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"WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING."

To understand rightly our power to do good and to think truth, and how we derive that power from the Lord, is one of the chief requisites for a thorough knowledge of the way of salvation. We know in some general way that we have these powers, but by nature they seem to be our own-like the powers of our body-and we seem to be taught that they are of the Lord in us-a Divine gift every moment. Some persons, from too little reverence for the Fountain of all grace, and the Author of every good, scarcely think of Him as the "All in all," but look at our powers separate from Him; and so, instead of seeing that at the highest we can be only images and likenesses of God, they make man into a kind of deity by high-sounding words, which swell our better attributes beyond all Christian measure. Nothing can be more fatal to advancement in the Christian life; for what is that blessing which sounds so full of comfort to every one who is conscious of infirmity? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is the first of the blessings in the Lord's "Sermon on the Mount," as though to teach us that a perception of our spiritual poverty is the first requisite towards the attainment of the true riches-the graces and powers which deliver us from the bondage of sin. Therefore the Divine Word abounds with clear admonitions against the pride of our own powers. "Without me ye can do nothing." When we read the Lord's words of Himself, and consider who He was that spoke them, with what a supremely convincing power do they speak to our hearts!

If the humanity of the one God could thus speak, how much more ought we to feel and acknowledge the dependence of all our good powers upon the Lord the Saviour, who also says: “I am the vine, ye are the branches."

J. W. H.

ON COMING TO THE LORD'S TABLE.

"Do this in remembrance of me."

We cannot resist this affecting entreaty if our hearts are right with the Lord. This, indeed, is certain. As our God we ought

to obey Him, and come with reverence before Him. As our Redeemer, a sense of the liberty He has made sure for us should bring us most willingly to do honour to Him who "led captivity captive," and "received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." And as our Saviour we should “come" to Him with a full and devout affection which needs no persuasion, because we know that every good thing in us is His, and that He will give an abundant increase of good to them that love Him, having in His spiritual Zion "commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."

J. W. H.

IN THE EVENING.

(Selected.)

ALL day the wind had howled along the leas,
All day the wind had swept across the plain,
All day on rustling grass and waving trees
Had fallen" the useful trouble of the rain,"
All day, beneath the low-hung dreary sky
The dripping earth had cowered sullenly.
At last the wind had sobbed itself to rest,

At last to weary calmness sank the storm,
A crimson line gleamed sudden in the west

Where golden flecks rose wavering into form;
A hushed revival heralded the night,
And with the evening time awoke the light.

The rosy colour flushed the long grey waves;

The rosy colour tinged the mountains brown,
And where the old church watched the village graves,
Wooed to a passing blush the yew-tree's frown;
Bird, beast, and flower relenting nature knew,
And one pale star rose shimmering in the blue.

So to a life long crushed in heavy grief,

So to a path long darkened in despair,

The slow sad hours bring touches of relief,

Whispers of hope, and strength of trustful prayer. "Tarry His leisure," God of love and might, And in the evening time there will be light!

VOL. III. NO. XXXII.-AUGUST 1884.

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CONTROVERSY AT WIGAN.

We noticed in our brief summary of the proceedings of the Church in a recent number, the controversy which has for some time past occupied the attention of the church at Wigan. This controversy has now closed, without, we believe, any acknowledgment of error on the part of our assailant. So powerful is the blinding influence of prejudice, that however clearly the mistakes of assailants are pointed out, they not unfrequently persevere in their mistaken statements and false representations to the end. Quite a number of writers have appeared on the side of the New Church, and we are not surprised to find that considerable inquiry has been excited, and that the attendance at the Sabbath services of the church has been increased. We give here the letter of the Rev. C. H. Wilkins, which supplies a general view of the subjects introduced into this discussion, and a brief but adequate reply to the objections raised against the doctrines of the New Church and the Writings of our enlightened author:-

To the Editor of the Wigan Observer.

