# Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church/Chapter1

SWEDENBORG
HARBINGER OF THE NEW AGE
I
THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
The Christian Church recognizes that it is entering upon a new stage of life, with promise of a freer, more spiritual, and more beneficent existence than it has yet known. Of the immediate cause of this new development, and of its place in fulfilment of the predictions of our Lord, the Church at large has little or nothing to say. Only in the inner content of these predictions, as unfolded by Swedenborg, is the light now breaking from the east even unto the west plainly seen to be that of the Lord's Second Coming, with His Holy Spirit, calling all things to our remembrance whatsoever He has said unto us and guiding us into all truth. For clearer apprehension of this epoch in men's spiritual development let us take a rapid glance, approximately from ​Swedenborg's own point of view, over the course of this development from its inception.
Our highest conception of the Creator is of Infinite Love, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Power. Man's creation into the Divine image and likeness means therefore the form and capacity with which he is endowed to receive and live his measure of this Love, Wisdom, and Power. For the basis of his existence he has a material, animal nature, with its instincts and inflow of life from the Only Life. For development into the image and likeness of the Creator he has an inner organism, consisting of heart to receive and give forth love and of understanding to receive and utter wisdom, with liberty and power to act therefrom. The handmaid of the understanding is observation, the master of the house is reason—the power of collating ideas and drawing conclusions. To the handmaid the universe unfolds itself in which as in a mirror may be seen the Divine purpose, creating an infinity of organisms for mutual ever-ascending service, with man himself at the head, anointed with the high mission to aspire to the Divine image, and to accept the Divine will for his own. But the fulfilling of this ​mission depends on his accepting with heart and reason the Divine guidance, which at all times and under all conditions is provided in such form as can be in freedom accepted—in the "still small voice," in inspired words, or in portentous signs.
It is the accumulation of these revealings of the Divine will that has come down to us in our Holy Scriptures, in which we recognize the Purpose or Word of God in adaptation to the various states and conditions of men. This Word, or revelation of the Divine will, is given in man's own language and form of thought, even as our Lord Himself gave it to the people in parable. But in coming forth through heaven into man's thought and speech, the Word does not lose its Divine content. It simply embodies this in corresponding forms of lower degree. Thus this written Word is the foot of a ladder on which man and angel may ascend in thought into the presence of its Giver. Under this recognition of the spiritual and Divine content of the Scriptures incongruities in the letter are easily referable to human crudities of thought. Within, all is compatible with the infinite wisdom and love of Him whose will it reveals, full of instruction for angels and men.
​The first chapter of the Book of Genesis sets forth in terms a child may in his manner apprehend the order of the Divine process of creation. Of this order the first element is the outgoing of the Divine life through successive degrees of spiritual and material substance that it creates, of less and less, even to least life. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In the outmost, least living substance created there is yet a certain power of reaction, born of its very inertness. And the second element of the Divine order of creation is that out of this first, simple, least-living recipient through its reaction are evolved by regular—we say natural—process higher, more complex, and more living recipients, to receive higher or inner degrees of life from the One Source. The third element of this order is that this advance is made stage by stage, day after day, evening being the womb of the new morning. Evening was and morning was one day. This involves the decline of each successive stage after serving its purpose and maturing the germ for a new stage. Thus one generation of life gives way to its successor. The corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies in bringing forth a new ​plant, in which in new form its life is continued. The leaf falls after having formed in its axil the bud for a new shoot, and in decaying furnishes food for the new growth. Last in order, we learn that man in the image and likeness of his Creator is the first and final purpose in all creation.
How beautifully this order was followed in the creation of the earth and its inhabitants is known to the geologist, even as summarized in the record of Genesis up to the first presentation of man in the Divine image and likeness. And a deeper, higher fulfilment of the same order is found by Swedenborg in the evolution of the spiritual man into this image and likeness, out of the mind formless and void of the mere animal man—represented by the formless and empty earth enshrouded in darkness. And again in the same record is found the order of evolution of the spiritual man out of the natural to all time.
