of thisreaction. Multit.udes annually resort to these hospitable shores for a livelihood, who cherish a resolute contempt for the name of religion, and willnaturally do all in their power, legally, to diffusesuch contempt. In this state of things, what is theremedy 1 We have no political remedy, of course,since our Constitution allows the utmost freedomof opinion and speech. Indeed, the separation~tween the civil and ecclesiastical power is ournational distinction. It constitutes the legitimateboast of the American church, that it disclaims thealliance of the secular power, or refuses to protectitself by civil penalties. Hence our only relianceagainst the encroachments of infidelity, must necessarily be in the divine truth of our religion itself,and the clearer exhibition of its spirit in our ownlives. Religion is the affirmation of a higher lifefor man than that derived from nature-a life ofgrowing conformity to infinite goodness and truth.All good men necessarily therefore enrol themselveson ita side, as feeling the very life of their soulsbound up with its prosperity. The effect of everyconflict, accordingly, between religion and infidelity, must be to bring good men of every nameinto clearly pronounced union, and reciprocal knowledge, and appreciation.

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Religious wars are over, doubtless-at least inthis land. For where no special ecclesiasticism istolerated by the state, every possible casus belliis averted by anticipation. The only warfare herelegitimated is that of opinion, which sheds no blood,and leaves no scars save upon the intolerant, orthose who deserve to bear them. A man's opinions,when they are freely formed, are expressive of hiswill or his vital attitude towards eternal Goodness.If, accordingly, he cherish an opposite opinion tomine in regard to, religion or any other interest,it does not become me to blame him for so doing,but on the contrary, to insist upon his entire freedom in the premises. Blame is called for onlywhen his action grows disorderly and hostile tospciety. The best definition of religion ever given,is that which makes it to consist in loving Godsupremely and o~ neighbor as ourselves. I amsure that no man fit for the society of men, canseriously quarrel with religion thus avouched. Ifhe does, it must be at the deliberate compromise ofhis own character, in confessing himself indifferentto every humane aspiration. Would anyone feeldisposed to resort to legal penalties against such aperson 1 On the contrary, would not one feel thesincerest pity for him, and cheerfully do his bestto soothe and placate him 1

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Thus, infidelity will not be able to assail religionitself, without infinitely discrediting its own aims.What Will it be compelled to do, therefore, by wayof keeping itself alive 1 It will assail certain acci

dental peculiarities now attaching to the religiousprofession, certain Romish, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or Methodistic features, nowise belongingto the divine form itself, yet able, very often, to doher discredit in the eyes of the thoughtless. .Aninsincere profession, a worldly temper, Pharisaicscrupulosity, superstitious regard for ceremonialobservance~ unreasonable dogmas, and what not,are sure to show themselvetl wherever a sectarianspirit e'Xists, and it is a blessed infidelity whichshall help us to correct such abuses. The moreyou strip religion of its purely ecclesiastjcal 8.l\ddeciduous features, or, what is the same thing, themore you identify her with t~e spirit of mutualand universal love which unites the men of allsects together, the more you bring her essentialand eternal beauty into relief When I am assuredthat my looks are not so captivating as my neighbor's, and my manners not near so graceful as theymight be, I then identify myself all the moregladly with the harmless spirit within both looksand manners--a spirit which gives to looks andmanners in any case, indeed, all their honest and

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permanent charm. So, when we convince the ecclesiastic that he has paid too much deference "tothe mint, anise, and cummin" interest of religion,he will be sure, out of pure contrition for his folly,tQ cling all the more resolutely to the weightier,interests of judgment and mercy which are' itsvital self.

