Oliver Prescott Hiller

“ For, cheating, lying, fraud, deception, cunning, envy, jealousy, meanness, and a host of other evils, follow in its train; and these drag the soul down to destruction. They deprive it of everything spiritual, and of all love for what is spiritual: they shut the ears against preaching and the Word of God; they render the mind indifferent to everything but what is earthly and temporal: they make religion a mere form, and worship a mockery: they harden the heart against the entrance of every noble aspiration. ”

“ But the sin of falsehood is not confined to those; go through the whole world of business—in town and in country, wherein there is trading and dealing of one man with another—and witness, alas! the fraud and deception that are everywhere practised. See how the whole race is tainted with the foul pollution of falsehood—men selling their souls for a piece of money. The sin is rank, and, like the smoke of blood just shed, ascends to heaven. ”

“ Let no one call himself a Newchurchman who thus lives and acts. He may be constant in attendance on the services of public worship, he may read the Works of the Church and have his memory stored with their truths, so as to be able to talk eloquently of the beauties and glories of the New Dispensation: but it will all avail him nothing. He has "laid up his treasures on earth, not in heaven;" his truths are in his memory only, not in his heart; and "thieves will break through and steal them, and moth and rust corrupt them:" after death he will lose them all. ”

“ No man who keeps in mind the true end of his existence—namely, heaven and the life eternal—will permit himself to pass a single day without going to that Holy Word which is the guide-book to heaven, and refreshing his mind—if even but for a few moments—by perusing its sacred pages—reading a Psalm, or a portion of a chapter, and thus storing up in the treasure-house of his memory some gem of Divine truth which may be a light to him through the duties of the day. ”

“ Now, every man of principle, every man who has any religion, every man who is looking towards heaven, who knows and realizes what he is living for in this lower world,—who cares for the good of his fellow-men and his own eternal good and happiness—every such man is imperatively called upon to take his stand against this course of things. He must set his face firmly against this evil. And let him begin with reforming himself. Let him take care that there is no fraud or deception, no falsehood, open or disguised, in his own dealings. ”

“ If we are habitually indulging in any known evils, the love of self, the love of the world, the love of pleasure,—if we give way to angry passions, to the spirit of rage, of hatred and revenge,—if we are not continually striving to combat our evils, and continually examining ourselves, also, to know what our evils are—then we are idolaters at heart, whatever we may appear before the world, or whatever we may suppose ourselves to be. ”

“ The sparkle of quaint conceits they mistake for the brilliancy of genuine truth; and the gaudy dress of pompous words, they look upon as the expression of lofty thoughts. Such persons are self-worshipers: they are truly gods to themselves; or they are worshipers of the graven images which their own hands have made—that is, they love and admire above all things the ideas which, as they suppose, emanate from their own minds. ”

“ This is now the one true object of worship—Jehovah incarnate, Jehovah clothed with Humanity, the Lord earth, and there is no other: He is at once the Father and the Son, the Divine and the Human, in one glorified Person. Whoever beholds this Divine Person before his mind's eye, beholds the one true God; whoever looks to any other object than Jesus, and addresses it as God, is addressing a phantasy, a creature of his own imagination, a Being that has no existence,—and consequently he is not worshiping the true God. ”

“ Whoever is filled with the thought of himself, with self-esteem and self-admiration; whoever wishes to take the lead in all things, and to be first, and to subject others to his own will, is, in that degree, a worshiper of himself, and an idolater. And there is no doubt that much of the speculative atheism that prevails at this day is attributable to this source: for the fire of self-love in the heart, sends up a smoke into the understanding, which clouds it and shuts out the light of heaven, by which alone God can be mentally seen. ”

“ We must break up this evil habit; we must put this sin away from us.
And how is this evil to be overcome? like every other evil,—by combating it, by resisting it, when the tempter comes upon us—in no other way can it be overcome. We must watch ourselves, and stand ready to resist, as soon as the evil thought comes into our minds, and the unkind word to our lips. ”

