cal not to perceive, even if he does not directly mention, the wide gaps which a positive atheism would leave in his own philosophy. What is the origin of the difference between his living and his not living protoplasm? (p. 137). What are the "subtle influences" to which dead protoplasm, in the form of food, is subjected in his "curious inward laboratory?" (p. 133). Whence is that "volition which counts for something as a condition of the course of events" (p. 145), and that "power of self-adjustment" which we possess? (p. 340). What is the conscience to which he evidently refers (upon p. 69) as "love of right and hatred of wrong, and which education is only to develop, not produce?" Whence are love and all human affections? Surely he cannot mean that all these are simply the result of molecular changes, even though, like thought and muscular contraction, they may be concomitant therewith. If he does mean all this, he could and should state it in clearer language than he has hitherto done. 66 Professor Huxley is then a deist," because he cannot make the facts of science agree with the literal sense of Scripture, and has not learned that there is an internal spiritual sense with which all science is in strict accord. He is not an "atheist," if we may take his own express statement, and the opinion of a zealous churchman, the Duke of Argyll. Whether or not he is a "materialist” depends upon the signification of that very indefinite term and the interpretation of his own language. But were he all three of these, and were his scientific teachings false in the main, instead of true, and were he more hated than loved by those who know him best, even then his keen sense of right and wrong, as evinced in "Emancipation, Black and White," and his scorn of the cruel sophisms used by the advocates of Governor Eyre, whom he publicly denounced, would make us hesitate long before expressing a doubt as to the good influence of his writings. Whatever his faith may be—and of faith it may well be said, "A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked"-he at least means to live according to it. "The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who will close with me (p. 340): my ideal is one whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself" (p. 35). Surely religion need fear nothing from one who honestly utters such sentiments; least of all can his "materialism," whether real or ap parent, injure those who accept the following statement concerning the relation of the Creator and the universe : : Everything in nature owes its origin and cause to something in the spiritual world. The influx of the Lord is use, which is prior to the organical forms intended to effect use. All the conatus or endeavour of nature is from the perpetual influx of the Lord; thus from influx is derived conatus, from conatus energy or force, and from energy effect; and if the influx of the cause should cease for a moment the effect would instantly perish. Doubts concerning the influx of all life from one fountain cannot be removed while men are persuaded by the fallacies of the senses. Man can learn nothing of the divine from nature, but only from revelation." This last would indicate that there is really no such thing as natural theology in the strictest sense; but rather that with those who were early taught to acknowledge a God, nature may furnish confirmation and illustration. This is most emphatically the case with Professor Agassiz, for whom the "facts of nature proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love." Let us hope that, with all his reluctance to believe more than he can see, Professor Huxley is on the path to the same conviction. We know that with every step in that direction the clear gray of science becomes a golden light, in which the interior laws which govern matter appear more and more plainly in their true connection, as material expressions of divine order. SWEDENBORG AND HARRIS. THAT peculiarity of mental vision, which has led Mr. Berridge to charge me with misquoting "sensation" for "affection," when in reality the latter word was the one in the Magazine before him, has also induced other misconceptions, which are certain ultimately to do harm, if allowed to go unquestioned. It cannot be doubted but that many an earnest student of Swedenborg and Harris is at times perplexed by the appearance of some statement in the one irreconcileable with statements in the other; wherever this takes place in matters of doctrine, faith is sure to lose a portion of its strength, and the Church be deprived of some humanizing benefit. Indeed, it is susceptible of proof that only too often Swedenborg becomes gradually subordinated to the other, and then, after a little while, the Scriptures themselves cease to exercise any real spiritual attraction. There is a stream of doctrinalism running through Mr. Harris's writings, which many feel is far better suited to their mental states than the teachings of the Word itself; there is an egotism, warmth and sensuousness veiling erroneous doctrine, and yielding a flattering gratification to man's mixed nature; finally, there is internal respiration with his followers, as there is election with those who build their faith on the language of Paul in his epistle to the Romans. Mr. Berridge says that with the exception of the doctrine concerning the existence of evil on the other orbs, he does not know of any important doctrine of Harris that is contrary to those of Swedenborg. This has often been said by those who read Swedenborg in the dreamy effeminating atmosphere of the other. In replying to Mr. Berridge's remarks, however, purpose putting the fact beyond question, that while certain declarations of Harris are such as in the aggregate nullify volumes of Swedenborg's writings the general tendency of the former's works is to subvert Sweden I borg's authority altogether, and to make the present New Church organization an object of ridicule and contempt. To Mr. Berridge's strictures, seriatim, then,-merely premising that from a literary point of view no one has a heartier admiration of some of Harris's writings than I have myself; that for opulence of thought and delicacy of sentiment some of his poems -especially "The Lyric of the Golden Age"- —are without a rival; and that it seems to me a great pity that his followers, by an ascription of something like plenary inspiration and infallibility to such writings, should have repelled from their study the very people best able to appreciate their peculiar merits. (1). Spirit-lore in relation to Swedenborg and Harris. That of the former is from personal intercourse mainly; that of the latter is generally mediumistic. Here is the reason why I classed Harris and Davis together, although I pointed out a generic difference between these two, for I identified the one with spiritualism and the other with spiritism. In point of reliability there is as much difference between their teaching and that of Swedenborg, as there is between the reports of one who tells chiefly from hearsay and the reports of an eye-witness. "Through T. L. Harris," appears upon the title-page of most of this author's writings; "Through A. J. Davis," follows the headings of several of the other's books; "By Emanuel Swedenborg" was our Scribe's way, when he cared to put his name at all. Surely the distinction