Here, then, we discover the remedy againstinfidelity, and perceive it to consist in the revivalof pure and undefiled religion. We shall stop theIJlouth of the infidel, not by argument, but byexhibiting more and more of the spirit of true

, religion, and less and less of the spirit of Romanism, Episcopaey, Presbyterianism, Methodism, andNew-churchism. There is no sadder sight to everygoo<! man than a mere Romanist, or a mere Episcopalian, or a mere ecclesiastic of any name. Onefeels how hard it must be for the poor human soulthat deliberately buries itself under that rubbish,ever again to reach the upper air, and breathe theheavenly breath of charity. Every truly religiousman in every sect feels alike on this point. Everyinstructed person perceives that the ecclesiastical,temper is totally out of place in this country, because our polity resolutely ignores all ecclesiasticalform, committing this subject to the purely privatejudgment of the people. Hence it is that a man

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is invariably felt to cut such a sorry figure amongus, when he talks loudly about the church! thechurch !-meaning by that word some meagreand arrogant Romanism or Episcopacy or Newchurchism, instead of the great brotherhood ofthose who, under whatever name, cultivate thespirit of Christ-a spirit of perfect love, becauseof perfect humility.

People of this sort may well dread the advanceof infidelity. It is certain to ingulf them. I tis,indeed, directly aimed at tHeir destruction. Theman who uses the doctrine of Christ only for thepurpose of separating and dividing those who arein spiritual unity, belongs in heart to the infidelcamp, and will finally enrol his name there. Butto the Christian· without guile, to the man whof'steems charity above knowledge, and brotherlylove before self-love, infirlelity presents no t€rrors.He knows very well that every man of like temperwith himself must remain for ever unsednced byits chatter, and that for all others, or for those whonalt knowledge above charity, faith above love, itis of small consequence what name they go by.They will be very BUre never to go by an unfashionable one, whether it be Christian or Infidel. Howmany persons are there in every sect, who are byno means of the sect, but who believe substantially

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in the views here set forth-men who hide theirRomanism, and their Episcopacy, and their Methodism, away from the Divine eye aR zealously as theywould hide any other carnal vanity, and rejoiceonly in the spirit of' mutual love which is the badgeof Christian discipleship!

Is it too much to hope that persons of this stampin all the sects may be coming into closer reciprocalknowledge, and that ere long they may be brought into open and joyous communion 1 I think not.But, at all events, I am sure that until that consummation ensue, we shall have no formal cuUus

befitting these high spiritual latitudes, nor anychurch consequently which has the least right tobe above fear as to what man can do unto it.Man can destroy, and will destroy, every churchwhich lives by the allegation of a superior divinesanction to that possessed by other churches. On'this point, the very citadel and centre of his freedom, man will tolerate nonsense no longer. Hewill cheerfully promote the welfare of all the sects,because they all express a lawful latitude of humanopinion in regard to divine things, and guaranteethe soul consequently against stagnation and death.Their accordant existence, moreover, tends not onlyto adorn the outward life of the community, by thevaried impulse they give the arts, but to develop

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also its inward life by the constant occasions theyafford to the exercise of charity or mutual love.But for this very reason society will no longertolerate sectarian discords. The harmo~y of thesects is so full of social advantage, that it would besuicidal in society to permit the slightest infringement of it on any side. In fact, the developmentof the true or spiritual church of Christ, is absolutelycontingent upon the rigid social equality of thesects. Nor indeed, is there any likelihood of anyof them so far forgetting their own interest, as toattempt transcending this equality, unless it be theRoman Catholic. The Latin poet has said, N atUrram expellas furca tamen usque recurret, andthe theory of the Roman church undoubtedlyobliges it to aspire after universal dominion. It isthe only church, except the Mormon, which laysits sacrilegious hand upon the soul of its subject,and binds him to its will in this world by claimingan absolute power over the destinies of his spirit.All the other churches claim a strictly accordantrelation with the state. The Romish church aloneclaims a paramount relation, and hence it willvery well bear to be very well looked after by everyone who has the state's welfare at heart. ThePope may doubtless continue to send his swarminglegions over, and scatter the trinkets of his official

