sent the true nature of the Mediation of Jesus Christ, and shew that it consists in his Glorified Humanity's acting as a Medium, by which access is afforded for man to God, and divine benefits, even the gifts of salvation, which are the communications of the Holy Spirit, are conveyed from God to

man.

The reader, I am sure, will be gratified by seeing the above idea beautifully illustrated by Dr. Watts. "The sun in the natural world," he observes," is a bright emblem of Divinity, or the Godhead; for it is the spring of all light and heat and life to the creation.-Now if we should suppose this vast globe of fire, which we call the sun, to be inclosed in a huge hollow sphere of crystal, which should attemper its rays like a transparent veil, and give milder and gentler influences to the burning beams of it, and yet transmit every desirable or useful portion of light or heat; this would be a happy emblem of the Man, Christ Jesus, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Is is the Lamb of God, who, in a mild and gracious manner, conveys the blessings originally derived from God, his Father, to all the saints. We partake of them in our measures in this lower world, among his churches here on earth; but it is with a nobler influence, and in a more sublime degree, the blessings of paradise are diffused through all the mansions of glory, by this illustrious medium of conveyance, Jesus the Son of God."* This emblem is as just as it is striking, provided we guard against one or two misapprehensions which may arise from it. Though the Son of God, or the Divine Humanity, is the medium of conveying all blessings to men and angels, we are not to regard it as a mere passive conveyance, but an infinitely active one. He says, "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himselft:" thus the Divine Energies or Holy Spirit are not simply transmitted from the Divine Essence through the Humanity, but are first received by the Humanity, and thence, by its own life and activity derived from its perfect union with the Divine Essence, dispensed to mankind; precisely as is expressed in the words quoted above," whom I will send unto you from the Father." Secondly: although it is true that the rays of Godhead are" attempered" by the Humanity, they are not thereby weakened or blunted; but on the contrary, are rendered, as to their influence on man, far more penetrating and powerful; so that Watts's crystal sphere must be considered as operating, with respect to man, in the manner of a magnifying lens. Thus the prophet, in regard to the effect on man of the assumption of humanity by Jehovah, uses these strong Works, vol. vii. p. 148. J

↑ John v. 26.

.

figures: "In that day, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days; in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of her wound." Be it also observed, that if the sun inclosed in a crystal sphere, is, as suggested by Watts, a just emblem of the Father and Son of the Scriptures, we see how impossible it is to regard them as two persons; we see that their relation is precisely that of the soul and the body; and we see how idle it must be to seek for God, anywhere but in the Person of Jesus Christ to which conviction Dr. Watts himself is reputed to have arrived before he died.

sun.

This is the way, also, in which the Lord Jesus Christ makes intercession for man: not by intreating a wrathful God to look on him with pity, but by affording the requisite Medium by which a defiled creature, like man, can approach the holiness of an infinite God, without perishing in the attempt, as a piece of earthly substance would do on approaching immediately to the Can they who believe in intercession by intreaty, pretend to deny, that in heart they believe in at least two Gods, and those, also, of opposite natures? For how can the God who supplicates and intreats, be the same God as he who is supplicated and intreated? How can the nature of the God, who, without any feast on another's sufferings to appease his offended justice, intreats and supplicates another God to lay aside his wrath, be the same as that of him who only lays aside his wrath in compliance with such intreaty and supplication? Nay, how can the God who cannot raise man to heaven of his own free motion, but must first obtain his forgiveness of another God by prayer and supplication, be any God at all? Does not the supposition fully imply, that the Father and Son are as completely two Gods as any two human beings are two men, and that they differ as much from each other as a subject from an absolute sovereign? All this fiction, also, respecting the Lord's mediating and interceding for man by praying to the Father, has been invented in direct contradiction to his own assurance: "I say NOT unto you," he declares" that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." It is in vain to offer to put this proof aside, as has been attempted, by referring to the instances, in John xvii., of the Lord's praying for his disciples: for does it follow, because the Lord prayed for his disciples before his complete glorification, that he prays for them now? Before his glorification he prayed for himself: does he pray for himself now? As has * Isa. xxx. 26. + John xvi. 26, 27.