SIR, My attention has been called to a letter by the Rev. James Cronshaw, which appeared in your issue of the 23rd. If you can spare me the space, I should very much like to have the chance of giving to every point in that remarkable production a brief but unmistakeable reply.

1. The New Jerusalem Church does not "deny the truthfulness and scripturalness of the cardinal doctrines held by the Christian Church in all ages and in all countries." The strong, straightforward words of Swedenborg concerning the state of the Church neither look back to the time of the primitive Christians nor forward to the days in which we live, but simply at things as they were when Swedenborg wrote. And if Mr. Cronshaw is inclined to undertake the defence of the Christian Church of that period, he will, as he well knows, find himself, even in his own branch of the Church Universal, almost without an ally. As to the early loss by the Christian Church of its primitive faithfulness to the teaching and spirit of its Divine Founder, Swedenborg only echoes the following bitter confession of St. Hilary, who was made a bishop somewhere about the year 350:-" We cannot," he says, "be ignorant that since the Council of Nice we have done nothing but make creeds. And while we fight against words, litigate about new questions, dispute about equivocal terms, complain of others that every one may make his own party triumph; while we cannot agree, while we anathematize one another, there is hardly any one that adheres to Jesus Christ."

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2. The "more ardent members of the New Jerusalem Church" would not be astonished at the statement" that the New Jerusalem Church holds to the doctrines of the Divine Trinity, the atonement effected by the Lord Jesus Christ, justification by faith, the resurrection of man, and a final judgment." If Mr. Cronshaw will only take the trouble to procure

and examine the catalogues of our Manchester and our London New Church Tract Societies, he will find not one but many tracts upon each of these subjects, and bearing these titles. I should like especially to recommend to his careful attention one of the London series which takes the form of A Dialogue on the Apostolic Doctrine of the Atonement, and on the Doctrines of Mediation, Intercession, and Imputation.

3. Swedenborg's teachings concerning the fundamental doctrines of Christianity are not discoverable in the fragmentary quotations from his True Christian Religion, with which Mr. Cronshaw favours his readers. Any clever controversialist or ignorant critic can make the wisest of writers seem foolish by such a method. The Bible itself declares that the Lord Jesus Himself once openly confessed, “I can of my own self do nothing." Taken alone, that passage proves that He to whom we look for eternal life was a mere creature. Yet both Mr. Cronshaw and I know that the Bible as a whole teaches plainly the Godhead of the Lord. I warn all lovers and seekers of the truth against trusting either Mr. Bradlaugh's quotations from Holy Scripture or Mr. Cronshaw's quotations from Swedenborg. I can give both of these gentlemen credit for honesty of intention, and for literal accuracy so far as they go, and yet, at the same time, insist that both of them are too strongly and too manifestly prejudiced to be worthy of confidence when they come forward with "specimen sentences" from the writings they attack.

4. On the Trinity, Swedenborg declares (T. C. R. 174) that a "Trinity of Persons was unknown in the Apostolic Church, and that the doctrine was first broached by the Council of Nice, and thence received into the Roman Catholic Church and thus propagated among the Reformed Churches;" but (T. C. R. 164) that the Divine Word manifestly teaches that there is a Divine Trinity consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and (T. C. R. 166) that "these three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the three essentials of one God, which make a one, like soul, body, and operation in one man ;” and (T. C. R. 169) that thus it is in the Lord Jesus "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9).

5. On the Atonement, Swedenborg declares (T. C. R. 115) that "Redemption consisted in bringing the hells into subjection and the heavens into order, and in thus preparing the way for a new Spiritual Church; that (T. C. R. 118) without such redemption neither could men have been saved, nor could the angels have remained in a state of integrity;" that (T. C. R. 123) redemption was therefore a work purely Divine; a work which (T. C. R. 124)" could not possibly have been effected but by God incarnate." It is true that Swedenborg denies that the Passion of the Cross was, in and of itself, redemption; but that is only because he sees so clearly that the whole of the wonderful life of our blessed Lord was a redeeming life, every word, every act, every thought, every prayer of which had its part in making perfect that mighty work.