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vassalage with a profuse hand; he or his subordinates may timidly begin to test the public toleranceby foolish and agressive prayers in the public newspapers for the "convers:on of the United States"to Popery, or by pompous and puerile ecclesiasticalproceilSions in our public thoroughfares, withoutrufHing the popular indifference one feather. Butlet them not misconstrue that indifference to theextent of provoking any public recognitio~ of theirhierarchical claims. Let them not se.ek to compassever so covertly any political ratification of theirecclesiastical supremacy, or their very existence asa church will be instantly jeoparded. Beaten andprostrate on her own arena, and in the very noontide of her pride and vigor, the Catholic churchhas doubtless a claim to pass the serene and unperturbed evening of her days in these tolerantclimes; but of course so long as she consents, likeall her sister sects, to eat the bread of politicalhospitality merely, and does not claim to be themistress of the feast. It cannot be necessary inthe nature of things to fight the same battle twiceover, and it is too entirely ridiculous that thisvirgin hemisphere should be expected to inheritthe quarrels of the older one, or exhibit the slightestsolicitude for the lapsed estate of this dowagerecclesiasticism.

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After what has gone before, you will not besurprised to hear me say, that I look upon therevival of what may be called "the church sentiment" in these days, as of very precious augury.All that is to be desired in addition is, that thesentiment be somewhat better instructed by meansof an enlargement of the popular conception of thechurch. One daily meets with tender, humane,and noble persons, who are heart-sick of the miserable scepticism which dogs our current literatureand theology, and who would gladly do anythingthat should promise to bring back ·a devout andbelieving spirit to society. For every person, infact, who has begun to feel the faintest glimmer ofspiritual day-dawn in his soul, knows that withoutfaith in .God, human life is devoid of all dignityand charm, and that we shall never begin to graspthe shining ideal which has animated and sustainedso many generations, until we attain to a childlikedocility of mind in regard to divine things. Theonly mistake on the subject is, that many of thesepersons suppose that the end desired is to be attai~ed by a social retrogression instead of advance,or by reorganizing the old ecclesiasticism insteadof utterly abandoning it for a more spiritual conception of the church. When the Lord came tofulfil the promise of the earthly Jerusalem, he did

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not proceed to do so by reorganizing that carnaleconomy, or infusing new life and sacredness intoits cmmbling walls, but by turning away the attention of his followers to a new and spiritual house,wbich should eventually come down from God outof heaven, and gather in its ample bosom all thetrue flock of the Divine Shepherd. So also, in theresurrection, we do not find that a man is raised inthat material body which had been buried, andlong since undergone resolution into its componentearths and gases, but in a new and spiritual andtherefore incorruptible body, befitting his enlargedsoul. Accordingly, now while we are looking fora resurrection of the church, and looking for it toowith entire confidence, we have no right whateverto expect it in any formal guise, or as the redint~

gration of any existing ecclesiastical interests, butonly in a spiritual guise, or as that divine spirit ofcharity which is common to all the churches, andgives to all their solid and sole hold upon publicrespect. One would gladly realize all the poeticcomfort contained in the charming phrase, "MotherChurch." But surely we do this best, not by degrading the church into a wrinkled old crone, forever looking back to the conquests and coquetriesof her youth, and mourning over the joys that·are gone, -but only by exalting her into "the ever

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young and ever fair" reality which that blessedsymbol paints. The word "mother" suggests tothe imagination all that is most unselfish, mostuncomplaining, and most beneficent~ in humannature. The mother forgets herself and her owninterests utterly in zeal for the welfare of herchildren. She finds her best happiners in developing their affections and nascent sensibility, in beingtotally spent for them, instead of binding them toher service. She is lost in the love of her offspring,and is never unhappy so long as their bosomsoverflow with contentment. She willingly leavestheir discipline and correction and their intellectualgrowth to the father, and is wholly blest in quickening their affections and laying a foundation, forenduring happiness. Of course, no possible ecclesiasticism can fulfil the bursting promise of thissymbol It is only the true or spiritual church,the church which exist.s under all ecclesiasticaldisguises, and becomes visible only in the good oflife, that can pretend for a moment to do so. Werethe church utterly divorced in the popular estimation from the ecclesiastical pretension, were it oncefairly elevated to the spiritual conception, the daysof its true glory would instantly begin, never more

,to end. ' Then for the first time we should know theblissful meaning of the phrase "Mother Church,"

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because we should then find a mother whose interests were inseparably one with the most variousand advanced culture of her offspring, and whosetotal spirit, therefore, was one of mutual love andtolerance.