“ Knowing that all men, at this day, are born with a greater or less degree of self-love and love of the world in their hearts, he feels the need of being on the watch against this hereditary tendency; and conscious of his own weakness, he never permits himself to go forth to the business of the day, without looking up in prayer to Him who alone is good and true, and who alone can stem the tide of temptation that presses from without and from within, and give strength to get the victory. ”

“ Think what it will be to reach the land of perfect peace—where no trials come, nor pains of body or of mind, where the skies are ever fair, and the palaces ever gleaming, and the paradises ever blooming; where love binds friends together in eternal union ”

“ We thus see, that Love and Truth, or what is the same. Goodness and Truth, are, as it were, the Father and Mother of all things. Love is the begetting principle, and Truth is the producing principle: by both conjoined is effected the work of creation.
But this truth may be seen still more distinctly, in the new creation or regeneration of man. The Lord, from his Divine love, is ever desiring to regenerate man, in order that he may be happy in heaven forever; yet that regeneration cannot be effected but by means of truth. ”

“ Before the incarnation, indeed, Jehovah, that is, the abstract, essential Divinity, was the Object of worship. But as the unclothed abstract Divine is invisible to man's mental sight, and inaccessible to the finite mind, men's minds were in comparative obscurity, and a shadow rested on the world. But when that Jehovah became incarnate, and appeared in the form of Jesus, then a light arose on mankind: "the people that sat in darkness saw a great light, and to those that sat in the region and shadow of death light sprang up." ”

“ If he for one moment withheld his flow of rationality into the mind, we should be idiots; if he for a moment ceased to pour the stream of love and kindness into the heart, we should be seized upon and carried away by all manner of evil passions; nay, if the influx of life itself ceased for an instant to come in from him afresh, we should fall dead to the ground. Such is the teaching of the New Church Doctrine, as derived from the Holy Word: "A man can receive nothing," says the Scripture, "except it be given him from heaven." ”

“ See how the sin of falsehood and deception runs riot there! How does the Lord look down and behold his Commandment broken every hour! We may judge what an age we live in, when truth, the guardian and preserver of all that is good and pure, is so little regarded. ”

“ Words come from thoughts, and thoughts spring from feelings. Where there is only love, and kind feeling in the heart, it is utterly impossible for a hard thought to enter the mind, or an unkind word to come from the lips. All this evilspeaking, then, is from an evil heart: there is the impure fountain: cleanse that, and the stream will be clear and pure. As it is written, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things. ”

“ To adulterate the good of the Word is still worse than to falsify its truth. To adulterate the good of the Word, is to make use of those holy teachings which command good actions, and turn them into a means of gratifying evil loves, as the love of riches and of power. ”

“ Let no man say, "My will shall be law in my household." A man's will should be law in no case whatever: the Lord's will should be law, and that alone: in other words, the right should prevail, and every one should give up his own will, and let the right be done: the endeavor of the spiritual man in every case will be simply and mildly to seek to ascertain what is right: for thus will the Lord's will be done, and all will be happy. The love of dominion, under the form of will or wilfulness, is one of the greatest disturbers of life, whether social, private, or public. ”

“ Such a man is truly foolish, because he sacrifices a great thing for a small one; because he throws away the happiness of a thousand millions of years to gain a little pleasure for threescore and ten, or perhaps for not half so long;—because for the sake of show, and vain-glory, and a little worldly pleasure just now, he is willing to lose the splendor and magnificence and myriad delights of the glorious world on high, which he might have enjoyed forever and ever. ”

“ Is it not worth while striving to be good, when goodness is to bring eternal happiness? Is it not worth while endeavoring to overcome our evils, when those evils are the only barriers to our entrance on these joys? ”

“ Whence comes the spirit that can prompt a man to commit so horrid a crime as to kill his fellow-man? Men were created to love each other, and do good to each other, and make each other happy. How can they, then, so pervert the purpose of their being, as to hurt and kill one another? ”

“ And by the command to honor it, that is, to respect and love it, is meant that we are to prize the Doctrines of the New Church, as the great means of our regeneration; that we are to love these truths, study them, and take heed to them in our lives and conduct. This is to honor our Mother. And to honor our Father, is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, in his Divine Humanity, as the one God of heaven and earth. ”

