OBITUARY. DIED on the 25th of March, aged 81 years, MR. THOMAS WYNN, who had been a receiver of the New Church doctrines for more than twenty years. For a long time he stood alone; but notwithstanding the opposition he had to encounter respecting the new doctrines he had espoused, he remained stedfast in the truth. He at length succeeded in forming a small circle of receivers, chiefly from the members of his own family, together with a few others to whom he had introduced the doctrines, when a teacher of the Independent Sunday school of his native village. He has left a widow a few years younger than himself, who, with the rest of the friends, feel his removal as a great loss; for although he was of so great an age, yet his mental powers were unimpaired; and although suffering under asthma, yet when engaged in conversation on his favourite topic, the New Church doctrines, he seemed to be enjoying as it were new life. It is highly gratifying to be able to state that he not only studied the doctrines with delight, but that he endeavoured to live accordingly. A few days previous to his death he was kindly visited by the Rev. D. G. Goyder, who was engaged here in the delivery of a course of scientific lectures, with whom he had an edifying conversation on the probability of his removal into the eternal world at no distant period, and likewise on the comfort afforded by the heavenly doctrines in the prospect of death. A. W. Sheffield. DIED on the 3rd of May, at Wigan, Lancashire, MR. ROBERT LANCASTER, after an illness of only one week. The deceased was for many years an active and useful member of the New Church, and was highly respected by all who knew him, for the purity of his life and the kindness of his feelings. He was introduced to a knowledge of the doctrines at about the age of 24, and for twenty years maintained an upright and unblemished character. Consistent in his conduct-steady in his attachments,— mild, yet firm;-meek, yet uncompromising; he will long be deeply regretted by all who enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance. He was constant in his attendance at public worship; while his private character, as a neighbour, a husband and a father, bore testimony to the sincerity of his profession. The writer of this had the pleasure of knowing him, and will long remember his affectionate and truly Christian conversation. Though his death was sudden, he was well prepared to meet it; and he died with the same calm resignation that had distinguished his life. Brother farewell! The crown is thine; Thy toil and warfare's o'er : That thou art gone before. Brother farewell A little while, And freed from grief and care, Yet no! We will not say farewell; While yet on earth we stay. Still, though unseen, thou waitest nigh, [From a Correspondent.] Liverpool, May, 1842. THE INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY AND New Jerusalem Magazine. No. 31. JULY, 1842. ON THE RELATION SUBSISTING BETWEEN THE HEALTH OF THE BODY AND THAT OF THE MIND. To those who take delight in the study of the New Church writings, and who are in the habit of reflecting upon the subjects on which they treat, it must appear of the greatest moment to keep their minds in a healthy and vigorous condition: for, in order to understand, with any degree of clearness, the beautiful and sublime truths which they contain, the various faculties of the mind must not only be kept in their relative and subordinate stations, but must likewise be respectively prepared for active and combined exertion. Various may be the motives that lead an individual to seek for the information contained in these writings; and the delight thence resulting will take its quality from the ruling motive. Thus, if it be mere curiosity that prompts him to peruse them, the delight will be of a very low order indeed, and destitute of that satisfaction which would lead him to acknowledge the information so obtained as delightful food for reflection; or, should he be actuated by the unworthy motive of desiring to attain the knowledge they impart for the sake of overcoming in argument, or for any other such selfish consideration, his delight will, in this case, be merely natural, and as it were swallowed up in the tempestuous ocean of jarring and conflicting opinions: but, on the other hand, when these writings are applied to from those motives of the will which indicate the existence of a love of truth for its own sake, or from a desire to appropriate every good and every truth that can assist in casting out the loves of self and of the world, or that can conduce to regeneration, how unmixed is the gratification! how full the satisfaction! and how peaceful the delight which is enjoyed by him who is thus in the way of being instructed unto the kingdom of heaven! For persons of this sort the New Church writings are more especially given; and when once a new will is born in the understanding by NEW SERIES. NO. 31.-VOL. 3. I I means of the truths communicated, in a thousand different ways, to the latter, for the habitation, nourishment, and growth, of such new will, every faculty of the human mind will require to be kept in right subordination, and in such a healthy condition as will enable it to endure both vigorous and wholesome exertion. A new will implies not only new motives and new delights but also the establishment of the kingdom of heaven in the mind-of a kingdom diametrically opposite to the kingdom of the world: it implies a love of God above all things, and a love of our neighbour as ourselves: it implies a restoration to order, and, in short, the creation of a new man, the work of the Lord alone. But, in order to expedite and insure the growth of this new will, and its arrival at such a happy state of maturity as we have been mentioning, all the faculties and powers of the natural or external man, which fit him for abiding in the natural or external world, and which, in their natural state, yield to the influence of evil and false principles, require to be turned in a contrary direction, or to be influenced by the opposite principles of goodness and truth: and this can be brought about only by their coming under the entire dominion of the new will; for the new will can only be said to grow when it comes into the exercise of a perfect dominion and controul over these external faculties and powers, and to attain to a state of maturity, when it