The recent accessions in this country and England to the Romish church from other communions,do not indicate, as is sometimes foolishly said, anyrevival of vigor within that church. They simplyindicate a fastidious individual reaction here andthere against the spirit of the age, a spirit which isdaily leaving that church higher and dryer uponthe sands of popular neglect, and exposing it tothe inevitable fate that awaits all tmrely parasiticlife. The Catholic church exists now in the condition of a mere scabies upon the life of the nations,or the body politic, and can no more become againincorporate with that life, than a scabies thrownoff from the natural body cap. again become incorporate with it. T4e homage it receives from individuals here and there in other communions, is nodoubt soothing to its pride; but this homage communicates no strength to it, being expressive infact only of utter weakness on the part of the giver,or utter inability to keep pace with the inflowinglife of God into the nations. Suppose all theimbecile and recusant life of Christendom should

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take refuge in the Romish communion, as it veryprobably may, would that church be any thestronger, or only the weaker for the infusion 1The larger the army, if cowardice and poltroonerybe its spirit, the surer its overthrow. There isnothing strong but innocence, which is charity,and charity does not vaunt itself, does not puffitself up, does not behave itself unseemly, norprompt its subject to thrust himself upon a publicwhich is tired of him. When one is no longer ofuse but to oneself, he had better die and be forgotten, as every homage .he receives after thatevent, being offered to the memory of his oldrenown, is inw~dly a present rebuke. Had LouisPhilippe come over to this country after his fallfrom power, he would have received from the individual courtesy of our people the most lavishpersonal consideration. They would have dinedhim and supped him, and caressed and flatteredhim out of all measure: they would have felt,indeed, a cordial sympathy with his heavy losses,and many individuals, no doubt, would have avoweda sharp and bitter disgust at the upstart and protestant influences which overthrew him. But wouldLouis Philippe, think you, have been senselessenough to imagine that all this patronage of hisfallen majesty promised to reinstate him? I fancy

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not A king in rags is a Rplendid bait for a luxurious benevolence, and a man of Louis Philippe'sknowledge of the world would have understood thecase at a glance. Let the Catholic church takea lesson from the illustration. It is seldom sosplendid a mendicant knocks at the door of ourecclesiastic sympathies, and the scarlet and queenlymemories she trails in the dust furnish an irresistible lure to our sensuous pity. But for this veryreason she is apt to get herself patronized by theleast instructed and most wilful tempers in ProteBtantism, mere wanton Quixotes, who, in their zealfor reaction, would place man's eyes in the back ofhis head, and who look upon windmills, and goodhonest mutton, and all the other insignia of man'sprogressive industry, as inventions of the devil torob the past of its glory. Can this sort of patronage be anything else than degrading to its object 1In fact, does not all patronage imply that its objectis below its subject 1 But this is a degression.-

No, the American church, the only church whichis at all congruous with the genius of our polity,is not a new ecclesiastical form, but a new spiritbreathed, if they will allow, into the old forms. Itcan have· no formal quarrel, of course, with theold churches, because these formal ecclesiastical differences are exactly commensurate with the needs

