God to man, as well as the reconciliation of man to God, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, and partial election. On this last article of faith the author, to our surprise at this time of day, insists more than on any other; and on the ground of the comfort it affords! In speaking of the Lord as the Door of the sheep, he says, Many a soul is perplexed about the great doctrine of God's sovereign election, seeing it is certainly taught in the Word, but not understanding how full it is of comfort. The saying, 'I am the Good Shepherd,' will bring that truth before us; meanwhile, I only so far anticipate as to say, the 'sheep' are a definite number known to Christ, whom He chooses, redeems, feeds, and defends." Under the anticipated head the subject is again brought up. After another statement to the same effect, that "it is not the part of sheep to choose their shepherd, He fixes the number to which His flock shall extend, and selects each one who makes up that number," the author mentions the case of " a woman who was under deep concern about her soul's salvation, and one tried to help her by insisting that Christ had died for all, and therefore must have died for her. Out of the very depth of her agony she startled and instructed the well-meaning man by demanding, 'Have you nothing better to tell me than you might tell the lost in hell?' and it was a fair answer." How does the author show the fairness of the woman's answer? Thus. "The warrant of a sinner's faith is not to be found in a general view of the nature of the Atonement, but in Christ's explicit invitation. When we have obeyed that invitation and entered by Him, the Door, He tells us, for His glory and our infinite consolation, that our names were written in His Book of Life from the foundation of the world.'" That is to say, the sinner who enters through the Door hears the joyful tidings that he is one of the elect. But what help or consolation is this for those on the outside? The Lord's invitation is to all. What comfort is there in this unlimited invitation? All are invited, but all cannot come. We know the stereotyped answer. Christ does not invite us as elect and non-elect, but as lost sinners. We do not see that this alters the case. Only the elect can come. Ah, here is the comforting reply. Christ invites all, that the elect may hear and obey the call, and so enter and be saved,—and that the non-elect, by hearing and not obeying, may be condemned, not because they have not been elected, but because they have refused the call—which they had no power to obey, and which it was pre-determined they should not obey. It seems to us that any answer that can be given to agonized souls is likely to produce either presumptuous confidence or blank despair. That God could have saved all, but that of His own sovereign pleasure, without any respect to good or evil in the creature, He elected a certain number to everlasting life, and left all the rest to perish eternally, to the praise of His vindictive justice, is a doctrine which should be congenial and consoling to the lost in hell, since it shifts the cause of their sufferings from themselves to the Almighty; but what consolation it can afford to agonized sinners on earth we confess ourselves unable to comprehend.

6

Miscellaneous.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. Under quite willing to admit him into their

this title the English Independent of May 25th gives a review of Mr. Gorman's new translation of Swedenborg's "De Commercio Animæ et Corporis." The writer claims to be " 'among those whose respect for Swedenborg as a reformer of the current materialistic Rationalism of his day stops short of recognition of his prophetic character as the founder of the Church of the New Jerusalem" a view of Swedenborg's relation to the Church of the New Jerusalem as accurate as it would be to speak of John the Baptist as the founder of Christianity. The writer admits, however, the value of Swedenborg's teaching respecting the soul and the spiritual body, and gives the following account of the influence which this teaching is slowly exercising on the minds of thoughtful and inquiring

men :

ranks, or to accept him as an ally. And yet it is to Swedenborg more than to any one else that we owe the discovery of the exact relation of the soul to the body, on which is founded the true interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. According to the Cartesian, or rather Platonic, theory of an immortal soul united to a mortal body, and the two acting together by what Leibnitz described as a pre-established harmony, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is, and ever must be, a stumblingblock. It was Swedenborg who taught, almost in the apostle Paul's language, that the body is the soul's vesture. What is spiritual,' he says in chapter ix. of this work, 'clothes itself with what is natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment.' Compare this with the Apostle's statement: 'We know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' On this subject Mr. Gorman aptly quotes a remark of the Duke of Argyll, in his