is as important in a theological work as in a scientific one, yet what the effect should be with the latter, the reader can readily imagine. In the one case you know something of the author's character and mode of regarding things; in the other you are at a difficulty to know the real authors at all: 66 'When summer clouds went wandering o'er the stream The rapid speech, trance-spoken truly penned."1 But if your female amanuensis made an erroneous statement, who is to detect it, seeing that you were in a trance? Does it conduce to doctrinal certitude, to learn that on a certain date "the archetypal ideas were internally inwrought by spiritual agency into the inmost mind of the medium, he having passed into a spiritual or interior condition," and that “fed by continual influxes of celestial life, these archetypal ideas internally unfolded within his interior or spiritual self, until at length, having attained to their maturity, they descended into the externals of the mind, uttered themselves in speech, and were transcribed as spoken by the medium ?" When, in addition to all this, it is found that the mediumistic communications proceed from unseen beings not higher than the spiritual-natural plane of angelic life, then the difference between "through" and "by" becomes immense. In reply to this section, it is only necessary to add further that Harris, in denying the existence of evil upon other orbs than our own 1 Harris, Lyric of the Morning Land, p. 3. 2 Lyric of the Morning Land, p. 171. Both volumes of the "Arcana of Christianity" are 'through" T. L. Harris. 66 earth, stands in direct opposition to Swedenborg-see especially the treatise "Earths in the Universe;" and the intercalary chapters on the same subject in the "Arcana Celestia." (2). Here Mr. Berridge asks,-Where is the profanity of speaking of the Lord as "the Infinite Mother-Woman?" The profanity is in this : I. It destroys that very principle of Church life which our Lord's incarnation was intended to effect. That God was not visible before He assumed the humanity, the Lord Himself teaches in John : "Ye have neither heard the voice of the Father, nor seen His shape" (v. 37). And in Moses, "No man can see me and live” (Ex. xxxiii. 20); but that he is seen by His humanity is declared in John: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (i. 18). And again, "Jesus saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me; if ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also; he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (xiv. 6, 7-9). That conjunction is effected with the invisible God by him who is visible, that is, by the Lord, he himself teaches in these words, " Abide in me, and I in you; he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” (John xv. 4, 5); when Swedenborg quotes the Word thus, and at the same time affirms that the conjunction spoken of "must be effected in the thought" of the New Churchman, and "so in the affection of his love, and that such conjunction is produced when a man thinks of God as a Man (T. C. R. 787),—it seems evident enough that we have no warranty for this doctrine of an Infinite Mother-Woman. II. The profanity is also in this, that the idea nullifies the scriptural and veritable heart-doctrine of the Church, as the bride, the Lamb's wife. "I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband" (Rev. xxi. 2). "Thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isa. liv. 5). "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD, for I am married unto you" (Jer. iii. 14). "My covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the LORD" (Jer. xxxi. 32). "I will betroth thee unto Me for ever” (Hos. ii. 19). "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints" (Rev. xix. 7, 8). III. The profanity goes still further than this, for it is in distinct contradiction with the central fact of the revealed doctrines of the New Church, wherein we are told that "the Divine Esse is Jehovah, because He alone is, was, and will be; and because He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega" (T. C. R. 19); and also that there is a distinction to be made between what is prior and what is posterior; and that it is to the Divine Esse that infinity and eternity are referable, while it is to the Divine Essence that love and wisdom are applicable (T. C. R. 21). Will is prior to affection, intellect is prior to thought; we must therefore go beyond the concept of the Divine Essence for the doctrine of what the Supreme Being inmostly is, and thus to find Him the Alpha and Omega, the Divine Man, Jehovah. The theology of Harris starts short of this central, inmost fact of the Divine Nature, and yet affirms of Essence what logically can be predicated only of Esse. Planes are thus confounded at the very outset, and all the conclusions are vitiated as a consequence. IV. This doctrine of the Infinite Mother-Woman is also profane in that it makes Church organization impossible among men who feel they can enter intellectually into the things of faith. Theodore Parker affirmed it,1 and for a time the genius of a man great in exceptional characteristics held a congregation together; but when he died, that congregation was found to be "bricks without mortar" and dwindled down to the most insignificant dimensions; and he has no imitators; he could found no New Church on the older Unitarianism. So again with A. J. Davis,―he, despite his teachings respecting "God, Mother, Father," has never been able to organize. Mr. Harris's "Brotherhood of the New Life" is itself, so far, another proof of the disintegrating effects of an idea which, in confounding planes, paralyses aspiration. Instead of organizing it has done its best to subvert our present system of New Church congregationalism, yet unable to substitute a different one, either here or in America; its leaders have devised a new kind of monasticism and—retiring to the solitudes of Lake Erie, there, probably3 to provide materials for some future tragical "Blithedale Romance"--have thrown off the hero-spirit; when, had the martyr-courage of vital Christianity possessed them, they would have stayed amongst those oppressed whose evils they deplored; would have sought to strengthen the hands of those anxious to raise humanity; ay, and if in truth a Brotherhood of the New Life, would have counted it but small cost to lay down the body if need be, as disciples of HIM who did so, that self-renunciation might become a living possibility. (3). Had the Vision of the Lamb been merely a vision, Mr. B. would have been justified in charging me with misquoting: but not only does the personage who tells of his welcome into "the sunrise home of Seraphim" sing "I am Transformed into a snow-white lamb, A little lamb, but pure and white. Celestial meadows greet my sight" (p. 40), but he also makes the following statement, which the reader will see is one not of description but of doctrine: 'In these resplendent spheres Each new-born angel like a lamb appears. The Lamb of God, the Infinite Innocence, Is Lord and Master here. Thought, motion, sense, 1 See the invocations here and there in his published collection of prayers. 2 See especially "A Stellar Key to the Summer Land," vol. i. p. 56 and 65. 3 See Robinson's "Recipient," i. pp. 556-562. The community consists of about sixty members, besides children. |