[ 169 ]


of its own sp~tual unity. It has no purely formalinterests of its own, because, being exclusively aspiritual .economy, and therefore identical withcharity or brotherly love in the universal soul ofman, ·it equally authenticates every form, Paganand Christian, Jewish and Mahommedan, whichadmits of this spirit in its votary. Every nationmust p08BSess a church, or a spiritual substanceinto which the life of heaven may Bow; because itis evident that the merely political life of thenations is subordinate to an interior or higher life,-is in fact but the carnal covering or clothing ofthat life, and hence disclaims. all i'1l~mediate contiguity with the Divine. But if every nation musthave a church or spiritual substance, as every bodymust have a soul, it follows also that this churchor spiritual substance must be fully commensuratewith its political form. Thus the church in. theseU"nited States must disown every organizationwhich falls short of our political proportions. Itsdoors must be, at the very least, as wide as thedoors of our political house; otherwise we shallexhibit the disreputable picture of a body largerthan its soul, or a church less celestial than itscorresponding State. As our political dimensionsmake us a city of refuge for all the materiallyoppressed of the earth, so our ecclesiastical dimen-

[ 1oo ]

NOT AN ECCLESIAS'l'ICISM.

SlOns must make us a city of refuge for all thespiritually oppressed. Politically we overlook thenative differences of our refugees, absorbing themall alike into our own higher nationality. And ofcourse, therefore, ecclesiastically we can show nopartiality, nor recognize any of thfl existing churchesas authentic, but must elevate them all alike to ahigher spiritual level or unity.

Thus we shall at last hail the introduction of anew and eternal morality. The present ecclesiastical morality, were there any life remaining in it,would be sheerly detestable. The Catholic, thePresbyterian, the Jew, the New-churchman, theBaptist, th~ Mahommedan, the Mormon, fanciesthat no one is secure of the Divine complacencyout of the pale of his own creed, and expectsaccordi~gly a heaven which shall inspire harps ofonly one string. In so far as this man is a consistent or strict ecclesiastic, he necessarily regardsall men as good who belong to his own communion,and all men as evil who reject it. For, of course,no one supposes that God saves any but good men,or condemns any but bad ones. It is very truethat few ecclesiastics are logical enough to go tothis unhandsome extreme, for, as I said before, theold ecclesiastic morality is nearly lifeless, exhibitingonly an occasional expiring flicker in some heartless

[ 191 ]

•THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

theologic adventurer, or mere odious residuum ofignorance and insolence in the shape of certainCatholic newspapers. But this unhandsome extreme is nevertheless logically inherent in thevery heart of the sectarian theory. The consistentCatholic, or the consistent New-ehurchman, necessarily supposes every one liable to the Divinewrath, who intelligently refuses to become identifiedwith their ecclesiastical interests j otherwise theywould deny to those interests all Divine sanction.And hence, as I said before, inasmuch as no onecan suppose God to approve any but good men, or

,condemn any but bad ones, the consistent ecclesiastic or man of the past. church, whatever namehe assumes, makes the distinction of good andevil to attach t.o men only as they stand related,positively or negatively, to his own piimy pretensions.

The true or spiritual church pronounces thismorality untenable, and affirms the distinction ofgood and evil henceforth among men, not as theystand related to any ecclesiasticism under hlven,but only as they stand related to the spirit of God,the spirit of brotherly love or charity. A manshall have whatsoever ecclesiastical ties he pleases:he may be Catholic or Protestant, Christian orMahommedan, and call himself after the old or

[ 192 ]


the New Jerusalem, as suits his fancy: and no onespiritually enlightened will deem him so far eithergood or evil. For he who is spiritually enlightened,he who is of the Lord's new and living church,knows that no good or evil is predicable in theDivine sight, save of the presence or absence oflove in the soul. He who loves his neighbor ashe loves himself, is a good man in God's sight,whether he be Turk or Christian ecclesiastically,and will go, as fast as his expansive lungs permit,to the heaven of good men. He who loves himselfmore than he loves his neighbor, is a bad man inGod's sight, whether he be dubbed ecclesiasticallyPope or Rabbi, and unless he repent, will infalliblygo to the heaven of bad men.

