Sermons illustrating the doctrine of the Lord, and other fundamental doctrines of the New-Jerusalem church

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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SERMONS

Preface

These sermons are designed for persons, especially young persons, just embracing the doctrines of the new church. They are, therefore, written in a diffuse style, with much plainness and familiarity of illustration, without any pretensions to originality of thought, and with only an effort, perhaps an ineffectual one, to make the abstruse and fundamental principles of our theology plain to the commonest minds. To do this well and effectively, would be the greatest use, worthy of the utmost efforts of the strongest minds. The author dare not hope that his effort can prove successful. But his best feelings have been exercised in making it, and his prayer now is that He who can give increase to the planting and watering of his weakest agents, will, in his mercy, bless it with unforeseen productiveness.

Young persons, when first embracing the doctrines of the new church, are sometimes subjected to doubts, owing to infestations from those of different faiths with whom they are obliged to associate. The reason of these doubts seems to be given in the following law of the spiritual world : " It is to be noted that it is according to the laws of order, that no one ought to be persuaded instantaneously concerning truth, that is, that truth should instantaneously be so confirmed as to leave no doubt concerning it. The reason is, because the truth which is so impressed, becomes persuasive truth, and is without any extension, and also without any yielding. Such truth is represented in the other life as hard, and of such a quality as not to admit good into it, that it may become applicable. Hence it is, that, so soon as any truth is presented before good spirits in the other life by manifest experience, there is presently afterwards presented some opposite which causes doubt. Thus it is given them to think and consider whether it be so, and to collect reasons, and thereby to bring that truth rationally into their minds.

VI. PREFACE.

Hereby the spiritual sight has extension, asvto that truth, even to opposites." (A. C.7298.)

From this it appears to be orderly, both that doubts should be experienced in the reception of the true faith, and that those doubts should be removed by rational confirmations of its truths* On this ground a reasoning method will be found to form a pro* minent feature of these sermons. For a chief design in writing them was, to furnish reasons suited to remove the doubts incident to young and ingenuous receivers of our faith, and to enable them to bring the truths of that faith rationally into their minds.

Reasoning whether a thing be so or not so will never bring a negating mind into the perception of what is. The mind itself must first be true before it can perceive what is true. It is easy to believe things to be as we love to have them : but nothing is so difficult as to reason a man into a belief of that which he does not love. The natural man does not love spiritual truths ; and hence, it is not only difficult to reason him into a belief of them, but it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for him to comprehend them. Now the truths which the New Jerusalem teaches are eminently spiritual. Hence the natural man is prone to negate them. While the evils of his will are quiescent, he may give a mere intellectual assent to these truths, but he will always deny them in spirit whenever they touch his life. They cannot be perceived until, by the life of the doctrines that contain them, spiritual discernment is attained ; when a man ceases to be natural and becomes spiritual. Therefore we do not imagine that natural men are to be converted to our faith by argument, but by that change of internal state, which Divine Providence, in the exercise of some of his infinite means, effects.

Still, as it is admissible to reason whether a thing be so or not so, when the end is to conform truths already admitted on a ground of faith, rational argument has been used here in illustrating and confirming the truths contained in the doctrines of the true church. And although we cannot hope to convince confirmed negators by rational arguments for our tenets against their faith, yet we may free and defend ourselves from doubts respecting our own faith, which their sphere may infuse into us during our daily intercourse with them.

The mode of contrasting our views with others has been adopted, not for the purpose of attacking and putting down the principles or men of any prevailing denominations, but simply for the purpose of confirming ourselves in the rational and vital reception of the most essential principle of our faith, which cannot be so distinctly seen as when it is contrasted with its opposite.

CONTENTS,

SERMON I.

Jesus and the Father are one. — John, xiv. 8 — 11.

SERMON II.

True nature of the Spirit that testifies of Jesus.— -John, xv. 26.

SERMON III.

