227 LETTERS TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF BOTH SEXES IN THE NEW CHURCH. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS, THESE letters are especially addressed to those young people who have been born of parents professing the doctrines of the New Church, and who have consequently been baptized into the sphere and belief of the Truths of those doctrines. It was, no doubt, the ardent wish of your parents, that you should be initiated and instructed, as you grew in age and in stature, in those doctrines into the Truth of which you have been baptized. For baptism is a kind of foundation to all religious and spiritual instruction and training, the end and object of which is regeneration. A disposition, amounting to a strong tendency, to be instructed and trained in the religious system of doctrines into which we have been baptized, is engendered, or inchoated by that very solemn rite which, as you well know, is of divine appointment, accompanied with a peculiar efficacy, and not a merely human institution. You have, therefore, no doubt felt, as you came to the years of maturity and discretion, a desire more or less active to become instructed in the Truths, especially in such as relate to the Lord and the means of salvation, into which you were baptized. This desire is awakened in your minds by the merciful operation of the Lord as your Heavenly Father, that you may seek instruction in those blessed Doctrines and Truths. For without instruction, and the consequent reception of Divine Truths, there can be no regeneration, without which there can be no salvation. Hence the great importance of instruction. Cherish, therefore, my young Friends, I beseech you, the desire awakened in your minds by your Heavenly Father, through his attendant angels, to receive the "spirit of knowledges." Seek every possible means of satisfying that desire, and of confirming it by living according to the Truths you acquire. You will thus grow up in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord;" you will in your life "adorn the Doctrine of God your Saviour,"--you will be in that passage, and justifies the view taken by the Editor of the Intell. Rep., (1854, p. 516) in his remarks on the spiritual sense of the words eulogeo and eucharisteo. It may be observed, however, that Dr. Bloomfield's reading is supported by at least two editions of the New Testament in French,-one of them of the date 1658, in which appear, in the same passage, the words apres qu'il eut rendu graces (after he had given thanks); and also by a Latin version by Erasmus, which has egisset gratias, although Beza's version has benedixisset. Had the spiritual sense of the Word been known, such variation in the original manuscripts, and in the versions from them, would probably not have taken place. respected and beloved by all around you, and will thereby secure in this life the greatest amount of earthly good that can be properly enjoyed, and finally, you will become angels, and dwell in the Lord's kingdom for ever. 66 There are two classes of members who externally compose the body called the New Church, and the same may be said of every denomination. The one class consists of those who are born in the church and baptized into its doctrines and truths. On these the church has a kind of legitimate claim,-she considers them as her sons and her daughters; they are recognized by the people around, and especially by their acquaintance, to be members of the New Church, understood by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation. The weight of responsibility, therefore, which attaches to this class of members is great and solemn indeed! Blessed, yea, thrice blessed will they become, if in their life and conduct they so let their light shine before men, that they may see their good works,"—of humility, love, faith, kindness, integrity, honesty, meekness, temperance, &c.,-and "glorify their Father who is in heaven." This life, my young Friends, which is the life of heaven upon earth, is not an arduous life. It is more easy to live for heaven than many have supposed. What is required of us is, that we be determined, through the Lord's mercy and power, to live according to His precepts as the great principles of life, and to endeavour to resist all influences and temptations that would lead us astray from these divine precepts. Herein consists the great battle of life. Here the true doctrine of the cross is found and applied. Whereas to live for the world only, seeking its wealth and its pleasure and its fame as the great objects of human life, is sure to bring in its train many sorrows, and much vexation and anguish of spirit. We, on account of our hereditary nature, are prone to set too high a value on the things of the world, or on its wealth and its pleasures; and we are disposed to esteem ourselves too highly, and to seek preeminence over others, and sometimes to treat them, if they resist our intentions, in a despotic and tyrannical way. But this spirit, if not subdued and overcome, makes us obnoxious and odious to others, and finally defeats its own purposes, and is itself overwhelmed with odiousness and contempt. Against these evils, then, as your greatest enemies, you have to watch and to pray. You are aware that when the mariner embarks on the ocean to some distant clime, he keeps constantly two things in view,-first, the safe direction in which he must steer, in order to arrive at his proper destination; and secondly, the dangers he has to avoid or to encounter on his voyage. This is an instructive figure of the voyage of life, and reminds us of the voyage which the Lord made with His disciples, (Matt. xiv.) and of the tempest they encountered. But as the Lord was with them, they were safe. In like manner, my young Friends, the Lord will be with you, if you look to Him, and in Faith and Love keep His precepts, and delight in the worship of Him, and in the Truths and Doctrines of His Holy Word. But realize to your imagination, if you can, the great inconsistency of a professing member of the New Jerusalem, into which (it is divinely declared) "nothing shall enter that worketh an abomination, or that maketh a lie," living a mere worldly life of selfishness and sin. Think of the inconsistency of a person born of New Church parents, and baptized in the New Church, feeling no interest in the splendid Truths she possesses from the opening of the Word,-truths which bring heaven and its eternal realities down to our fullest apprehension, and which disclose to us, in all their horrors, the states and miseries of the opposite kingdom. And yet we find from experience that there are such persons, who, although