Such is the temper and such the eternal moralityof the true spiritual church, the only church whichpossesses political basis and ratification in theseUnited States. Our political constitution excludesall purely formal churches, every church that isvisibly different from others, from its recognition,and so authenticates only an inward church, or achurch which stands in the spirit of charity orbrotherly love, and which may exist therefore underthe most opposite ecclesiastical forms. The vegetable or animal spirit of the world expresses itselfin very various shapes, here in the shape of II.

[ 193 ] 14


cabbage, and there in the shape of a. peach; herein the form of a doIikey, and there in the form ofa horse. But the spirit is one under all thesevaried manifestations, namely a spirit of love andaccommodation to all man's varied material uses.So the religious spirit in humanity may beget herea Papacy, and there a Presbytery, or an Episcopacy,without any necessary compromise of its own unity.It is a spirit of love and accommoda)ion to allman's varied intellectual uses, and hence not onlytolerates but exacts every various and even eccentric formal manifestation. He who quarrels withthis largeness of the world's spiritual administration,he who would have its religious Providence authenticate only some special form, some narrow Romeor narrower Jerusalem, must at some period orother of his spiritual pilgrimage, quarrel withnature's largeness also, and find his diet made upperhaps of unmitigated cabbage, and his empirerestricted to unmitigated donkey. Who can tellto what smallness one may decline, that obstinatelyrenders himself insubmissive to the Divine Providence which governs the world? Nature is butthe servant of the soul, and will not always transcend the soul's demands in the services she renders.

The new church then, or the church of theAmerican latitudes, IS as it were a. spiritual Ark.

[ 194 ]

NOT .AN ECCLESIASTICISM.

rising high at>ove the waters of oblivion which arefast covering the ecclesiastical eminences of the oldworld, and opening its hospitable doors to everyelement which can add life and vigour and beautyto the manhood Qf a regenemte em. It legitimatesevery existing ecclesiastical form which the spiritof charity legitimates, that is to say, every formwhich is compatible with the existence of brotherlylove in its subject, and so elevates the religious lifeto a higher platform than it has yet known. Thusfar, then, in all outward respects our ecclesiasticaldevelopment amounts to a disorganization or solution of the things that have gone before: what our,subsequent crystallization will be as to the mereforms of worship, I am not able to predict. Ofone thing I am profoundly and joyously certain,namely, that the glory of God's former house willbe utterly eclipsed in the more spiritual splendorof that which is coming. This will be true, doubt-·less, even of ~ts sensuouS things, or its programmeof social worship. Its divine spirit will breathenew sacredness and sweetness even into the established ritual, and new forms vivid with the beautyof charity will be begotten adequate to every newwant. But the distinctive fact of the church is notan improved Sunday worship, or a new holidayapparatus, but exclusively an improved daily life.

[ 195 ]


The saint of the new church will not be the manwho prays the most, and builds the most hospitalsand churches, and undergoes the most self-sacrificeof any kind ; for eminence in these things is almostsure to beget pride, or a sense of superior merit, inthe votary: but the man who cheerfully aboundsin social uses, who diligen,tly pursues his lawfulcalling, who trains his children to noble and patientlabors, who dodges no juries and shirks no politicalresponsibility, but manfully confronts every duty,aspiring with his whole heart to be worthy of thegreat and beautiful society in which God has placedhiJp. The most vernacular and intelligible expression for God's own perfection is USE, and thedivinest form of man consequently is that whichhe derives, not from his father and mother, for thisdoes not endure, but from his own frank and cordialand complete adjustment of himself to the varioususes, domestic, civil, and religious, which societydevolves upon him. This is man's spiritual form,and it endures to all eternity, growing evermoreinstinct with God's own power, and this is the formto which alone the true church has respect in man.The new church life therefore will begin/rom Godas well as tend to God. Under the old and typicalcreation represented by Moses, religion was not life,but a something superinduced upon life; it was a