Of the primeval man we can know little. He left no records, no tradition. Of the regenerated heavenly but infantile race represented by Adam and Eve, first reproducing in infantile manner the Divine image and implanting in the inmost consciousness of mankind a foregleam of the ​condition to which it should in the end attain, Swedenborg learned much in the other world, quite in accordance with our traditions of the Golden Age. With this called by him the Most Ancient Church the history of man begins, though in scarce other than mythical form. Of the immediate revelation to it of the Divine will we have intimation in the voice of the Lord God heard by Adam. Of its duration we know nothing, but may conjecture it to have equalled all recorded time. Of its decline, due to the growing child desire to taste and choose for himself what to call good, we have symbolized record in the following of the serpent's counsel and in the decadent generations of Adam. The moral and spiritual desolation at the end of this first church swamped by accumulating falsities is represented by the flood, out of which was Divinely rescued the germ for a new development under the name of Noah [Rest].
The men of this succeeding age, called by Swedenborg the Ancient Church, though no longer to be led by the angels of infancy who do always behold the face of the Father in heaven, were yet willing to be instructed of heaven through their wise men learned in ancient ​traditions. With growing power of thought and imagination their successive generations developed language, song, and art—notably that of building—during thousands or myriads of years, over all central and southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. Of their religion, at first heaven-derived and spiritual, we have remains in the early Hebrew Scriptures and in the sacred books of India, Persia, Egypt, and Turkestan. On the remains of their language all our modern languages are based. Of their prowess in building, the rock-temples of India and the pyramids of Egypt bear enduring witness, though of the period of religious decadence. Of their art the remains left in Greece by a late offshoot of the same stock, are still unequalled by modern genius. Grecian art and philosophy with Roman statesmanship have furnished the basis of modern civilization, as the Gospel of our Lord has furnished the inspiration—even as we see exemplified in the evolution of the heaven-aspiring Christian cathedral.
In the discriminating thought of this Ancient Church at its best estate it distinguished and reverenced divers attributes of the Deity. In its ​ these attributes were personified and imaged, till in its downfall the images themselves were worshipped and idolatry was becoming universal. Then lest the knowledge of the One God and of His laws of life should be lost from the face of the earth, midway in both time and space between the erection of the pyramids and that of the Grecian temples, in the very centre of civilization, a new race was planted, in the land of Canaan—the old home perhaps of Adam and Eve—a race of Shemitic, still Noachian stock, a simple, nomadic race of unequalled persistence, fitting them to receive and preserve in integrity a new revelation of the Creator and His laws in concrete form—even graven in stone. These laws accompanied by many ritual statutes, with remains of the earlier Scriptural records, with the true yet symbolic history of this people, with their songs of prayer and praise, with prophecy from beginning to end of the coming of the Messiah who should bring dire judgment on their nation for their sins while bringing eternal salvation to those who would accept His redemption—all this was the spiritual legacy of this Noachian age to the ages to come. Says Schlegel—
​"The significant brevity of the first pages of the Mosaic history involves much profound truth for us in these later ages . . . did we but know how to extract the simple sense with like simplicity. ... In general the whole tenor of the Mosaic writings, like the existence of the Hebrew nation, was formed for futurity. . . . So the whole Hebrew people may in a lofty sense be called prophetic, and have been really so in their historical existence and destiny." "The Hebrew tongue was eminently adapted to the high spiritual destination of the Hebrew people, and was a fit organ of the prophetic revelation and promises imparted to that nation"
The ever deplorable conduct of the Jewish leaders in crucifying Him who came to save them ended the leadership of that church in the spiritual development of mankind. But their traditions, their Scriptures remained to become the framework of the new church of the Lord, itself the prototype of the New Jerusalem, His final tabernacle with men. And we are never to forget the maternal service of the Hebrew Church for the birth of its Lord into the world, first in the written ​Word and then in its fulfilment in the flesh, our ever present Lord. The maternal office was not more real materially than it was spiritually. It was foretold to Eve with reference to her seed. It was repeated to Abraham who rejoiced to see the day coming. Its fulfilment was the theme of the prophets and was voiced in the Psalms of David. Abraham's obedience, repeated in Mary's Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me as thou hast said, furnished the fit germ for the human life of our Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour.