The Nature and Necessity of a Second Coming of the Lord, in respect to the regeneration of the individual soul, together with a disquisition on the internal and external revelation of truth, and an incidental explanation of the Lord's declaration that the Father is greater than he. — John, xiv. 28.

SERMON IV.

The Holy Spirit is not a Person separate from Jesus Christ, but is a Divine Sphere proceeding from him. — John, xx. 22.

SERMON V.

What are the three Constituent Principles of Deity ? — John, i. 1, 4, 14-

SERMON VI.

The three Constituent Principles of Deity are in Jesus Christ, so as to constitute him God alone. — Matthew, xxviii. 18, 14.

SERMON VII.

Jesus Christ is God alone because he is possessed of all the Divine Attributes.

— Matthew, xxviii. 18.

SERMON VIII.

Jesus Christ, or the Humanity of Jehovah, or the Reactive Principle of Deity,

is the Proper Object of Christian Worship. — Psalm ii. 10.

SERMON IX.

Jesus Christ was worshiped when on earth. — Matthew, xxviii. 9.

SERMON X.

Jesus Christ was not only worshiped on earth, but is now worshiped in heaven, and, therefore, was presumably the Object of Apostolic Worship. — Revelation, v. 3.

SERMON XI.

That Jesus Christ was the God of the Apostles, proved from their Epistles, together with an Exposition of the Ground and Nature of the Distinction which the Apostles make between Jesus and the Father, and a consideration of the question, If the Apostles saw clearly that Jesus Christ and the Father are one person, why did they not utter this truth plainly ?

Vlll. CONTENTS.

SERMON XII.

That Jesus Christ was the God of the Apostles, proved particularly from the Epistles of John. — Isaiah, ix. 6.

SERMON XIII.

Statement of the Difficulty which the Sensual Mind has in conceiving the Unity of God and Man in one person, with a Declaration and Explanation of the New-Church Faith, both general and particular, concerning the Lord, whereby the Lord's alternate states of humiliation and glorification are brought to bear upon the difficulty in question. — Matthew, xxvii. 46.

SERMON XIV.

The Doctrine of the Lord's Alternate States of Humiliation and Glorification made to explain the Apparent Separation of Jesus and the Father, so as to consist with the idea of their real Unity and Identity ; together with a consideration of the Unitarian Objections to the views of the New Church on this subject ; and a disclosure of the Root of the Difficulty which is felt in receiving those views. — John, a:. 17, 18, 19.

SERMON XV.

Consideration of the Lord's apparently contradictory assertions both of his equality and inferiority to the Father. — Total difference between the New- Church and Unitarian Views of this subject. — True Reason of this wide difference. — And a demonstration that the Divine Essence must have had a Divine Form to effect either creation, or redemption and salvation. — Isaiah, lix. 16.

SERMON XVI.

A Familiar Illustration of what the Divine Humanity of the Lord is. — Jeremiah, iv. 25.

SERMON XVII.

The Doctrine of a Divine Humanity the Touchstone which is to try who belong to the True Christian Church, and to be the means of breaking up all existing Denominations of the Old Christian Church, by separating its Wheat from its Chaff, or secerning its Spiritual from its Natural Men. — Luke, xx. 18.

SERMON XVIII.

The Necessity of Redemption. — An Answer to the Question, What did Jesus Christ come for ? In which it is shown that Jesus Christ came to Redeem and Save Mankind by subduing the Hells, reducing the Heavens to order, and thereby establishing a True Church on earth. — Matthew, ix. 12, 13.

SERMON XIX.

The True Nature of the New Birth, in an explanation of what is meant by being born of water and the spirit. — John, Hi. 5.

SERMON XX.

The Necessity of the New Birth, together with a demonstration of the gradual and progressive nature of this change ; and of the source from whence alone it can be effected. — John, Hi. 7.

SERMON XXI.

The Sum of all True Religion is the Life of Use from the Love of Use for its own sake. — Matthew, vi. 33.