brought up in the midst of the privileges and blessings of the New Church, are nevertheless nearly destitute of all genuine intelligence as to its doctrines and its truths. In many cases the parents may, no doubt, have been in fault, who from lack of a prudent discipline, or from the sad neglect of instruction, have allowed their children to grow up in ignorance, and in the neglect of the most general principles of spiritual instruction. This indeed is a grave fault which lies at the door of the parent. Nevertheless every man has a life of his own from God, to whom, as by degrees he becomes independent of the control of his parents, he is accountable. And one of the solemn obligations which life from God brings with it, is that of returning it to Him again in love, worship, and praise. But this cannot be done without instruction in divine Truths, consequently, this duty which we owe to God, to our neighbour, and ourselves, is of the highest importance. It will therefore be found that, however we may have been neglected by careless parents in our childhood and youth, every man is bound by every consideration to make up the lost ground, and to instruct himself in the truths of God's Word, that he may live a true and a good life, and consequently be happy in this world and to eternity, A second class of members are those who have made their way into the church through examining and adopting its truths and doctrines. These persons, desirous to find the Truth, have been led from rational conviction, with the Bible as the only standard of appeal, to adopt the Doctrines of the New Church, and from a disinterested love of the Truth, they have been farther led to associate themselves with the church in worship, and to unite themselves with their brethren in acts of usefulness, in spreading a knowledge of the Truth, and instructing the young in our Sunday-schools, &c. Such persons, especially if they have suffered some degree of persecution and obloquy in joining the church, or, in so doing, have had difficulties and obstacles to contend with, become most valuable members. There is, my dear young Friends, a very great difference between being in the church and of the church. For to be truly a member a man must not only be in the church, but the church must be in him, in which case he is a member of the church, as an arm or a foot is a member of the body, and will partake of the life of the church, which is Love, or Charity and Faith, as the arm or foot partakes of the life of the body. To become thus a true member of the church, the elements which constitute the church must be in him, as the spring of his life, and as the moving power of all his ends and motives, and consequently of all his affections, his thoughts, and his actions. "Verily I say unto you, the kingdom of God is within you." In another letter I will resume the subject; in the mean time let me entreat you to think of these things,-to reflect that the spiritual or heavenly life is the one thing needful for which we should live, labour, strive, and struggle whilst we are here. This spiritual life, which consists in love to God and our neighbour, is the aggregate of all heavenly wisdom and happiness, it is the truly Christian life, without which our life in the world is, at the best, no better than a merely animal life, destitute of all true elevation, of all real refinement and dignity, and of all true happiness. Be assured, my dear young Friends, that I speak from experience, and that I am your sincere well-wisher, SENEX. Poetry. HEAVENLY MUSIC HEARD IN THE HOUR OF DEATH. HARK! hark! what strains are these I hear-I hear? It is unearthly music: there-again! Hark! sure it breathes from some celestial sphere,— I think I hear the heavenly choirs sing, Their blessed voices swell upon my ear; They're hymning praises to their Lord and King;— Do you not hear them?-there!-again! Oh, hear! But now 'tis lost,-'tis silence all, once more ;- Oh, pour forth once again that heavenly strain! I see them there! in robes of silvery white! Oh, beautiful! yes! there they glorious stand! How sweet they look on me! Oh, beaming bright The loving eyes of that celestial band! I come, ye beauteous ones!-I come, I come! Glasgow. O. P. H. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. THE EDITOR'S PAGE. Monumental Edition of Noble's Appeal. This Volume has appeared, and is, by this time, in the hands of nearly all the Subscribers. We congratulate the Church on the appearance of this very useful work, and we convey the thanks of our Readers to the Committee, consisting of Messrs. Salter, Maxwell, and Gunton, for the admirable way in which they have executed their commission. The Volume, as to type, paper, style, and neatness of binding, considering the great quantity of matter it contains, meets every requirement, and, as far as we have heard, fully answers every expectation. It will, as a vindication and elucidation of the doctrines of the New Church, be an armoury of weapons for all future ages, and a fortress of Scriptural and rational argument in the defence of Truth, which no enemy will be able to gainsay or resist. In accomplishing works of great utility there is always more or less of difficulty and trial, and the Committee have felt, that certain remarks in a letter in our last number, subscribed "Disinterestedness," were uncalled for, and unjust. We merely state, that other communications of a similar import to that of "Disinterestedness," have come to hand, but we only inserted one, to shew the feeling awakened in the minds of some lest the undertaking should not issue in the most extensive good contemplated by the Subscribers. That the Committee have disinterestedly and nobly done their duty must be admitted by all; but as this Periodical is a vehicle, as a member of the same committee has recently said, of free communication between the members of the church, it must not be considered, much as we respect the Committee, that the Repository, so long as it is under its present editorship, can become a one-sided or partial channel of communication. We are not responsible for the opinions and sentiments of individuals, nor even of societies (that is, where such opinions do not affect fundamental doctrines or principles); but this we will maintain, that the committee have well done their work; that no imputations as are by some supposed to be intimated in the letter of "Disinterestedness" can possibly apply to them and that for the labour and anxiety they have experienced in executing their task, they deserve the thanks of all their brethren in the Church; and we doubt not that a cordial vote to this effect will be unanimously accorded to them. |