Our Lord's coming in the flesh bringing the light of the Divine presence down among men caused a judgment on those to whom the light came, both in this world and in the world of spirits where the evil were assaulting the gates of heaven itself. His resistance to their assault upon His human nature at the same time cast them down in the spirit world to their home beneath, even as He declared—I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven. But the Lord came not merely for judgment. He came also for a light to enlighten the Gentiles. The Gentiles were all people ​outside of the Jewish race. And indeed it was among these outside nations that His light was chiefly accepted and His Church established, on the faith that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. In Him at last was seen Man in the image and likeness of God. He first did the will of the Father on earth as it is done in heaven, therein giving man the example for all time, abiding in him and by His Holy Spirit giving him the will to follow, as he will receive it. The world was ripe for the beginning of this realization of what living in the image and likeness of God might mean, as is evident from its marvellous spread during the early centuries; but only for the beginning. The young man thought he desired eternal life, the life of the kingdom of heaven. But when told to renounce all that he had of this world, he was very sorrowful, for he had great possessions. It was not difficult for the first disciples to give up worldly possessions, of which they had no great store—to forsake their nets and follow their Lord. But for this they at once asked what reward they should have in heaven, and disputed among themselves which should there be the greatest. Doubtless in this claim for ​reward in His kingdom the Lord saw the tares sown with the wheat and foresaw the sad end of this first age of His Church. None knew so well as He the slow and painful steps by which man must be led out of the natural self-seeking life of this world into the spiritual self-devoting life of the Father's kingdom.
Man was yet but in early youth. A great step was gained in teaching him to set his heart, not on the riches and honors of earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, but on the treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and thieves do not break through nor steal. The tares must be let alone until a riper age, when their fruit should be manifest and the developed reason should be ready to bind them in bundles and burn them. But this acceptance of the Gospel mainly through fear of torment or hope of reward in heaven gave every opportunity to self-seeking leaders for gaining control of their converts to their own personal advantage. Retaining the Gospel in their own hands, in a language which none but themselves could read, they devised creeds and canons to maintain their own supremacy. They took away the key of ​knowledge. Entering not into the kingdom themselves, them that would enter they hindered, all to their own worldly gain.
Luther and his associates revolted from this prostitution of the religion of our Lord, so graphically represented to John in vision as Babylon the great adulteress. And in two centuries they and their followers did much to restore a true conception of the life of the kingdom and of the duty of the Church. But in controverting the error that heaven could be merited by undergoing the penances and paying the tribute imposed by the Church of Rome, substituting therefor belief only in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, Luther went too far. To emphasize the distinction between his Reformed Church and the Roman Catholic, he declared charity and good works to be of no avail for salvation.
In the Protestant wing of the Church belief in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the only means of attaining heaven, and the condemnation of all who had not this grace was proclaimed with a severity equal to that of the anathemas of the Church of Rome. Either wing of the Lord's Church was ready to burn the ​other. The errors of both were sustained by a fundamental misunderstanding of the Trinity, which was unfortunately conceived as of distinct persons with different attributes. The Father was regarded as avenging justice and the Son as loving mercy, by which He atoned for the never-forgiven sin of Adam in taking upon Himself the punishment of the cross, the Father accepting the sacrifice so far as to pardon those whom the Son should elect.
