tion of its outward state, and delivers his views upon it in the following Dialogue :

"SOPHRONIUS. Well, sir, my mind is much satisfied and delighted with this idea of a New Church, as tending to renew, bless, and perfect all the principles of corrupt human nature throughout the earth, by restoring them to conjunction with God and heaven. But what am I to conceive in regard to the external forms and ceremonies of this New Church? Every Church, you know, sir, has its outward as well as its inward worship. Do you apprehend then, or do the writings of Baron Swedenborg anywhere suggest, that any change will be wrought in the externals of Divine worship, at present used throughout Christendom?

"PHILADELPHUS. Sir, the writings of Baron Swedenborg are so much taken up with pointing out the essentials of the New Church, which are pure love and faith, and a consequent obedience of life, that they say little concerning its formalities, except this, that the outward rites of Baptism and the Lord's Supper should be retained therein. In regard to other parts of external worship, though such is in general strongly recommended and enforced as expedient and profitable, yet no particular form is expressly pointed out; and therefore we may reasonably suppose, that every one is left at liberty to make use of such forms as may seem best suited to his particular state and spiritual benefit. There is one circumstance, however, which I cannot help here remarking as of some importance, and deserving of serious attention from all readers of those writings, and that is, that very weighty cautions are contained therein against any rash or hasty opposition to, and rejection of, those external forms of worship in which a man has been educated, and which are publicly sanctioned in the country where he lives. "SOPH. Pray, sir, be so kind as to point to me some passages in those writings which contain the cautions you speak of.

"PHIL. I shall willingly do so, in order to convince you that Baron Swedenborg exercised a most cool deliberate judgment in such things, and was no violent innovator in matters not immediately connected with purity of life; thus setting an admirable example to all his readers, of wise conduct, and of caution of hasty changes in points not essential to salvation. Speaking in his Book of Heavenly Mysteries, n. 1992, concerning the externals of worship implanted from infancy, he has these words :-The Lord is never willing to destroy suddenly, much less instantaneously, the worship insinuated in any one from infancy; for this would be to pluck up the root, and thereby destroy the whole principle of adoration and worship implanted, which the Lord never breaks but bends. The holy principle of worship rooted in early life is of such a nature, that it cannot endure violence, but must be bended with moderation and gentleness.' And again, in the same book, n. 2180, are these words: What is once implanted from infancy with an idea of sanctity, particularly if it be implanted into children by their fathers, and thereby rooted in them, this the Lord never breaks, but bends, unless it be contrary to essential order.' And to show that these general principles of Divine operation apply in a particular manner to the New Church now establishing, the author, in his Apocalypse Explicata (where he is explaining what is written of the two witnesses ascending into heaven in a cloud, Rev. ix. 12), interprets the passage as denoting the separation of the witnesses from those who do not receive them; but then adds, that this was to be a separation as to internals, and not as to externals. And to show, turther that these externals were the externals of worship, as well as of other things, he adds, n. 671, of the same work, "By the cloud is meant the external of the Word, of the Church, and of worship. To the same purpose, in the same work, n. 764, speaking of the earth helping the woman, he says

expressly, that the Church, which is called the New Jerusalem, is to tarry (or abide) for a while amongst those who are in the doctrine of faith separate [from charity], whilst it grows to the full, until provision is made [for its establishment] amongst more. And he assigns as a reason for the New Church continuing in such an unseparated state as to externals, that it might be helped and also increased by those who are of the former or Old Church."

After some further remarks, he says, "Might there not, therefore, be a danger in making any change, till the people were in a better state to hear and profit by it? And would it not be wiser and more expedient, and consequently more becoming the duty of every sincere and humble Christian, at present, instead of separating from his weak and ignorant brethren in the use of their imperfect forms, rather to accommodate himself herein to their infirmities?"

Now what is the fair conclusion to be drawn from this very complete statement of his views? It seems to us to admit of only one conclusion,-that he only deprecated untimely and sudden or hasty separation. And he considered the separation which took place in his own day to be liable to this charge. The passage respecting the woman in the wilderness, with the comment upon it which he quotes, he evidently understood to teach that the connection of the New with the Old was to be only for a time. His own remarks upon it show this to be the case. He therefore advises non-separation at present. If he had held that separation was wrong in itself, he would not have objected to it merely as premature. And that this was the ground of his remonstrance with his brethren is further evident from what he says in a note on the passage respecting the woman. The separatists had urged that the time was come for the members of the New Church to form themselves into a separate body, on which he has these remarks:

"It may possibly be contended by some, that the New Church has already attained the full state here spoken of by the author, and that consequently the time has already come for its separation from external connection with the Old Church. This, however, seems highly improbable, when it is considered what the age of the New Church is, and when this age is compared with the time declared to be needful for the growth of the first Christian Church to a full state. The author asserts in the Apocalypsis Explicata, that the first Christian Church did not attain to its full state till more than a century after its first establishment." There can be no reasonable doubt that Clowes understood Swedenborg to teach that the connection of the New Church with the Old was not to continue until the New had reached a certain state of maturity, and that he opposed separation only on the ground that it was premature. He may be credited for having some reason on his side for his opposition. But those who echo his objections now have not the same reason for it. It is eighty years since Mr. Clowes issued his 'Address' condemning the movement which had commenced some years before. The more than a century' which he pleads for, as necessary for the Church to arrive at her full state, has passed away. Why should not all opposition to separation have passed away with that assumed period of the Church's infancy? She ought to be, and we believe she is, now quite able to stand alone and walk without help.

