be attended with perception, and consequently with reception, in the mind of man, and this is not possible except in the natural principle of man. On the contrary, a faith which is merely natural, or which is deprived of its spiritual essence, is no faith, but only a persuasion or science, baving an appearance of faith in externals, but having nothing in it of a saving nature, in consequence of wanting spirituality in its internals. Such (says the enlightened messenger of the New Jerusalem) is the faith of those who deny the divinity of the Lord's Humanity: such was the faith of Arius; and such also is the Socinian faith; for what is faith without a limit or term of direction, but like an unbounded view, extending through the universe, where the sight of the eye, falling as it were into an empty void, is bewildered and lost? In short, faith directed towards an invisible God is actually blind, because the human mind doth not thereby see its God; and the light of such faith is like that of a glow-worm; whatever is seen by it, under an appearance of reality, is entirely visionary, and the mind is deceived by a mere semblance of existences.-It is to this source, therefore, that the prevailing naturalism and infidelity of the present times are to be attributed.-Very different, however, to this, is a faith directed towards the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ, Who, by reason of His being both God and Man, can both be approached and perceived in thought; and such a faith being once received in the heart abideth for ever: the vision, therefore, of this faith, is as when one looks on a bright cloud, and sees an angel in the midst thereof, inviting to come to him, that he may raise him up into heaven; for in such a manner does the Lord appear to those who have faith in Him, and do His commandments." And "when man imbibes the spiritual doctrines of the church, and by them restrains his freewill, he is withdrawn by the Lord from concupiscences and evil pleasures, until he finds delight in what is good, and detests what is evil:"+ and thus it is that a true faith will always produce goodworks; wherefore, when our Lord, in the 17th chap. of Luke,` is recommending good-works, or the works of charity to His disciples, they answered," Lord increase our faith!" thus acknowledging that faith is necessary to produce those works; and further acknowledging that the Lord alone hath power to increase their faith. The passage alluded to is as follows: "It is im possible" says our Lord, "but offences will come; but wo unto him through whom they come. It were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him: and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again unto thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith!" In the Gospel of Matthew, it is written, that when the Lord delivered these precepts, it was in consequence of the disciples enquiring, who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven; whereupon the Lord called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." From that internal sense of the Sacred Scriptures which is so luminously developed in the writings of the New Church, we learn that the spiritual import of the whole is, that internal "innocence is to be exalted above every other good, and that without it there can be no conjunction of life with the Lord: but that such conjunction is attainable in the degree that innocence is attainable, because the Lord is innocence itself, and therefore they who are in innocence are in the Lord, and the Lord in them; but they who reject innocence, separate themselves from the Lord and cast themselves into all infernal evils and falses therefore every natural affection which rejects the truth of innocence ought to be opposed and separated, since it is safer to be in simple good without genuine truth, than to know the truth and yet oppose it. In, like manner the natural thought of the understanding, which rejects innocence, ought to be discarded, since it is better not to know and apprehend the truths of faith, than to know and apprehend, and still to live a life of evil.”*_.. This is what our Lord means by what is here said respecting children, or little ones. For "with an infant innocence is in an external form, and innocence is the very human principle itself, for into it, as into a plane, love and charity flow-in from the Lord. During man's regeneration, the innocence of infancy, which was external, becomes internal; hence it is that genuine wisdom dwells in no other abode than in innocence; also that no one, * Clowes Matthew, Chap. xviii. unless he hath something of innocence, can enter heaven, according to the Lord's words, "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." For the celestial things that are of love are insinuated from first infancy to childhood and even to youth, at which time and afterwards man is imbued with sciences and knowledges; if the man be such as to be capable of being regenerated, those sciences and knowledges are filled with the celestial things which are of love and charity, and are thereby implanted in the celestial things with which he was gifted from infancy to childhood and youth, and thus his external man is conjoined to the internal, in which case he is an infant in the sense which our Lord meant, when he says, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."