Thus darkened was the Sun of heaven. This unreasonableness of doctrine and lack of Christian charity, wars and massacres under the flag of Christian faith, with the profligate luxury of church officials in contrast with the desperate poverty of the people, easily bred contempt for religion at a time when by the art of printing great strides had been made in popular education. What wonder that atheism and deism were having their own way! Religion and morality in the eighteenth century were fast disappearing. The judgment of the Christian Church in the view of its sanest adherents was near at hand.
John Albert Bengel [d. 1752] said, "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is already gone; that of ​Christ is on the wane; and that of the creation hangs but by a slender thread. . . . It is made a part of politics so to act and speak as to leave no trace of religion, God, and Christ."
Dr. Dörner says, "The edifice of Lutheran Christology had been for the most part already forsaken by its inhabitants before 1750. . . . A deistical atmosphere seemed to have settled upon this generation, and to have cut it off from vital communion with God."
Leibnitz in the earlier part of the century had said, "The state to which we are approaching is one of the signs by which will be recognized that final war announced by Jesus Christ: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"
Abbey and Overton say, "It was about the middle of the century when irreligion and immorality reached their climax."
In 1753 Sir John Barnard said, "At present it really seems to be the fashion for a man to ​declare himself of no religion." And Archbishop Lecker declared that immorality and irreligion were grown almost beyond ecclesiastical power.
In France it was if possible worse, and Carlyle well says, "A century so opulent in accumulated falsities . . . opulent in that bad way as never century before was! Which had no longer the consciousness of being false, so false had it grown; and was so steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to the very bone, that—in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French Revolution had to end it."
"In Germany," says Schlegel, "during the atheistic and revolutionary period of the French philosophy, immediately prior to the French Revolution, as well as at its commencement, Christianity and in fact all religion was regarded as a mere prejudice of the infancy of the human mind, totally destitute of foundation in truth, and no longer adapted to the spirit of the age; monarchy and the whole civilization of modern Europe as abuses no longer to be tolerated. It was only when men had reached this extreme term of their ​boasted enlightenment, that a reaction took place. But prior to this, toward the middle of the eighteenth century, and in the ten years immediately subsequent, the spirit of the age bore all before it in its irresistible progress."
This condition of the Christian Church in the eighteenth century was plainly the abomination of desolation foretold by the Lord as to come at the consummation of the age [commonly but erroneously rendered "the end of the world"], when the Sun—the face of the Lord of heaven—should be darkened, and the Moon—faith in Him—should not give her light, and the stars of heaven—all knowledge of Him and His will—should fall from their places. Such it was recognized to be by devout, distressed students of the time, and the judgment foretold by our Lord and foreseen in vision by John was perceived to be at hand. By concurrent testimony it would seem that the time was ripe for this judgment in the middle of the eighteenth century. The judgment was not seen to come. But notably from about that time a change came over the Christian Church, and students of history ever since are ​marvelling, searching for the cause of the revivification of the churches. A downward course does not of itself turn into an upward course. Satan does not let go his hold of man or race of his own will. As in the first century, so in the eighteenth, he could be cast down from his encroachment on heaven by no less power than that of the Son of God, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us.
It was the sign of the Son of Man to be seen again in the clouds of heaven that was to effect the judgment. It was the Lion of the tribe of Judah who alone could prevail to loose the seals of the Book, at once the Book of the Word and the Book of the judgment. The two prophecies are one. In the written Word after the resurrection, as in the flesh transfigured on the mount, the Lord showed Himself to His disciples in glory, Son of God in Son of Man. But in the succeeding centuries, as we have seen, clouds of misinterpretation, the clouds of tri-personalism, of vicarious atonement, and of salvation by faith alone, had hidden His face from men's minds. The dispersion of these clouds, the re-appearance of the face—the grace and truth—of the Son of Man, even ​in the letter of His written Word, was to effect the judgment on the declining age of the Church and reveal the dawning light of the new age.