But although some of the early members of the Church differed from Mr. Clowes on the subject of separation, and acted on their own convictions, it is pleasing to observe with what respect and affection they regarded each other, which is more than can be said of all who form the two different camps at the present day, when Mr. Clowes's ground of objection to separation no longer exists. A kind and brotherly feeling marks their intercourse and pervades even their discussion on their only point of difference.

Mr.

Clowes was a constant contributor to the Intellectual Repository, itself a separatist, and issued by the separatist portion of the brethren; and the great love and esteem for the writer were shown by his regular contribution always occupying the place of honour. The Hawkstone meetings, which represented the non-separatists, were often attended by members of the separatist body. And at the meeting of 1813 we find that "the Rev. John Clowes, the Rev. Joseph Proud, the Rev. Richard Jones, and the Rev. T. F. Churchhill, with Mr. Samuel Noble to assist as secretary, were requested to prepare a summary of the Christian Faith as acknowledged and professed in the Lord's New Church. This was accordingly done, in twelve articles, with a shorter summary for the use of children and young people." These summaries, the joint-production of the two differing but friendly sections of the Church, are substantially those which now form part of our Conference Liturgy.

We will conclude our review of the Life with a letter of Mr. Clowes to Mr. Hargrove of Baltimore, America, which was one of several by the same writer that appeared in the New Churchman (American) in 1842. The sentiments which that excellent man expresses in this letter we cordially accept, and wish they may be adopted and acted upon by all who belong to the New Jerusalem.

The letter appears to be in answer to a letter Mr. Clowes had received from Mr. Hargrove, in which, among other inquiries, Mr. Hargrove apparently had asked Mr. Clowes his reasons for non-separation; or perhaps how he could consistently remain in the Old Church and use its forms of worship. This inquiry is answered as follows,-dated, Manchester, December 29, 1802

"If I have judged it right to continue in the ministry of the Old Church, I trust it has been solely from a conviction in my own mind that a sudden separation from and violent opposition to the externals of that Church would have tended to excite unnecessary prejudices in the minds of many against the new doctrines; and that therefore the wisdom of heavenly love required a temporary toleration of some abuses and corruptions rather than such a hasty rejection as might have given birth to an idea that the New Church was intent more on outward than inward reformation; and that she was besides sectarian in her practices, and intolerant in her principles. On the other hand, if you, sir, have thought it right to pursue a different line of conduct, I am ready and willing to indulge the same hope, that you also have acted in agreement with the conviction of your own mind, and from the best intention of promoting the prosperity of those doctrines which your understanding approved. It is possible therefore (and I humbly hope probable) that we may both have acted right, and in a manner the best calculated, in our respective stations, to recommend and disseminate the truths which we each of us most ardently loved. The divine Providence of the Lord, we know, has in all ages permitted the children of wisdom to be influenced by a variety and even diversity of sentiments, and has even rendered that variety and diversity subservient to His own blessed purposes of making known to mankind the counsels of its mercy. And who can say but that some procedure of this kind has been in operation under the new dispensation, and that the descent of the New Jerusalem has been accomplished by those very means which (to judge only from human experiences) seemed likely to retard it."

41

Miscellaneous.

THE VATICAN DECREES.

THE enactment of the Public Worship Act of last Session of Parliament made manifest the strong Protestant feeling which prevails throughout the country. The measure received the earnest support of members from both sides of the House. Mr. Gladstone, who sought to modify what to him seemed a severe aspect towards the ritualistic clergy, was scarcely heard with patience, and, notwithstanding his high position and commanding eloquence, could effect no change in the Bill. Discouraged in the House of Commons, he appealed to the reading portion of the public through the pages of the Contemporary Review. In the number of this periodical for October appeared his article on "Ritualism and Ritual." It is a statement of the reasons which have led to recent innovations, and a temperate appeal for moderate ornament and improved ritual in the services of the Established Church; and so eager were the people to possess the writer's opinion on the subject that twelve editions of the number were rapidly issued to supply the public demand. A single paragraph in this paper led to much bitter animadversion. In the discussion of his subject the writer, on "the question whether a handful of the clergy are or not engaged in an utterly hopeless and visionary effort to Romanize the Church and people of England," said, "At no time since the bloody reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But if it had been possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it would still have become impossible in the nineteenth; when Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith; when she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused; when no one can become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another; and when she has equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history."