has made them one with itself, or, in other words, when the conjunction of the external and the internal man is effected. The means of contributing to this happy attainment are manifold: some are of the Lord alone in the internal man, operating independently of human and even of angelic consciousness, in the same way as the wonderful processes of circulation, absorption, and a thousand other corporeal actions, are going on for the preservation and growth of the body, without man's knowledge or interference; some are of the surrounding angelic sphere, pressing and urging upon the exteriors of his internal man, or upon his rational mind, the appropriation of the gifts of heaven, which are no less than the love and the wisdom, the heat and the light, emanating from the sun of heaven itself, and which it is the supreme delight of angels to convey and impart to man, his liberty and rationality thereupon depending, in the same way as the ethereal atmosphere presses upon the most subtile contextures of his bodily frame; and, whilst it preserves them in their forms and tone, imparts to them and their contained fluids a nourishment and support, a warmth and animation, without which the grosser and more compound textures could neither act nor sensate ; some are of the rational man, when he is moved by rational intuition, or when he is led by rational considerations to choose good and to abhor evil, to seek for truth and to reject error, in the same way as, for the preservation of his bodily health, he sees it is better for him to adhere to a wholesome diet and to corporeal exertion; some, again, are of the external man, when his own will conjoins itself with the will of his Creator, and his whole mind co-operates, from love and obedience, with the merciful provisions and intentions of his Lord for the effecting of his salvation: then he acts under the knowledge and conviction that the work of regeneration is the chief business of his life, and that he may take advantage of every thing in this world to promote his salvation, in the same way as the natural man, from merely natural and worldly considerations and motives, exercises prudence and cunning, to promote his own aggrandizement and honour in the world, or to preserve his bodily health and that of others, either by a selection of wholesome food, or by the employment of medicines, which he knows can conduce to re-establish the bodily organs in the performance of their natural and necessary functions: and it may be observed, that while the spiritual man, with spiritual ends and aims, is careful to keep his conscience void of offence towards God and man, and while he is intent on performing the duties of his station with uprightness and strict integrity of heart, as though, like the natural man, he were actuated by merely natural motives, he must, at the same time, be attentive to the healthy condition of his body; because his body, being the instrument of his mind, can communicate of its own infirmity or its own vigour to the mind, in a reflex and indirect manner; and the consequences of this must be, to retard the growth and development of the new will, to counteract the regenerating process, and so to materially impede his advancement in the heavenly life. These reflections indeed, were forced upon us, by what is contained in No. 8378 of the Arcana Cœlestia; and we feel very confident that the readers of the Repository will be equally impressed with ourselves. It is there shewn of what importance it is in preparing our food, to do so, not with a view to the gratification of our palate, but chiefly with a view to its wholesomeness; for by so doing, we shall be attending to the health of our minds and bodies at the same time : whereas, when the gratification of the palate is the chief thing attended to, the bodily health is frequently lost thereby; at least, it loses much of its inward vigour, and consequently the mind also is affected, inasmuch as its state depends on the state of the recipient bodily organs, in like manner as seeing depends on the state of the eye: hence the madness of supposing that all the delights of life, and what is commonly called the summum bonum, consist in luxury and pleasurable indulgences; hence also comes dullness and stupidity in the things which require thought and judgment, whilst the mind is disposed only for the exercise of cunning in regard to bodily and worldly things; hereby, also, man acquires a brutal image and likeness, and therefore, such persons are rightly enough compared to brutes. In illustration also of what we have advanced, we may quote what Swedenborg adduces in A. C. 4459: "He that is in pleasures merely external is nice about his person, pampers his appetite, loves to live sumptuously, and places his chief pleasure in the dainties of the table; but he that is in internal things, also has satisfaction in the above gratications, yet his ruling affection is that his body may be nourished by meats with pleasure for its health's sake, to the end that he may have a sound mind in a sound body, thus principally for the sake of the mind's health, to which the health of the body serves as a means. He that is a spiritual man does not rest here, but regards the health of the mind or soul as a means of imbibing intelligence and wisdom, not for the sake of reputation, honours, or gain, but for the sake of the life after death: he that is spiritual in an interior degree, regards intelligence and wisdom as a mediate end that he may serve as a useful member in the Lord's kingdom; and he that is a celestial man, that he may serve the Lord. To this latter, corporeal food is a means to enjoy spiritual food, and spiritual food is a means to enjoy celestial food; and because they ought so to serve, those foods also correspond; hence, also, they are called foods." J. S. REFLECTIONS ON THE SCIENCE OF WHEN We study the works of our blessed Lord, we should endeavour to keep our minds as open as possible, in order that the subject may be seen from all points: by doing so, we gain clear views and gather intelligence in a copious way. The study of the attributes of our Creator fixes the mind with veneration and wonder. When we see that the Lord is infinite divine love and infinite divine wisdom, that he is substance itself and life itself, and that from him originates creation, we are led to inquire how it is that creation proceeds from him? |