world gain such a position as to give itself up to the Lord in that full state which, we are told, the celestial man delights in. Is it not also the safest, and likely to lead to the best results, to look on ourselves in as low a degree as possible; to watch over the springs of action in our mind, when we are engaged in those pursuits to which we are called in the world, and then, by being wary of our own selfishness by nature, we shall be the better enabled to rescue ourselves from that influence which would fain make us believe that we are better than we really are, and therefore would put us off our guard in pruning or rooting up our evil desires and false inclinations?

A word or two on the use of instruments in the Church. The objection to their use is based on the same false principle which I have been combating, viz., that New Churchmen in this world are spiritual and celestial men: it is forgotten that this is our probationary state, and that helps of every description are mercifully provided for us, to assist in what we have to do. Instruments are not given to us to keep us from praising the Lord, but to assist us to do it properly,—to assist in raising that devotional feeling in which the Lord can benefit us; and no one can have even listened to the sublime works of some of the great masters of harmony, but must have felt his soul uplifted to the great Author of his being with feelings of devout adoration. In admiration of mere singing, did our friend never hear the tune sometimes raised too low, sometimes too high? has he not heard music of the most discordant character? If he has not, he has been more fortunate than I have, for I have very often had anything but devotional feelings on such occasions. If we were in states of celestial love to the Lord, and love to the neighbour, and in a sphere where we could give full power to these feelings, and where thus the affections of the heart would be clothed in sounds correspending thereto, then we might think of doing without instrumental aid; but as well might we object to the use of natural elements in the sacraments as with the use of instrumental music in our worship. And after all, what are our very throats, without the life which gives them the power of bringing out the sound, but dead matter? I trust, then, we shall hear no more of this prejudice of custom and country, but that all will unite in the praise and worship of the Lord, looking not to the mere external observance, but to the life which produces it; and that the cultivation, each in his own sphere, of those graces which we know constitute the delights of the spiritual and celestial heaven, may be ever uppermost in the affections of each member of the Church, in whatever part of the vineyard he may be placed, or whether he lifts up his heart to the Lord accompanied or not by the sounds of an instrument.

Yours, &c.,

A SON OF SCOTLAND.

DR. MEHLER AND SWEDENBORG.

(Continued from page 141.)

In our last paper on the "Symbolism of Dr. Mohler, we considered certain points in Symbolic Science, or that science which teaches the differences between the various creeds and doctrines maintained by the different divisions of the Christian Church. When engaged in controversy, which must needs be the case, as the New Church and its theology become more known in the world, the disciple of the New Dispensation must be acquainted with the principles of Symbolic Science, in order to come at once to the points at issue, and to state the decisions of authority respecting them. Thus, when a New Churchman is engaged in controversy with a Solifidian, who maintains the dogma of "justification by faith alone," and should the latter maintain that good works are included in his system of justification, the former would reply that good works in the doctrine of "justification by faith only" are considered not in a spiritual and religious, but in a merely civil respect, and by no means contributive to salvation; and in support of this declaration he would appeal to Luther, who, as the founder of that doctrine, and as an authority acknowledged by one great branch of the Protestant Church would confirm the declaration against the Solifidian,* who would then probably abandon Luther altogether, and appeal to the Scriptures as the only source of truth; and this would be a most desirable point to gain, since the Word is so full of declarations as to the necessity of good works,of" works wrought in God," that the maintainer of the dogma of justification by faith only, would be conquered at once, if the mind could be brought from a merely human invention,-from a vain tradition, and be made to attend to the Word only. In like manner, the “ authority of the Church," so strenuously maintained by Dr. Mohler, who states "that Christ is only so far an authority as the Church is an authority,”+ must be seen when analyzed and resolved into its primary element, to be nothing less than an endeavour, which alas! has but too far succeeded, to place the papal authority above that of the Word, and even of the Lord Himself.

Dr. Mohler, on the very threshold of his Symbolism concerning the doctrines of the New Church, is wrong in placing the Swedenborgians among the Protestant sects. The New Church, as its name implies, has no affinity in scarcely a single point of doctrine, either with the Roman Catholic or with any branch of the Protestant Church. Its

*See note in former paper, page 138. +See Extract, page 140.

members are derived from all classes of christians, as well Catholics as the so-called reformed. Nearly all the members of the New Church in France were Roman Catholics. It is therefore not correct to reckon the Swedenborgians" among the Protestant sects. The reason why the doctrines of the New Church have scarcely a single point of affinity with the doctrines of the Old, is, because the basis upon which she is built is totally different. The New Church is founded upon the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in His "glorious body" or Divine Humanity is one Person with the Father, so that "he who seeth Him seeth the Father," in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, that is, the divine Trinity, bodily; He is, consequently, the one only object of worship to angels and men. Whereas the Romish and the Protestant churches in nearly all their divisions are founded upon the acknowledgment of three divine Persons each being Lord and God, and however they may endeavour by the most subtle metaphysics, to persuade and to prove that three separate divine beings are one divine being, yet in the minds of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the people, the idea of three Gods is deeply implanted. This tritheistic idea Athanasius himself could not avoid entertaining as is evident from his own words in the creed. "As we are obliged by the christian verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, yet we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there be three Gods and three Lords" which words cannot be understood in any other sense than that it is allowable to acknowledge, or to think of, three Gods and Lords, but not to name them. Now as a proper idea of God is the basis of all genuine theology, and of all pure and vital religion, it follows that if this idea be false, and especially if the essential feature of genuine theology, the divine Unity be compromised, or in the least degree infringed, christianity is reduced to a system of paganism in every thing but the name. Hence it is that the New Church rejects the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, as subversive of the divine Unity, as teaching and inculcating in ninety-nine hundredths of the population, the idea of three Gods. However rhe Romish church may cry out against rationalism and naturalism as having like Gog and Magog fiercely invaded the church, the fact is, she has opened her arms to the reception of these hostile powers. For can any thing savour more of mere naturalism, which consists in thinking grossly and materially concerning spiritual and divine things, such as is revealed to us in the Holy Word, than the idea of God and of the divine Trinity propounded in the Athanasian creed, which forms the basis of all the established churches in christendom at the present day. Thus to think of the terms Father and Son, when reading those

