New Church

“ The proclamation of the Second Coming of the Lord through the opening of His Word, the salvation of mankind through the power of the Lord in truth intellectually wielded, the presence of God face to face with man in the tabernacle of His Word, a heretofore unknown sanctity of His love in the heart, make the New Church different internally from any former church, and oblige it to have its distinct, external organization and form, similar outwardly to former churches, but internally different, from the quality of its faith and life that is to be developed and extended. ”

“ In the degree that the old and false dogmas which ecclesiastical councils have super-induced upon the early Christian Church, together with the selfish, bigoted, and infernal spirit that is so often the sure accompaniment of such dogmas, are cast out, and the new light and life through the New Heaven is received, the New Church is established and built up. And that this church-renewing process is steadily going on all around us, must be plain to every careful observer of the religious thought and life of our times. ”

“ The New Church therefore stands not only for a new revelation of divine truth from the Lord out of heaven, given in fulfillment of prophecy, but also for the entry intellectually into the things of faith, made possible through that revelation. The faith of the Church on earth will no longer be a faith of darkness, but a faith of light. ”

“ The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration. ”

“ When a Church is near its End a new Church is raised up.
When the end of a church is at hand, it is provided by the Lord that a new church shall succeed; because without a church in which the Word is, and in which the Lord is known, the world cannot subsist. ”

“ She has seen the birth and death of countless "improvements" of her principles, and she has received with gladness into her fold many an eager and conscientious inquirer for the "new church," who has at length reached an end of his wanderings and a solution of his doubts in finding, with tears of rapturous submission, that the new church, for which he was seeking, is the same church which has stood for ages, ever old, yet ever new, because representing Him who is alike the Living God and the Ancient of Days. ”

“ Can that be a Reform of the Church, with "just claims upon the respect and affections of the people," which shall leave a ground and excuse for dissent by any one of the people? I say, NO. Can it be a Church of Christ? I say, NO. Do we know what a Church of Christ is in reality? For myself, I say, YES. A Church, too, founded upon an understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, of the Old and New Testament, upon the revelation of the mystery of those Scriptures, and upon all the first principles essential and conducive to general human and social welfare ”

“ Thus may the New Jerusalem be seen descending from God out of heaven, not as a new and visible institution, not as a new and separate church organization, but rather as new and higher wisdom—as new light and new life—entering into the heart of Christendom and moulding it anew; a Church not antagonistic to the Old organizations, but renewing, enlightening, and reanimating them all ”

“ New churches were built, new congregations were formed, new dioceses were organized. On some mountain-side or in deep wooded vale a cloister, a convent, a college, a seminary arose, one hardly knew how, and yet another and another, until these retreats of learning and virtue dotted the land. The elements of discord and disturbance within the church grew less and less active, the relations between priest and people became more intimate and cordial, the tone of Catholic feeling improved, ecclesiastical discipline was strengthened, and the self-respect of the Catholic body increased. ”

“ For this growth the New Church stands, and commends for its accomplishment the daily reading of the Word, the Writings of the New Dispensation, and the government of the individual life in accordance thereto. The Church assures all who will do so, that their faith will be illumined until doubt turns into mental sight and an unknown and unconceived blessing of divine joy will be given, which is as "the days of heaven upon the earth." ”

“ The New Church would be grossly recreant to her own spirit and genius to pay undue reverence even to a messenger from the Lord of hosts, but it does not hesitate to honor, in his measure, the instrument whom the Most High has especially raised up to serve as the herald of that sublime dispensation that is now entering upon its interminable career. She would fain endeavor to conciliate regard to his person for the sake of his teachings, and with a paramount view to the spiritual behoof of our fellow-men. ”

“ The New Church believes and teaches that love to the Lord and the neighbor is the essential thing in heaven and the church; that the degree of heavenly life, and consequent happiness, in any individual, depends on the degree in which this love is developed or received (for man is only a recipient subject) , and the measure of its intensity. ”

“ A new church depends upon a new heaven which must be formed in the spiritual world to act as the soul of the New Church upon the earth.
Heaven is so related to the earth that as the Church in heaven increases by the addition of regenerating people passing from the earth, the Church upon earth will grow. ”

“ And this higher kind of worship is held by the New Church to be that of all true worshipers—that of which the Bible speaks—that which the Heavenly Father especially approves and loves, and which is said to be in "spirit and in truth;" a worship offered continually, and in all places where the voice of duty is reverently heeded—where sorrow and suffering are patiently borne, where loving service is faithfully rendered, and useful work of whatever kind is honestly done. ”

“ A great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new organs, new choirs, and all these new things. That is not what the Church of God needs to-day. It is the old power that the apostles had. If we have that in our churches, there will be new life. ”

“ Well, Most Reverend Gentlemen, is it likely God will give them his Spirit, and unerring word to reconstruct a new Church, when they have just destroyed the infallible, and beautiful work of God's own hands? Is it in the nature of things, that God should contradict Himself, to second the BABEL ideas, of your scriptural Church, yet to be formed? ”

“ Men are talking about a Church of the future. They say the old Church is decrepid, her theology is obsolete, she stimulates thought no more. But we know better. The Church of the future is the Church of the past. That Church is ever ancient and ever new. Her truth is not exhausted. Men know not the half nor the hundredth part of her hidden wisdom. ”

“ He that has this divine love of use in his heart, recognizes the doctrinal truths of the New Church very clearly, for he perceives their power to regenerate the individual soul, to renovate the church, to re-organize society on heavenly principles, and to restore, by means of the spiritual sense of the Word, the lost communication between angels and men. ”

