The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter1
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THE
Doctrines of the New Church
BRIEFLY EXPLAINED.
I.—INTRODUCTION.
Y the New Church, as the term is here employed, is to be understood that Church signified and foreshadowed by the Holy City, New Jerusalem, which the apostle John beheld in vision coming down from God out of heaven." (Rev. xxi. 2.) The doctrines of this Church were given to the world in a printed form more than a hundred years ago. Yet not one in fifty among intelligent Christians of the present day, knows what these doctrines are. The majority of people have heard something about them, and naturally suppose that what they have heard is correct; but they will generally find, on careful inquiry, that what they have heard is very far from the truth. Many honest and well-disposed persons ridicule these doctrines, who know little or nothing of them beyond what they have learned from persons no better informed than themselves. It is not, therefore, the doctrines of the New Church which excite their ridicule, but that grotesque caricature of them which they have received from others who have never taken pains to examine them, and therefore know not whereof they affirm.
Let it be said, here at the outset, that these doctrines are all contained in the Sacred Scripture, however the carnal mind may fail to see them there. They are taught in that higher sense of Scripture which is above the natural man's discerning; for "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 13.) But they are clearly discernible by the spiritually-minded and unprejudiced, and their truth may be confirmed even by the letter of Scripture.
Why called "Heavenly Doctrines"?
They are called "heavenly doctrines," because they are believed and taught in heaven, and are sure to conduct to heaven all those who receive and live according to them. And since they are all contained in the heavenly sense of the Divine Word, and are that sense brought down or laid open to rational comprehension, therefore they are regarded by those who accept them, as a New Dispensation of religious truth, and are believed to be what is meant, according to the true spiritual interpretation of the apostle's vision, by "the holy city. New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven." For a city, spiritually interpreted, denotes a church in respect to its doctrine; and "the holy city. New Jerusalem," denotes that new and august system of doctrinal theology now revealed, whereby a New Christian Church is to be built up, or a new and heavenlier state of mind produced among the various churches and peoples on earth. This city was seen "coming down from God out of heaven," and thereby was represented, symbolically, the truth, that this new doctrinal system is not a mere human invention, but that it comes from the Lord out of heaven;—that it is such doctrine as is believed in heaven, and such as accords with all pure, exalted and heavenly states of mind, and actually comes down from the heavenly sense of the Sacred Scripture.
These doctrines therefore claim to be a new revelation,—not a Revelation to supersede the written Word, but to help us rightly to understand the Word; to unfold for us its deeper and true meaning, by means of which a purer and more heavenly state of life may be attained.
A Human Instrument necessary.
For this purpose a human instrument was needed; and such an instrument was provided in the person of Emanuel Swedenborg. This man, it is believed, was providentially raised up and prepared for his sublime mission, which was to lay open the spiritual meaning of God's written Word, and to reveal at the same time the grand realities of the spiritual world—the state of man after death, the time and manner of the last judgment, and the real nature of heaven and hell. He was not inspired as were those who wrote the Word, but he was illumined in an extraordinary degree. He was gifted with extraordinary spiritual insight. His spiritual senses (such is the claim) were opened, so that he was enabled to see and converse with spirits and angels as man with man, and to describe with accuracy and minuteness the condition of things in the spiritual world. At the same time his understanding was so illumined that he could discern the spiritual meaning of all he saw, as well as of all that is written in the Divine Word.
But Swedenborg's writings are to be regarded merely as human compositions. They are not, and do not claim to be, divinely inspired; for they are not written like the Sacred Scripture according to correspondences, and have no internal sense. They only claim to be a divinely-authorized exposition of the spiritual sense of Scripture, and a truthful disclosure of the facts, phenomena and laws of the spiritual world. And his teachings are to be accepted only so far as they commend themselves to one's rational intuitions; or so far as they seem to us reasonable and true, and in accordance with the revealed character, laws and will of God.
We proceed, now, to give a brief statement and explanation of the doctrines of the New Church, without attempting to prove them true. Our space will not admit of that. We ask the reader to give them a candid consideration;—to examine them in the light of Scripture and reason and human experience and the accepted laws of our mental and moral constitution, and of all that the best minds know or believe of the character of God and his government of the moral universe.