--Let it be noticed, however, that this implantation is effected of the Lord alone; wherefore nothing celestial with man is or can be given which is not from the Lord, and consequently, which is not the Lord's." + By what our Lord says respecting the rebuking and forgiving our repentant brother, man is taught that "he ought to imitate the divine mercy by exerting every possible means of reclaiming what is perverse either in himself or others, and for this purpose should exert the influence arising from Good and Truth combined; for Good and Truth combined have all power to introduce to heaven, being in connection with the divine omnipotence, and proceeding from the Lord's Divine Humanity, who is therefore continually present and operative in them, and who continually remits evil with those who desire its remission, thus instructing all who are of the Church, that is, who are principled in good and truth, that they also ought to remit to each other without end, because the debt which every one owes to the divine mercy is indefinite, and man is utterly incapable of discharging this debt by any thing merely from himself, or until he renounces his own proprium or self-hood, and acknowledges his inability, confessing in humility, that all he possesses is of the divine mercy;"+" for man hath no power against infernal evils and falses but what he derives from faith in the divine human of the Lord; by virtue of which faith, if grounded in any degree of heavenly good, the infernal love of self is cast out, and man has communication with the divine omnipotence."§ Clowes's Matt. Ch. xviii. & A. C. 4797. +Ib. Ch. xviii, & A. C. 1616. § Ib. Ch. xvii. And this is the faith alluded to in the words of the apostles, (Luke xvii.) "Lord, increase our faith!" From this explication, it is presumed that one principal tenet of the New Jerusalem Church is evidently confirmed, viz. "that faith without charity is not true faith, and charity without faith is not real charity; and that neither faith nor charity hath any life in it but from the Lord." "It is a true saying, therefore, that they are saved who have faith, because by faith, as the term is used in the Word of God, is signified love to the Lord and neighbourly love, consequently a life agreeable to such love; for doctrinals or tenets of faith are not real faith, but only appertain thereto, for every thing of that nature is for the sake of this end, to make man such as they teach him to be, according to our Lord's declaration, that the Law and the Prophets, that is, the universal doctrine of faith, consists in love to God and charity towards the neighbour." But mankind in general having lost all knowledge of the spiritual sense of the sacred scriptures, "cannot believe otherwise than that the works of charity consist solely in giving to the poor and helping the distressed, in which idea they are confirmed by the letter of God's Word; whereas the works of charity consist in doing what is just and equitable, each in his own office, or situation in life, from the love of what is just and equitable, and of what is true and good." ↑ The Church of England is therefore right, in her article on good works, where it is said that "Good works are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith, inasmuch as by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by the fruit." But that Church is not quite so clear in her thirteenth article, which is "Of Works before Justification." In that we are told, that "Works done before the grace of God and the inspiration of His spirit are given, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the schoolmen say) receive grace of congruity: yea, rather, (it is added) for that they are not done as God willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." Such is the doctrine of the Church of England; but this is what a member of the New Jerusalem Church would call a truth falsified; and the + Ib. 4783. * Ú. T. 355. + A. C. 2116. idea which it is intended to convey is much better expressed by the enlightened messenger of that Church, who observes, that " good works (so called) are in fact evil works, unless the things appertaining to self-love and the love of the world are removed; for when works are done before the removal of these things, they appear indeed outwardly good, but are inwardly evil; because they are done for the sake of self-pre-eminence, or for the sake of recompence; thus they are either meritorious or hypocritical, for the things appertaining to self-love and the love of the world give even to good-works such a nature and quality; but when these evils are removed, then the works become good, and are the goods of charity, there being nothing in them of self-respect, regard to the world, 'to reputation or recompence; thus they are neither meritorious nor hypocritical, for in this case celestial and spiritual love from the Lord flow into the works, and cause them to become love and charity in act; and then by them the Lord also purifies the natural or external man, and disposes it to order, that it may receive correspondently the celestial and spiritual things which flow in."* This is surely a more rational article than the former; and we may learn therefore how little reason any of us have to boast respecting works; for if mankind in general were to examine their own hearts impartially, they would find, perhaps, that all their apparent good works are too much tainted with these impure loves. Our Lord says, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you or to this sycamore tree, be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you." "A mountain here signifies the love of self and of the world, and a sycamore tree, the faith of that love, which is the faith of what is false derived from evil, and the sea signifies hell; wherefore by plucking up a mountain or sycamore tree through faith is signified to cast into hell those loves which in themselves are diabolical, and the faith of what is false derived from evil, all which can be effected only by faith in the Lord"+ operating in the motives and actions.-Each individual may here enquire, has this faith been operative in himself?-Has not every one reason to take up the words of the apostles, and make them his daily + Ap. Ex. 815. * A. C. 3147. |