Benjamin Fiske Barrett

“ It cannot be denied, therefore, that this doctrine of the human form of heaven is good and wholesome in its practical tendency. And what stronger evidence of its truth could any one have or desire than this? No such beneficent results could flow legitimately from a doctrine which is itself false. "Of a bramble-bush men do not gather grapes" "neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." ”

“ Other creatures below man receive and enjoy lower degrees of life; but he alone can receive and enjoy this higher or heavenly life, because he alone is in the human form. And the more we receive of this life, the more truly human do we become in our thoughts, feelings, dispositions, and purposes; and the more faithfully do we express through our human form—by our looks, words, and actions—the love and wisdom which are the essential constituents of true humanity. For the most beautiful and perfect form is that which best expresses the purest and most exalted human love. ”

“ One life pervades them all, and each receives and enjoys that life in proportion as it respects and faithfully works for the good of the whole. The moment one ceases to do its work, or appropriates more than its share of the juices elaborated, or more than it needs to fit it for the performance of its appointed use, that moment comes disease—disease to itself and disease to all the rest. ”

“ Goods are of infinite variety, and they have their quality from truths. Hence the good becomes such as are the truths which enter. These truths are seldom genuine, but are appearances of truth,—and are also falsities, but still not opposite to truths; nevertheless when these flow in into good, which happens when the life is formed according to them from ignorance wherein there is innocence, and when the end is to do good, then such falsities are regarded by the Lord and in heaven not as falsities, but as bearing a resemblance to truths ”

“ For "the Word in its literal sense," we are told, "is like a man clothed, whose face and hands are naked. Everything in the Word, necessary to a man's faith and life, and also to his salvation, is naked; but the rest is clothed; and in many places where it is clothed, it is visible through the clothes." (T. C. R. 229.) And what is declared to be the primary and most essential doctrine of the New Church? Is it not that contained in the two great commandments which embrace the sum and substance of all that the Law and the Prophets teach? ”

“ When Swedenborg says that heaven is in the human form, he uses the word form in the sense in which we use it when speaking of civil, social, or ecclesiastical affairs. We speak of a form of government; but when such expression is used, no one thinks of any external or visible shape, but of the nature and adjustment of the various parts composing the government, and by means of which it is administered. A person who reads and understands the constitution or organic law of the State, sees therein its form of government. We speak, also, of the form of society in a particular age or nation ”

“ The doctrine further teaches that the most perfect union, harmony, peace, and good-fellowship are compatible with great diversity of character, rank, occupation, and office; that this diversity, indeed, renders the union and harmony all the more perfect when the different parts in the social body are duly adjusted, and one life pervades them all. It shows us that gradations of rank and character may exist without pride, disdain, or tyranny on the one hand, or envy, jealousy, or humiliation on the other ”

“ The more of true human life each member of a community receives, or the more each one suffers himself to be governed by the highest good and truth, the more orderly, industrious, united, healthy, and happy is that community. The more truly human does it become in its form, organization, and activities. ”

“ Can anything be more contrary to the teachings of the heavenly doctrines than such an assertion? Can we conceive of anything more unjust or more offensive to other Christians? Yet this committee, apparently without intending to do, or being aware that they were doing, anything especially unbecoming or heinous, justifies the Convention in its unjust and most unseemly attitude, and bids it hold on to the practical denial (by its rule and recommendations) of the right of any other religious bodies to the Christian ordinances or the Christian name. ”

“ But in the movement of the churches toward a truer charity, a grander catholicity, a larger liberty, and a higher unity, foreshadowing the ultimate attainment of a form of the church on earth akin to that of the church in heaven, it cannot be denied that the new organization, so far as it is faithful to the revealings it accepts, is leading all the others. ”

“ It is much easier and much more reasonable to believe that the worthy editor of the New Church Messenger has "erred in vision and stumbled in judgment," than to believe that the Lord ever makes a mistake in his choice of methods or agencies for the diffusion of truth given for the upbuilding of his kingdom on earth.
Was it not the Divine Providence that moved the heart of Mr. Iungerich to bequeathe a liberal sum for furnishing gratis to ministers and theological students some of the principal works of Swedenborg? ”

“ We may reasonably conclude that there are hundreds of thousands in the various Christian organizations, and doubtless many outside of all organizations, whose souls are open to the influx of the new light and life, and who are therefore in interior and blissful conjunction with the Lord, and in association with the New Heaven of angels. And if this conclusion is well founded, then the New Church of which Swedenborg speaks cannot be a visible body distinguished by its doctrines, but is wider and more comprehensive than any existing organization—as wide, indeed, as the Lord's kingdom on earth. ”

“ It shows us that there are innumerable kinds and degrees of good and truth in heaven, all derived from the infinity of the Divine Goodness; endless diversity of character and state even among the angels, and consequently a place somewhere in the abodes of the blessed for every one who has within him anything of the life of heaven, however humble in quality or limited in degree. ”

“ There are some who are in genuine truths, some who are in truths not genuine, and some who are in falsities. And yet they who are in genuine truths are often damned; and they who are in truths not genuine, and who are even in falsities, are often saved. This will appear strange to most persons, but still it is true. Experience itself has confirmed it. For there have been seen in hell those who were more learned than others in the truths derived from the Word and from the doctrine of their church, both dignitaries and others. ”