"Instead of a small section of followers who claim him as inspired, and a large class of the indifferent world outside, whether philosophers or theologians, who roundly describe him as insane, there is springing up a middle class who accept many of his thoughts Reign of Law.' 'The Christian docas valuable contributions to the in- trine of the resurrection of the body,' terpretation of Scripture, but who are says the Duke, 'sanctions and involves unable to follow him in his imaginary the notion that there is some deep dialogues with dead and departed connection between spirit and form persons-in a word, who admit his which is essential, and which cannot be spiritual insight, but not foresight. finally sundered even in the divorce of He had struck out a sound system of psychology, and lifted, for the first time, the true theory of the soul as the formative principle of the body out of the rut of commonplace into which the later school of Cartesianism had brought it down. Considering that spiritual philosophy, as it was then called, had worked the vein out of Leibnitz and Wolf, and that the ten- It is pleasant to see intelligent and dency of thought was steadily setting thoughtful men thus far admitting the in the contrary direction of materialism, authority and guidance of our great under the leadership of Hartley, and author, and we quarrel not with the the French school of sensationalism, the position they assume in regard to him. services of Swedenborg to spiritual They that are not against us are for philosophy cannot be over-estimated. us." Increased attention to his writIndeed, as we think, they have been ings, and a fuller study of the facts of too much under-estimated. Neither his experience, will remove any lingerphilosophers nor theologians have been ing suspicion that he occupied

death.' 'There cannot be such a thing,' says Swedenborg, as a body without a soul, or a soul without a body. That a soul can exist without a body is an error which flows easily from fallacies, for the soul of every man is in a spiritual body after it has cast off the outward covering which it had carried about with it in the world!""

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the

border-land between sanity and in- year of 1876 might live to witness Him sanity.' Swedenborg's account of the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of himself is the only rational solution of his case, and must, we are satisfied, be in the end accepted by every student of his writings.

God, the Crucified of the Earth-coming in power and great glory. The poor old gentleman at Rome was constantly complaining of his aches: evidently matters with him must be in a desperate state. OPINIONS OF LITERARY MEN RE- That miserable dog, the Turk, was now SPECTING SWEDENBORG. (From the going to the dogs. The rev. doctor New Jerusalem Messenger.)-In some cited to a considerable extent from of the literary circles of London, says recent communications in regard to the correspondent of the Chicago Times, Jerusalem, and declared that even in the Swedenborg is much talked about. Mr. newspapers of the day it was stated that Carlyle, having looked upon the great the Jews were trying to restore the seer all his life as a visionary lunatic, Temple thrown down eighteen centuries now says he stands rebuked. He looks ago. It had been declared that Jeruupon him as one of the loftiest minds in salem could be made the healthiest the realm of mind; one of the spiritual capital in the world. Christians believed suns that will shine brighter and that Jerusalem was to be one day rebrighter as the years go on; and that stored to be the beauty of the whole more truths are compressed in his writ- earth. The rebuilding of the Temple ings than that of any other man. His and the Jews going back to Palestine great prescience with regard to modern were sure signs of the times. He was scientific discoveries, since made known, certain that we were on the eve of the is astonishing. And the most impor- great and entire destruction of the tant of all subjects, the one that to-day Papacy, the waning utterly and for ever is enlisting the largest amount of atten- of the Crescent, the return of the Jew tion-psychology-finds no deeper or to his own land, and lastly, the time more rational solution from any other writer. The same correspondent also says of Mr. Gorman's "Christian Psychology," that it is one of the most valuable additions lately made to the literature of the subject, and after giving a brief sketch of its contents, adds: "Swedenborg's system, as Mr. Gorman points out, is truly rational and pre-eminently Christian. To any one who will study it carefully, it will clear the mind of a great number of perplexities, and at the same time prepare the mind for yet higher truths, which border upon the region of the supernatural."

when this great country of ours should lift up its head, and old England would echo with the cry, "Glory to God in the highest; peace and good-will to all men."

It can excite little surprise that these vagaries are regarded not merely with distrust but positive dislike by the religious journals of the day, some of whom have leaders to controvert them. The Church at large is awakening to a sense of the utter inadequacy of such teaching as an exposition of the sublime prophecies of the Word of God.