[ 196 ]


solace under trial, a refreshment after .toil, andstood embodied in Sabbatical observances. TheSabbath, or day of divine rest, ended the week,shedding the dews of its consolation upon the headsand hearts which the previous six days' toil hadbruised and wearied. But the new and true creationin Ohrist Jesus reverses this process. It identifiesreligion with life, inspiring man to labor, not withany hope of winning the Divine favor, but withthe confidence of its present and inaliena!:>le possession. Hence Christianity discards the Sabbath,or day of refreshment after six previous days oftoil, and substitutes the first day of the week asthe Lord's day; thus signifying that under thenew and final economy man will work no longer tolife but only from it, no longer with a servile butonly with a filial spirit, or that all his secular

. activity is henceforth to be baptized with thetemper and blessing of heaven.

I remain, yours, etc.

FINIS.

NOTE.

SINCE the preceding sheets were printed, that portionof them entitled, "The Church of Christ not an Ecclesi·asticiam," has been published in a considerably expandedform, by the Swedenborgian publiaher, Mr. White, ofBloomsbury. In that form it is, however, less likely tobe read beyond the borders of the sect, to which, asclaiming to be the New JeruaaJem, or New Church of theApocalypse, it is specially addrelllled.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

CHRISTIANITY THE LOGIC OF

CREATION.

Post 8vo, Cloth, 38. 6d.

LONDON: WILLIAM WHITE,

36, BLOOMSBURY STREET.

LIST OF RECENT PUBLICA.TIONS.I.

THEOLOGIA GERMANICA. Translated from the German by SUSANNA WINKWORTH. With a Preface by the

nev. C. KINGSLEY, and a Prefatory Letter by Baron BUNSEN.The Third Edition, with Corrections and Additions. Fscap.8vo, price 5s. cloth.

II.

L YRA GERMANICA. Translated from the German byCATHIlRINE WrNKwoRTH. First Series, Hymns for the

Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Christian Year, NewEdition, price 5s.; Second Series, the Christian Life, SecondEdition, price 5s.

An Edition of the FIRST SERIES OF "LYRA GERMANICA," with about 225 Illustrations from original Designsby E. Armitage, J. Flaxman, M. Lawle88, C. Keene, L. Marks,and J. Leighton, engraved on Wood under the superintendenceof John Leighton, F.S.A., in Fcp. 4to, price 21s.

HI.

L YRA SACRA: being a Collection of Hymns, Ancient andModem, Odes, and Fragments of Sacred Poetry. Com

piled and edited by the Rev. B. W. S.A.VILE, M.A. Fcp.8vo,uniform with "Lyra Germanica" and •• Lyra Domestica."

IV.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. By the late BaronBUNBEIi, D.D., D.C.L., &c. Post 8vo, 98. 6d.

v.

CHRISTIANITY & MANKIND: THEIR BEGINNINGSAND PROSPECTS. By the late Baron BUNSEN, D.D.,

D.C.L., &c. Being a New Edition, corrected, remodelled, andextended, of "Hippolytus and his Age." 7 vola., 8vo, £5 58.

VI.

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. By the Rev. F. TEMPLE, D.D.,Head-Master of Ru~by; ROWLAND WILLIAMS, D.D.,

Vice-Principa1, Lampeter College; BADEN POWELL, M. A.• lateProf688or of Geometry, Oxford; H. B. WILSON, B.D., Vicarof Staughton; C. W. GOODWIN, M.A.; MARK PATTISON, B.D.,Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A.,Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford. 8vo, lOs. 6d.

LONDON: LoNGMAN, GREEIi, LoNGMAN, AND ROBERTS.,

-THE OLD AND NEW

THEOLOGY,

TWO LECTURES;

~ND

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST NOT AN

ECCLESIASTICISM,

A LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE TO A MEMBER OF THE

80I·DI8.&NT NEW CHURCH.

BY HENRY JAMES,OW YORK.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, & ROBERTS.

)[J)CCOLXL

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