Under this simple interpretation of the judgment we are to look for its effects in the clearing of the spiritual atmosphere, in release of men's minds from the bondage of perverted faith—Peter girded by another and carried whither he would not—and in increasing return to the simple, heart-felt instruction of the Gospel. It was the beloved disciple John who was to remain till his Lord should come again, and to whom in vision the spiritual judgment was portrayed—John, who stands for the love of the Church in good works, as Peter for its faith. And as among the Jews at our Lord's first coming, so in the midst of the desolation of the eighteenth century there were not a few memorable examples of God-fearing, self-denying, Samaritan lives. Into this good heart coupled with trained intellect, preserved as the germ for the new age, was received the first dawn of light, and in the marvellous spread of this light thus far we recognize the certainty of the Lord's renewed presence in His Church. Most strikingly is this shown in the ​new charity now prevailing between one sect of the Church and another and between Christian and pagan. Never before since the angels' song was heard on the hills of Judea—Peace on earth and good-will toward men—has its accomplishment seemed so near. Year by year, day by day is the evidence accumulating that the crisis is past and the new coming of our Lord begun, and this dating from about the middle of the eighteenth century. But where and how was the vision to John fulfilled?
No one answers but Swedenborg, who in his Apocalypsis Revelata describes the fulfilment, clause by clause, of the whole of this vision—not in this world, but in the vast spirit world, where were gathered an innumerable multitude, good and bad together, awaiting the judgment that the new coming of the Lord in His Word would effect. Were this conception of the judgment mere imagination, instead of the stern reality which Swedenborg affirms, how sublime! Judgment of scores of generations in place of the one or two possible on earth, without limit of space or time; judgment of the inner souls and tenets of men there revealed; overthrow of spirit ​heavens and earth, leaving this earth of ours to bide its time; angels without number bearing the Divine light down to the overthrow of the prince of darkness and all his satellites! In truth the spirit world alone could be fit theatre for the fulfilment of the vision vouchsafed to John. But on earth the seals of the Book were to be loosed at the same time, for spirits in the flesh live always in real though unseen communion with spirits in the spirit world, and their thoughts are held in common. In fact, with spirits as with men, spiritual thought must have its ultimate basis in material thought. The letter of the Word of God is human, even material, in form. The opening of its inner, spiritual, heavenly, and Divine content can be only by the Lord Himself by means of His Holy Spirit in the suitably prepared mind of man.
Before He left their sight the Lord told His disciples that He had many things to say to them, but they could not bear them then. Howbeit when He should come to them with His Holy Spirit He would call all things to their remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them and would guide them into all truth. A special fulfilment of this promise was given to these immediate disciples, ​for their special vocation, but its larger, all-embracing fulfilment could not come till the new revelation of His face in His Word, which was indeed the same thing, and before which the Gospel must first be preached unto all the nations. It was by the opening of the heart to the Holy Spirit that the revelation of the grace and truth in His Word could be given.
The Word from Alpha to Omega is one. Only the interpretation varies as gradually given with man's developing capacity to receive. The ages for infantile reception, for childhood instruction and obedience, for blind reliance on priests and their dogmas, had passed. The new light now needed must explain the will of God and His providence for man in a rational, intelligible way, not as a substitute for faith, but as her handmaid, for her ultimate support. It must be addressed to the understanding and must therefore come, not with authority to compel, but with light leading into all truth, in accordance with our Lord's promise. The mind to receive this new light in fulness must be trained in the learning and reason of the world, and the heart must be open to the Spirit. Where was it to be found?
* ↑ Philosophy of History, p. 120.
* ↑ Ib. p, 250.
* ↑ Dr. J. S. Dörner: Hist. Prot. Theology, ii, 213.
* ↑ Ib. ii, 274, 296.
* ↑ Palmer: The Church of Christ, i, 348.
* ↑ English Church in Eighteenth Century, ii, 44.
* ↑ Abbey and Overton: op. cit. ii, 44.
* ↑ Life of Frederick the Great, i, 11.
* ↑ Op. cit. ii, 268.