“ He there shows, that to kill is not merely to commit the outward act—but even to be angry with our brother or neighbor, and to have in our hearts that spirit which causes us to utter violent, malicious, and bitter words against him. Thus, we perceive, that the essential spirit of murder is hatred; and he, therefore, who cherishes or indulges within himself a feeling of hatred, malice, or bitterness towards any one, is just in that degree breaking this commandment—and though he may be unconscious of it now, he will know it after death. ”

“ If a murderer kill a man's body,—though he will injure himself by that wicked deed, yet, under the Lord's good providence, he may do his victim little real harm; for if the sufferer be a good man, his soul but takes its flight a little sooner to heaven. But he who kills a man's soul, destroys his happiness forever.
The means of killing men's souls are in any way to inspire into them evil thoughts and feelings, or to teach them false principles which will finally lead to evil, or to do anything which has a tendency to produce these results. A man is guilty of this sin. ”

“ All who are in evils as to life, and thence in falses, are homicides or murderers, for they are enemies and haters of goodness and truth; for evil hates good and the false hates truth: but an evil man does not know that he is in such hatred, till he becomes a spirit; in which case hatred is the very delight of his life. Wherefore from hell, where all the evil are, there constantly exhales a delight of doing evil from hatred ”

“ One who can deliberately go about traducing and defaming his neighbor, and seeking to destroy his character and good name, has in his heart that principle which might lead him at length, and under certain circumstances, to take his neighbor's life itself. ”

“ It may thus be seen that one of the most dangerous forms of taking God's name in vain, is to profane his Word. What will have become, then, of such men as Paine and Voltaire, who openly assaulted, contemned, and opprobriously treated that Divine Word which fills all heaven with its light, and which is the medium of conjunction with heaven? Though we are forbidden to pronounce upon any one's final state, yet we may presume that the effect must have been to shut heaven against them, and to cut them off from its communion. ”

“ When a man says "I will,'" all is over with him: he has given himself up to the dominion of internal spirits, and while he thinks he is master, he is actually himself the slave of invisible powers. He fancies he is having his own way, but it is their way he is having; they are urging him on, and ere long will bring him into difficulties. "He that committeth sin," said the Lord, "is the servant of sin." The truly spiritual man prays, of all things, to be protected against his own will; for he knows that his will is his proprium, and his proprium is evil. ”

“ But to swear by God and his holiness, or by the Word and Gospel, in the case of admission to any office, as at the coronation of a king, at inaugurations into the priesthood, or inductions into places of trust, is not to take the name of God in vain, unless he who takes the oaths afterwards disregards his engagements. The name of God, which is holiness itself, is moreover constantly to be used in the holy services of the church, as in prayers, psalms, and in all worship, and also in preaching, and in writings on religious subjects. ”

“ In a word, whoever, by word or deed, directly or indirectly, deprives another of truth or goodness, is chargeable with the sin of spiritual theft.
And now, in the last place, let us consider this Commandment in its highest or celestial sense. To steal, in this sense, is to take from the Lord; that is, to claim as our own what belongs to Him. Now, the truth is, that all our powers, mental and physical—all truth and goodness—nay, life itself,—are from the Lord and are every instant given by him. They are not our own, but are his in us. ”

“ However much a man may confirm himself in the belief that there is a God, from the Word, from preachings, from books, and from the light of reason, and may thence persuade himself that he believes,—nevertheless he does not believe, if the evils arising from the love of self and of the world are not removed. The reason is, because evils and their delights stand in the way and keep back the good affections and their delights which flow in from heaven, and thus intercept that internal confirmation which attends such influx ”

“ But when the work of regeneration is fully effected,—which, however, hardly takes place in this life,—when evils have all been overcome, and good has been conjoined to truth a thousand and a thousand times, by continual efforts to keep the Divine Commandments,—then at length man comes into the full Sabbath of the soul, the full conjunction of good and truth. ”