divine appellations in the Gospel, in the same manner as we think of an earthly father and son, and of their respective relations to each other, although the Lord has divinely warned us against such a mode of thinking, by saying that what he declared concerning the Father was spoken in proverbs, (John x. 6.) is to carry the most revolting naturalism into the spiritual province of the Church, and to besiege the holy city of truth with the army of Gog and Magog. What is the Athanasian creed but a merely human invention, brought into existence in the fourth century after the primitive simplicity of Christian faith and life had expired ? Dr. Mohler, with his extensive learning, knew well that the doctrine of three divine persons in the Trinity, as expressed in the Athanasian creed, was not acknowledged during the two first centuries of Christianity. We have the most decided evidence from Pliny, that Christians in general worshiped "Christ as God."* In the second century they began to reason upon the relations between the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit; and the more they reasoned and disputed, the more they diverged from the divine unity, from the belief in one Lord, into the tritheistic view, which at length became fully expanded and established in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. The theology of the New Church consequently discards these two creeds as the basis of all error and false doctrine in the Christian Church, and lays as the foundation stone "most precious" the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one only Lord and God in whose "glorious body dwelleth the fulness—the trinity—of the Godhead," and thus comes back again to the foundation laid by the apostles, who worshiped Christ as God, and who consequently established " one Lord and one faith" as the basis of all Christian doctrine. These things we have mentioned because Dr. Mæhler considers, that the rejection of these creeds by Swedenborg, is, at once, declarative of the entire erroneousness of New Church Theology. Whereas the history of the two first centuries proves, that a Trinity of Persons was unknown in the primitive or apostolic Church, and that the Nicene and Athanasian doctrine concerning a Trinity of Persons, has given birth to a faith, which, as Swedenborg says, "hath entirely perverted the Christian Church."

Dr. Mohler, in his preliminary historical remarks concerning Swedenborg, states that

*See Mosheim "De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Magnum," pp. 104, 148, 218.

+ See "Illustrations of the End of the Church," &c., by the Rev. Augustus Clissold, M.A. Chap. I. See also, by the same author, "A Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, on the Practical Nature of the Doctrines, &c. contained in the Writings of E. Swedenborg." Appendix.

"He is one of the most mysterious phenomena in history,—that he was distinguished for acuteness of intellect, and for a wide range of knowledge, particularly in the mathematics and the natural sciences, which he cultivated with great success, as is evinced by many writings highly prized in his day; and on the other hand, he was noted for his full conviction, that he held intercourse with the world of spirits, whereby he believed that he obtained information on all matters in anywise claiming the attention of the religious man.”

After this fair statement of Swedenborg's distinction as a natural philosopher, and of his extraordinary case in reference to his long and unremitted intercourse with the spiritual world, Dr. M. adduces the testimony of the celebrated Von Görres, a Roman Catholic professor at one of the Universities in Germany, and says that,—

"Von Görres has convincingly proved, that from the very high character of this visionary, acknowledged by his contemporaries to be pure and blameless, the idea of intentional deceit on his part cannot be at all entertained, and that his extacies may be best explained by animal magnetism."

Thus, animal magnetism, magic, necromancy, witchcraft, jugglery,any thing but a resolution of Swedenborg's extraordinary case into an interposition of Providence, in order that he might become the medium of conveying to mankind most important knowledge concerning the state after death, heaven, and hell, the spiritual sense of the Word;-know ledge in which all to whom eternal things, and heavenly felicity are objects of concern, should feel the deepest interest. This knowledge, conveyed as it is, in the writings of Swedenborg, to the rational discernment of the serious and thoughtful mind, will prove to all who candidly seek it, the greatest barrier and safeguard against atheism, naturalism, and every species of scepticism and infidelity, which at the present time, desolate the Christian world. From the high and exalted point from which Swedenborg contemplates the Word of God, and from the manner in which he expounds its divine contents, the disciple of revelation, the lover of his Bible, will be enabled to confute the objections and arguments of deism and infidelity, however specious and plausible they may appear. We challenge inquiry into this system of Scriptural interpretation, and if what is stated above be true, how much injury is inflicted upon mankind by every stumbling-block placed in the way of a candid investigation of the writings of Swedenborg!

Dr. Mæhler, in order to gather some information from Swedenborg himself concerning his doctrines, procured the English translation of the "True Christian Religion," and this work, by conveying in a most scientific form, the entire doctrines of the Lord's New Church, was certainly most suitable for his purpose. But much were it to be desired that Dr. M. had also read some works explanatory of the spiritual sense of the Word.