NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE.

No. IV.

DECEMBER, 1827.

For the New Jerusalem Magazine.

CONVERSATIONS.-NO. I.

PHEDON. You do me injustice, Nicenus, in supposing that I consider you given up to delusion. Your religious principles are not altogether such as I approve, but, such as they are, I would not disturb your conviction of their truth and reality, did I not believe you might be led to others of more value.

NICENUS. You would have me change my religious faith, and learn, what you call, these new truths, proper to a new dispensation. Must not all I believe now be abandoned if I listen to you? Do I not hold to the faith of my fathers? You call me calvinist and orthodox: I do not assume these names, neither will I refuse them. I do not follow, with blind zeal, any footsteps; and if I am not dreadfully self-deceived, I believe in no other infallibility but that of His Word, who is holy and true. As to the doctrines of election and predestination, I am content to say that the bible asserts them, and I believe them; but I do not see how they can affect my conduct, and I let them alone. But there are other tenets which I also believe, and of which I cannot speak as of these. I ought to hold to my faith in them, for I trust it has not been useless to me, and I know that I have no hope which it does not supply. Your objections to my creed, for what you term its indistinctness and unintelligibleness, would have more weight if there were any thing perfectly intelligible. The wind cannot cast at your feet a withered leaf, whose whole nature and mode of being you could any more explain, than I can the most perplexing mysteries of faith.

VOL. I.-NO. IV.

13

PHEDON. But you seem to regard the new church as another sect taking its place among those who are now warring with each other. You suppose we advance pretensions to a knowledge, from which you have turned away, as loving error better; and that, standing on a common ground with the whole christian church, we claim to have used with more success than others, the means of religious instruction which were common to all. This is not the case. We believe that a new dispensation of truth has been and now is given; we believe this, strictly, literally; just as we believe, with all christians, the reality and truth of the first christian dispensation. You are a calvinist; and though you have personal good will and esteem for our friend Gorgias, here, yet you cannot but remember that he has chosen unitarianism, which is the very antagonist system to your own; and you each feel that each has rejected the faith to which the other cleaves. Now I feel that the question is yet to be settled, whether either of you will reject my system. It is hereafter to be offered you. The inclination of your tempers has carried the one of you to unitarianism, the other to orthodoxy. True, you do not believe the doctrines of the new church; but this is not because you refused to believe, but because you knew not there were such to be believed or rejected. Must we not necessarily expect to find, in the pious and sincere of every sect, those who will gladly learn doctrines which illustrate and confirm all that is indeed of value to them; all that they indeed understand and believe and know? Have I explained, at all, the relation which we suppose the new church to bear to all existing sects of the primitive christian church?

I

NICENUS. I do not know but I understand and yet you; cannot believe that I do. The wildest vagaries of sectarianism can hardly astonish any one, who knows the history and state of the christian church; but I find it difficult to realize, that men of ordinary sense, who are thought competent to common employments, should seriously believe that this present time is marked by a new dispensation from God! If Gorgias, were to say so, it might be less unaccountable; but for you, Phædon, who are no unitarian, who profess to believe that in Jesus Christ dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; for you to say that after this there needs yet be another dispensation, another advent,-I can neither understand nor credit it. If the solemn and mysterious circumstances, related in the gospel, did not belong to the final consummation of divine dispensations, what can constitute such a consummation? And what event has occurred, within the last half century, of magnitude so stupendous, of awfulness so unimaginable, as to be a proper sign that the heavens were again. bowed, and that He who spread them had again come to earth?

PHEDON. Nevertheless, we do fully and unreservedly believe that to this generation a new dispensation is given; that, in the language of prophecy, the city of God, the New Jerusalem, is now coming down from God, out of heaven. Whether there be good cause for this dispensation, or good evidence of it, are questions we will consider presently. Let me now ask you why you think it impossible?

NICENUS. I am not ready to say it is impossible; but how can it be thought necessary? Why is it? You admit that in what you call the primitive christian church, truths are given which are quite sufficient to make wise unto salvation whoever will profit by them. Now do you mean that there is any thing more than salvation, or that the truths which are now placed within man's reach are armed with a power to compel salvation? Does this dispensation contradict the first christian? I understood you to say it does not. Why, then, is it needed? Not to make more clear or certain the scheme of man's salvation, for we know that it is now perfectly obvious to them who will open their eyes, and filled with persuasion to all who will listen.

If God is

day withThat the

GORGIAS. To me, too, you seem to suppose something quite superfluous; though I do not think so for exactly the same reasons as those which bring Nicenus to this conclusion. perfect in love and in wisdom, has he left men to this out the truths necessary for their eternal welfare? operations of divine Providence, in enlightening the human mind, are progressive, I well know. But where is the particular need, at this time, of a special interposition? That doubt and darkness prevailed for ages, is certain; that the simplicity of gospel instruction was corrupted, and much error mingled with the truth, I of all men, should not deny ; but a change has been taking place, and not very slowly or silently, which, if it be but uninterrupted, must accomplish all that can be desired, though it receive no new force. Human reason is now freeing itself from bondage, and rapidly advancing; and at every step of its progress, its activity becomes greater and its direction more true. Soon will reason be wholly unshackled, and able to exert her proper energies and do her proper work without hindrance or obstruction from fear, prejudice, custom or authority. Then, even our friend Nicenus will read the scriptures for himself; and not, by a blinding love of system, or a slavish deference to name, suffer his usual sagacity and good sense to fail him, where he most needs their unencumbered help.