“ Nothing reveals the searching and eminently practical character of the New Church doctrines more clearly, or shows more distinctly the wide difference between this Church and those which have preceded it, than the strength and frequency with which its teachings emphasize the importance of keeping the commandments, or living the divine precepts. There are doubtless multitudes in all the churches of to-day, who do not even believe in God, according to the New Church standard of belief. ”

“ The New Church therefore repudiates and condemns the old dogma that we are to believe blindly, or that, in religious matters, the understanding is to be held in servile subjection to faith. And while it never exalts human reason above Divine revelation, it inculcates, as an imperative duty, the free and faithful exercise of our rational faculties upon whatever claims to be such revelation, and counsels us to accept for religious truth nothing against which our reason revolts, or which fails to commend itself to our rational intuitions. ”

“ Among all the interesting and sublime disclosures which the Lord has been pleased to make for the use of his New Church, few are more important in a practical point of view, than the doctrine concerning the Divine Providence. ”

“ It is a great mistake to imagine that the pulpit of to-day dwells often or lays the chief emphasis on "doctrines which are directly contrary to the principles of the New Church." Far oftener and with much stronger emphasis does it dwell on the great fundamentals of the New Church—love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor. ”

“ The end for which God created man, according to the belief and teaching of the New Church, was, that there might be a heaven of angels from the human race—a countless host of rational, wise and loving creatures, images and likenesses of Himself, capable of receiving his own life, and of being made unspeakably and eternally happy in the mutual and reciprocal impartation of that life. ”

“ The New Church of to-day is likewise the conservator and propagator of a new revelation, confined to a few at first, but gradually to extend as the capacity to receive internal truth and form an internal Church developes.
God is a self-revealing Being. He did not create men to serve Him, but that He might serve them. From the beginning He has given revelation of heavenly and divine things that He might lift human kind into a higher and more blessed existence. ”

“ According to the new doctrine, then, as now revealed, the New Church believes and teaches that there is a spiritual world inhabited by spirits and angels, far more populous than the world in which we are now living, and as much more substantial, too, as the soul is more substantial than the body. ”

“ And in its place would come a broad and Christian catholicity, rejoicing the hearts of good men on earth and angels in heaven. Then, instead of antagonistic sects warring against and weakening each other, we should soon have one harmonious and united church,—a church all the more beautiful and perfect on account of its diversity, just as the excellence of a band of music is increased by the variety of instruments, or the beauty of a garden by the variety of its trees and flowers. ”

“ If the Christian Church was fuller of that divine life than it is, it would be fuller of all varieties of Christian beauty and excellence, and all these would be the work of 'that one and the selfsame Spirit dividing to every man severally as He will.' If this congregation were indeed filled with the new life, there would be an exuberance of power, and a harmonious diversity of characteristics about it, and a burning up of the conventionalities of Christian profession such as we do not dream of to-day. ”

“ Listen, now, to the revealed doctrine of the New Church on this subject. According to this doctrine, all who die in infancy and childhood, go directly to heaven; that is, they pass immediately into some one of the angelic societies, and are so instructed and governed by the angels, that they all in due time become angels. Nor does this depend on the character of their parents, as whether they are righteous or wicked, in the church or out of it, Christians or Pagans ”

“ To this end the New Church is organizing, educating its ministers, forming societies, instituting schools and colleges, and endeavoring to teach, to live, and to form the life according to the truths of the New Dispensation of Heavenly Revelation. ”

“ Five new churches—especially if each prove a metropolitan or mother church—is a gain for which to give thanks and from which to take courage. Sixty-five churches in all, though most of them are connected with our educational institutions, or near them, is certainly not a bad showing for thirteen years of labor. ”

“ Rather let them worship in the old and the small, than build a new and great church anyhow! He, their Bishop, wished to buy their new church from them, paying back those who had helped to build, giving to each his due. ”

“ One of the important and instructive spiritual laws revealed for the New Church, is, that every one sees or apprehends spiritual truth according to his own state or character. The higher and more heavenly is one's state, therefore, the higher and clearer are his apprehensions of heavenly truth. ”

“ What, now, is the New Church doctrine on the subject? According to its teachings, the passion of the Cross was the consummation of that stupendous series of spiritual conflicts whereby the Lord subdued the hells, wrought deliverance for man by restoring the equilibrium of the moral universe, and glorified the humanity He assumed. ”

“ Therefore now the Second Coming is made by new revelation of truth, opening fully the Word, wherein is all truth. The world has its well-ordered governments, guaranteeing justice, liberty, and freedom of conscience, and is beginning to desire for practical purposes a knowledge of internal and heavenly law. This is the essential basis for a spiritual kingdom, which the New Church is to proclaim and to be. ”

“ Performing all our common every-day duties faithfully, honestly, conscientiously, and in the spirit of true neighborly love—at the same time inwardly and humbly acknowledging that it is the Lord who gives us the power and the disposition thus to live and act—this, according to the belief and teaching of the New Church, is living a religious life. ”

“ And from the very beginning of this later work he treats of those of the Christian Church of the first age who on being enlightened are to form the Church in its new age—the New Church of the New Jerusalem, the genuine Christian Church. The descent of the light of the Divine Human presence through heaven effecting the judgment in the world of spirits and for a beginning on this earth, was already bringing this enlightenment and was forming the new heaven. ”