“ Is it not the ardent desire of most ministers of whatever denomination, that their people should obey the requirements of this fundamental doctrine? Their counsel and instruction in the way of help and guidance, may not be so wise or good as ours—for their light is not so clear and strong; but most of them counsel prayer, the belief in and the looking to Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer and Saviour, the reverent reading of the Word, and obedience to the commandments of the Decalogue. ”

“ The goods appertaining to men both within and without the church are altogether various; and so various that the good of one man is never in all respects like the good of another. The varieties arise from the various truths with which the goods are conjoined; for every good receives its quality from truths. . . . That this is so, may appear from the heavenly societies, which are innumerable, all and singular of which are various as to good and truth; yet taken together they form one heaven. ”

“ Unless thou ascend the mountain of God and there meet with Moses, unless thou ascend the lofty sense of the Law, unless thou reach the height of spiritual intelligence, thy mouth is not opened by God. If thou abide in the low plain of the letter, and do no more than make Jewish narratives of the historical text, thou hast not met Moses on the mount of God. ”

“ If the thousands of ministers who now receive the New-Church doctrines in a greater or less degree of fullness, and are quietly teaching them to their people, should openly say to their several congregations, "The doctrines we now believe and must henceforth preach, are not those formulated in the creed you have subscribed, but are the doctrines taught in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg," what would be the effect of such an announcement? ”

“ First, we are told that the Church on earth is or should be like the Church in heaven in respect to variety, or the diversity of its several parts.
"Heaven is a whole, composed of various parts arranged in the most perfect form; for the heavenly form is the most perfect of all forms, All perfection results from the harmonious arrangement of parts that are different. ”

“ We desire especially that the attitude of the organized New Church may no longer continue to be one of seeming antagonism or conscious superiority to other religious bodies, but rather one of modest self-appreciation, and kindly fraternal recognition of other Christians. There is little danger, we think, of becoming too broad in our sympathies, too catholic in our feelings, or too conciliatory in our disposition and attitude toward others. The danger, we submit, lies wholly in the opposite direction. ”

“ With respect to the Lord's kingdom on earth, that is, with respect to his church, the case is this: That, since it derives its doctrinals from the literal sense of the Word, it must needs be various and diverse as to those doctrinals; that is, one society will profess one thing to be a truth of faith, because it is so said in the Word; another society will profess another thing for the same reason and so on. Consequently the church of the Lord, since it derives its doctrinals from the literal sense of the Word, will differ in every different place ”

“ Think of these five thousand or more ministers voluntarily withdrawing from fields in which Providence has placed them, and where their services are so acceptable and so useful! And what shall they do after they have withdrawn? The organized New Church could not furnish a paying employment for half a dozen of them, and they would be compelled to seek some other occupation for which they have little or no fitness, as a means of livelihood. Surely no sane man, not even the editor of the New-Church Messenger, would advise any such unreasanable, such absolutely idiotic, course as this. ”

“ They long for some definite knowledge of the spiritual world, of the nature of heaven and hell, of the laws of the soul's higher life—a knowledge, in short, of that complete system of religious truth, of the very existence of which they are at present altogether ignorant. ”

“ They who belong to this heaven [the first or lowest] are all in the state of obeying or doing the truths and goods commanded in the Word, or in the doctrine of the Church in which they were born, or by their master or teacher from whom they have heard that this or that is true and good and consequently is to be done. The greater part of such persons are not in genuine truths, but are in falsities from ignorance; which falsities are nevertheless accepted by the Lord as truths, because they have for their end the good of life. ”

“ In the early part of his work on "Heaven and Hell"—a volume which contains more true spiritual philosophy than all other works ever written—Swedenborg says that heaven is in the human form. Not only every angel and every society of angels, but the entire angelic heaven, he assures us, is in this form; so that the angels viewed collectively, appear before the Lord as one man. ”

“ Swedenborg says:—
"A Christian [by which is meant every one who accepts the Christian religion] sees from the Word that God is one, that the Lord is the Savior of the world, that all good in itself good and all truth in itself truth is from God, and nothing from man; that Baptism is and the Holy Supper is; that there is a heaven and a hell and a life after death; and that he who does good comes into heaven, and he who does evil comes into hell." (A. E. 1180.)
Now, every one of these old doctrines believed and taught by the former Christian church, are reaffirmed in the New Church. ”

“ And another, who has been a receiver of the New-Church doctrines for more than forty years, writes:—
"Your 'Cloud of Independent witnesses' is a book worthy of all commendation. The arrangement, selections, and comments are all so good—no better could be made. The experience and testimony of so many educated men and independent and earnest seekers of religions truth are of the greatest value. ”

“ It is, that a minister who receives the heavenly doctrines should remain right where he is so long as his people are glad or willing to have him, and quietly teach the new truths as they are able to receive them—pursuing a straightforward, prudent, and judicious course, and making no mention of Swedenborg or the New Church until such time as he thinks he can do so without any disturbance in his society. ”