6. On Salvation by Faith in Jesus, Swedenborg declares (T. C. R. 337) that "a saving faith is a faith in the Lord God, the Saviour Jesus Christ, and this because He is God and man, because He is in the Father and the Father in Him and thus one: so that all who approach Him approach the Father at the same time, and thus approach the one and only God; and no faith can be saving that is directed towards any other."

7. On the Resurrection of the Body, Swedenborg speaks frequently and always with great plainness. But on this subject Mr. Cronshaw has preferred to quote from a luminous and beautiful little book on The Spiritual World, by the Rev. Chauncey Giles; and I will therefore quote from this book also. Mr. Cronshaw asks us to turn to page 67, I will ask him to turn to page 65. The words are Swedenborg's, but they are used and

adopted by Mr. Giles. "When man enters the spiritual world, or the life after death, he is in a body as in this world; to appearance there is no difference, and he does not perceive a difference. But his body is then spiritual, and thus separated or purified from earthly things, and when what is spiritual touches and sees what is spiritual, it is just as when what is natural touches and sees what is natural." These words read only like a paraphrase of the apostolic utterance, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." It is perfectly true that Swedenborg protests that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," but surely every Sunday scholar knows that this grand protest came first of all from the Apostle Paul.

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8. On the Final Judgment, Swedenborg's teachings are very clearly put by Mr. Giles in the book from which I have just quoted. Amongst the opening sentences of his lecture on the Judgment on page 98, Mr. Giles says: Judgment is pronounced on every human being; it will be pronounced upon you and upon me, and from that judgment there can be no appeal. Its decisions are irrevocable. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to us to know how the trial is to be made, and according to what principles the judgment will be rendered."

9. On Conjugal Love and its Opposites, Swedenborg has spoken with extraordinary perspicuity and force. He declares that "true conjugal love is of all loves the holiest and the most richly blessed; " that "adulterous love is, in every sense, its opposite," and that "adulterous love destroys in an ever-increasing degree all in man that is manly and human, while true conjugal love is for ever building up in him all that is manly and human" (Conjugal Love, pp. 57-73, 432-433). Perhaps Mr. Cronshaw has not read this book. Perhaps he has indiscreetly trusted somebody else's account of it, as other persons indiscreetly trust Mr. Foote's account of the Bible. I would rather have to believe even this of a teacher of the people, than have to believe that a Christian minister, having read this book carefully and prayerfully through, could even for a moment dream of classing it with that "obscene literature" which deservedly lies under the condemnation of Lord Campbell's Act, and the ban of all Godfearing men. Those who know most of Swedenborg are precisely those who most frankly acknowledge the perfect justice of the verdict passed by that pure and grea-minded Churchman, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who declares 66 that, as a moralist, Swedenborg is above all praise." (See his Literary Remains, vol. iv. page 243.)

10. Of the "Claim of Infallibility," which Mr. Cronshaw says Swedenborg so strongly makes, I have been able, after twenty years' study of his Writings, to discover not a solitary trace. I have found in every volume, I might almost say on every page, some new proof of the constant deepening in him of the consciousness of the creaturely limitations which inevitably prevented him from receiving all the fulness of Divine truth. Mr. Cronshaw likens Swedenborg to a Pope. Of one or the other of these two Mr. Cronshaw must be remarkably ignorant. Swedenborg is continually urging those who go to him for spiritual aid to think for themselves, and to take nothing for granted simply because he says it. I should like to make the acquaintance of any Pope who has ever formed such an unpapal habit. 11. Does Swedenborg condemn non-Swedenborgians to hell? Mr. Cronshaw says he does. Let us listen to what Swedenborg himself says: "It is to be particularly observed that no one, whether he be within the Church where the Divine Word is, or not of that Church, is damned hereafter, if he live a good life according to his religion, for it is not the fault of such that they do not know genuine truths; wherefore, inasmuch as the good of life contains within itself the desire of knowing truths, when

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