SPIRITUALISM AND THE NEW CHURCH. -In our April number we noticed a correspondence on this subject in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES.-Dr. Cumming Nonconformist newspaper. In an article has been endeavouring to enlighten the on Spirit Life," in a subsequent issue Protestant Reformation Society of Shef of the same paper, the question is again field on this subject. He has detailed introduced. In the course of his rehis long cherished opinions on the marks the writer says, "We are glad to literal fulfilment of prophecy, and shown take this opportunity of disavowing any his usual dexterity in applying passing intention of casting a slur upon so political changes to their confirmation. excellent a body as the New Church"He believed the Jews would be soon men, who in regard to matters of in Palestine from all over the world, but primary importance in religion are, it is they would not sell Jesus as their fore- hardly necessary to state, as far removed fathers had done they would sing from spiritualism as any other denominapraises to Him. Some of his hearers might be gathered to the silent tomb before then, but some now living in this

tion of Christians and moreover, as a body, are distinctly in antagonism to any communing with 'familiar spirits.'

A candid perusal of our former paper will make it evident that we wrote with as much respect for Swedenborg as with scorn for the religion of the Spiritualists. But," continues the writer, "the just ness of the parallelism pointed out between some doctrines of the Spiritualists and Swedenborgians is confirmed by the bulky volume just issued, and called Angelic Revelations, concerning the human spirit given by the angel Purity, known on earth as Teresa Jacoby.'

The parallelism between the New Church and the Spiritualists is the same as between the Word, and all sincere believers of the Word, and the Spiritualists: it is the belief in the possibility of open intercourse with the inhabitants of the unseen world, and in the fact that such intercourse has taken place, which no believer in the Bible can possibly deny. That professed New Churchmen should give themselves to spirit manifestations is much to be regretted, but the New Church as a body is no more responsible for these disorders, than is any other Christian community, some of whose members are ensnared in the same useless pursuit.

INAUGURATION OF THE REV. W. BRUCE AS AN ORDAINING MINISTER.This interesting service took place at Palace Gardens New Jerusalem Church, Kensington. The Rev. Dr. Bayley was the officiating minister. Ministers from all the Societies in and around London were present, and stood to the right and left of Mr. Bruce as presenting and supporting him. Suitable hymns were sung. There was an attendance of friends from every part of London, and the service was felt to be a most impressive and edifying one. It was closed by a sermon from the new Ordaining Minister.

the press generally, the distinctive doctrines of the denomination. The business of the meeting consisted in the reception of the reports of the retiring committee, and the election of officers for the ensuing year. Previously to the meeting, tea was served in the schoolroom adjoining the Church, of which several of the friends partook. On assembling for business, Mr. Austin (the minister of the Church) took the chair, and was supported by several leading New Church friends in London. In a few preliminary remarks the chairman sketched the origin and objects of the Society. In 1824, he said, on reference to the New Church Almanac, he found that on this day in that year, the late Rev. Manoah Sibly was presented with a silver cup, in token of the respect and affection in which he was held by a large body of his friends, and allegorising this fact, he (the chairnıan) would say that the work of the New Church, and of this Society in particular, was to present the silver cup-a vessel suitable to hold the pure truths of the Bible-to those who were worthy and willing to receive it. What they were in want of was a coherent form of doctrine-a system of interpretation that would explain the beauty and harmony of the Divine Word; and this the New Church was ready to give. Their work was, he held, eminently constructive; in short, it was the insemination of truths which in God's own time would bring forth the fruits of righteousness.

The minutes of the last meeting having been read, the chairman called upon the retiring secretary, Mr. R. Jobson, to read his report. A considerable interest was awakened by the increasing operations set forth in the report, which showed that the Society was quite worthy of the support it has always received. Salisbury, Horncastle, Stepney, Chatteris, Northampton, St. Ives, LONDON MISSIONARY AND TRACT Ipswich, St. Osyth, Bath, Lowestoft, SOCIETY (From the South London Press). Harrogate, King's Lynn, Bristol, Cam-On Wednesday, May 31st, several of bridge, &c., had been visited by means the members of the New Jerusalem of the society. Eleven thousand books Church in London, better known as had been printed, 8,644 vols. had been Swedenborgians, met together at the issued, besides leaflets and tracts, showchurch, situate in Flodden Road, ing a considerable increase over last Camberwell, to celebrate the annual year. The income of the Society for the meeting of the Missionary and Tract past year amounted to £569, 10s. 6d., of Society. This Society was instituted in which £247, 14s. 5d. was for subscrip1822, to propagate, by means of qualified tions. A selection of the books of the missionaries, of tracts, of books, and of Society had been offered to fifty-three