been proved in the preceding SECTION,* since his glorification, or perfect union with the Father, he does not pray to, or address in any way, the Father at all, being One Person with him. It is in reference to the completion of this union that he here says, "I will not pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." To believe that the Lord came out from God, is, as we have seen in the last SECTION, to believe that his Humanity is an immediate evolution from his Divine Essence-an actual manifestation of what was always potentially included in the Divinity, ready to be put forth, for the salvation of man, when the fulness of state and time should have arrived. When this is acknowledged, the Father himself is said to love us, because the love which constitutes his essence is then capable of being communicated to us and received by us. Hence again we see that the Lord's Humanity is the Medium by which we gain access to his Divinity, and are brought into communication with it; just as by the medium of a man's body we gain access to, and have communication with, his soul. The Lord teaches the same truth in the most direct form when he says, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." What is the door but the medium of access? And that, to obtain such access, we are not to address the naked Divinity immediately, but the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine Person of the Father, he again teaches when he says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."S

Consider this subject seriously, ye Candid and Reflecting! and examine whether this is not the only view of the Mediation of Jesus Christ which harmonizes with all the great truths of Scripture and reason, and, without taking any thing away from what is really taught in the Scriptures, renders the subject invulnerable to any deistical objections. Jehovah assumed Humanity to make himself accessible to his fallen creatures. We are to avail ourselves of the Medium thus divinely appointed, and approach him therein. "Let us enter into the holiest by the new and living way which he had consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." Let us accept with thankfulness the saving blessings which his Glorified Humanity is the only Medium of conveying to man's soul.

In conclusion: May not these views of the New Church on the Atonement and Mediation of Jesus Christ be confidently * P. 392. John x. 9.

1 Pp. 425, 426.

§ Ver. 1.

recommended to the consideration of the Candid and Reflecting? Do they not unfold the true doctrine of the Scriptures on these momentous subjects, in a manner which is calculated to recommend the Scriptures themselves to the more cordial acceptance of men of reason and reflection? Do they not satisfactorily clear the Christian Religion from the imputation of sanctioning doctrines at which all reason and common sense revolt, by shewing that the sentiments on those subjects which bear that character are not those of the true Christian Religion, but are the mere fallacious conclusions of gross minds, that have looked at the Scriptures in a merely superficial manner? Do they not evince, that the genuine doctrines of Scripture are here co-incident with the views of sound reason and true philosophy? Ought not then the writings of the enlightened Instrument by whom these doctrines are deduced from the Scriptures, to be favourably regarded by all those to whom true philosophy, sound reason, and scriptural theology, are objects of esteem?

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

SECTION IX.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

PART I.

The New Church Doctrine of Life, a Doctrine of Genuine Holiness.

I AM how finally to appeal to you, my Candid and Reflecting Readers, on the subject of the Christian Life; and I trust I shall not find it difficult to convince you, that when our doctrines affirm, that a life of righteousness, but not of Pharisaic righteousness, is the life that leads to heaven, they affirm the pure doctrine of the Scriptures, and maintain it as a doctrine of genuine holiness.

Among the accusations which have been brought against the doctrines of the New Church, there is none which will appear more extraordinary to future ages, none which at present appears more surprising to those who know what they are, than the monstrous charge of their being opposed to true holiness of life: Yet the writer whom I chiefly follow has thought proper to affirm, that the enlightened man who was made the instrument of deducing those doctrines from the Scriptures, comes under the condemnation of the Lord's words, when he says, "Whosoever shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Other assailants, almost without number, have endeavoured to deter the public from examining the writings of Swedenborg for themselves by similar unfounded aspersions. Without offering any thing but gross misrepresentation to support his imputations, the writer I follow goes on, through two or three pages*, moralizing on the "awful responsibility" lying on the writer, the translators, and circulators, of" false doctrines and loose principles;" as if such guilt were incurred by the writer, translators, and circulators, of the doc* Pp. 4-7.