This statement respecting "the bloody reign of Mary" was received by the periodical press and by the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church with a storm of reproach and resentment. The services of the writer to their community passed for nothing, and the true spirit of the Papacy was abundantly manifested in their proceedings. Gratitude for past favours is not an attribute in the minds of those whose one object in life is their own exaltation. All that is done for them or towards them is only regarded as it furthers this one purpose. If it aid them it is greedily accepted. If it thwart their purpose or expose their nefarious practices it is as bitterly resented; and no consideration of previous service will save from the most violent vituperation and deadly hostility. In this case the hostility has issued in a manner not anticipated. Mr. Gladstone has taken up the subject not in the pages of a Magazine, but in a separate publication, which has been sold by tens of thousands; and which, now that a cheap edition has been issued, will be still more widely circulated.

The publication thus issued is entitled The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance; a Political Expostulation. "Had I been," says the writer in his opening chapter, "when I wrote this passage (the one we have cited), as I now am, addressing myself in considerable measure to my Roman Catholic fellowcountrymen, I should have striven to avoid the seeming roughness of some of these expressions; but as the question is now about their substance, from which I am not in any particular disposed to recede, any attempt to recast their general form would probably mislead." More than one friend has expostulated with him on this passage. It is not the abettors of the Papal Chair who have "a right to remonstrate with the world at large; but it is the world at large that has the fullest right to remonstrate, first with his Holiness," and those who share his proceedings or passively allow them. As one, therefore, of the world at large, the author proposes to expostulate, and to show to the Romanists, that after the singular steps which the authorities of their Church have lately thought fit to take, "the people of this country, who fully believe in their loyalty, are entitled,

on purely civil grounds, to expect from them some declaration or manifestation of opinion, in reply to that ecclesiastical party in their Church who have laid down, in their name, principles adverse to the purity and integrity of civil allegiance.' The question, therefore, raised in this work is not one of theology, "except in its civil bearing." All Christian bodies, except the Roman, are content with freedom in their own religious domain, and are consequently never brought into perilous collision with the State. It is otherwise with the leaders of the papacy, or with those who take a pride in following them. "There is not," writes Archbishop Manning, "another Church so called, nor any community professing to be a Church, which does not submit, or obey, or hold its peace, when the civil governors of the world command."

One of the prominent features of the prophetic Scriptures is the frequent allusion to Babylon. Protestant commentators have interpreted these propheciesin the Apocalypse of Papal Rome, and Roman Catholic writers, as Bellarmine,. Baronius, and others, have also interpreted them of Rome, but have applied them to Pagan Rome. The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Wordsworth, not an ardent Protestant, in the notes to his Greek Testament, offers many reasons for the application of these prophecies to the Papacy, but does not reach the real ground of this prophetic meaning. Swedenborg says,-"By Babylon are understood all who will to rule by religion. To rule by religion is to rule over men's souls, thus over their very spiritual lives, and to use the Divine things which are in their religion as the means to rule. All those who have dominion for an end, and religion for the means, in general, are Babylon.' That this is the meaning of Babylon when named in the Word is clear from the passages in which it is treated of. It is seen in Genesis in the history of Babel, "a city and a tower whose top should reach to heaven;" in the prophecy by Isaiah on Lucifer, "who hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High" (xiv. 13, 14); and in the Apocalypse in the Mystic Babylon, sitting upon many waters (i.e. exercising widely-extended. authority), with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.' The hideous abominations and fearful crimes which have sprung out of this principle when it has gained the ascendancy in the Church, and the certainty of the overthrow of this system of concentrated wickedness, are involved in the announcement of the angel, whose presence lightened the earth with his glory, and who "cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." These terrible prophecies, if the slightest reliance is to be placed on the records of history, have been more than fulfilled in the fearful corruptions and insane pretensions of the Papacy. The Syllabus and the Vatican Decrees have filled up the measure of her wickedness, and brought the whole system into review. Statesmen can no longer treat with indifference the antagonism which these Decrees are exciting between Papal pretensions and civil obedience. Some of the most learned Catholics, as Dr. Döllinger, Lord Acton, and many others, cannot close their eyes to the facts of history, and acknowledge as infallible the authors of such horrible crimes as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. Nor can it be matter of indifference to the Protestant feeling of the country that weak-minded noblemen and silly women should be ensnared by her captivating arts, or that so many of the clergy should be allured by her priestly assumptions and gilded finery to employ the pulpits and the wealth of the Establishment to lead the way to her unhallowed sanctuaries. "The Rome of the Middle Ages," says Mr. Gladstone, "claimed universal monarchy. The modern Church of Rome has abandoned nothing, retracted nothing. Is that all? Far from it. By condemning (as will be seen) those who, like Bishop Doyle in 1826, charge the medieval Popes with aggression, she unconditionally, even if covertly, maintains what the medieval Popes maintained. But even this is not the worst. The worst by far is that, whereas, in the national churches and communities of the Middle Ages, there was a brisk,