PHEDON. Need I remark how effectually you answer each other? You both urge that this special interposition of Providence is unnecessary; and you urge it on the ground of the sufficiency of already existing instruction. Now, each undertakes to

prove the sufficiency of this existing truth, by shewing that it is enough to lead a rational and honest mind, with conclusive certainty, to a set of opinions which the other regards as the extremity of error. And this is not the case with you two only; but just in this way is every one of the countless sects in christendom, arrayed against all others. Hereafter we may look at this fact more particularly. Is not the suggestion of it enough to shake your certainty of the superfluousness of any further gift from divine wisdom? Look around you, and reflect a moment upon what you see; then say, are you still sure, that because God has never left himself without witness in the world, it would be neither wise nor good in Him to give to man other means or measures of religious knowledge, than those, the use of which, for eighteen hundred years, has brought the religious world into its present condition? As to the argument against the necessity of further instruction, which you both draw from the sufficiency of the instruction already given, think, one moment, what it amounts to. If it is certain that there is no new dispensation of truth, because, if valuable, the truths would have been given by divine goodness before, then either the christian dispensation taught no new truths, or else the truths it taught were of no value; because, according to your argument, all truths of value and power were in the beginning communicated by God, and have been always preserved in full security. Recollect, I do not urge these considerations as sufficient to satisfy you of the certainty or even the probability of the event we believe to have happened,—but simply as affording a reason for not regarding it as impossible.

GORGIAS. I could better determine the probability or possibility of a new dispensation of truth, if I knew better what you meant by that expression. It is frequently used; and when applied to the law given to Moses, I understand it to mean instruction given by God concerning his unity and sovereignty; when applied to the founding of the christian church, I suppose it used with reference to the proofs and knowledge of a future life, then communicated. Do you mean, that new truths, like these, in point of importance, are now given? The knowledge of God and of the resurrection are so common, we can hardly tell what we should be without them. A little reflection, however, shews us, that a man to whom this knowledge has not come, is, in his moral and intellectual nature, a totally different being from him who, possessing these truths, has profited by them. Now, do you mean to say, that any new truths have lately come to light, capable of producing such an illimitable effect as these? What was Swedenborg? Was he a prophet? Are his works an addition to the bible? Upon his authority do you receive the truths which constitute your new dispensation?

PHEDON. We place no bounds to the importance and efficacy of those truths, which we think are now unveiled. We certainly do believe that they will produce upon man, as an intelligent and a moral being; upon the human character, under whatever circumstances displayed; upon the condition of man, every where, in time and beyond time,-a change alike unprecedented in extent and in kind. As to the manner of this dispensation, let me say only this: Swedenborg was no prophet, nor do we trust to his authority as to that of inspiration. He was wise, and all wisdom is from Him who alone is wisdom; and all created existences are so bound together, that each one is an instrument by and through whom infinite wisdom and power acts on all others. We regard Swedenborg as peculiarly and eminently an instrument of the Lord in teaching those truths, the time for communicating which had come. In his works, the elementary truths, the first principles of this new knowledge, may be found. But other persons may be, and have been, and are, and doubtless will be, instruments in communicating the truths of the new church. All this may seem to you passing strange; but again I ask, is it impossible?

GORGIAS. No, not impossible.

PHEDON. I would rather you should not give the word quite that emphasis. You say it is not impossible, much as if you meant it were but little more than within possibility.

GORGIAS. You could hardly expect me to say, at once, that I think it probable.

PHEDON. No. But I wish you to find out and know whether it be true. I wish you to judge truly of the evidence which may determine this question; and therefore I would not have you begin the inquiry with a fixed conviction that it is impossible. The effect of such a predetermination, upon the judgment, I need not suggest to you.

NICENUS. What have we gained, when we admit that the event you declare is truly possible. Surely you would not require us to believe that it had happened, without evidence; nor would you, if you indeed wish us to form an opinion, freely and rationally, desire that we should be satisfied by evidence which did not correspond, in force and distinctness, to the infinite importance of the transcendent fact which is to be believed on its testimony. Now where is there such evidence. Look at the proofs granted to the Jews. I speak not of the miracles of Egypt; of the sea which opened its waves for them, and closed in ruin on their enemies; of the food which sustained, or the fire and cloud which led them through their wanderings. But when God came to deliver them their law, he descended upon Sinai in fire; the mountain quaked, and its smoke went up as from a furnace; and clouds