THE BEAUTY AND SUBLIMITY OF THE DOCTRINES REVEAL- THE OBSCURITY OF THE UNSATISFYING DOCTRINES AN ADDRESS Delivered at the Annual Meeting, held June 20th, 1825, of the London Society for Printing and Publishing those Writings, BY THE PRESIDENT, CHARLES AUGUSTUS TULK, Esq. M. P. Ir would be an abuse of your patience, were I, upon this occasion, to address you upon the advantages which our Society has derived from the yearly meeting of its members, both as it respects the great purposes in which we are engaged, and the kindly feelings of regard, which a participation in the ends of our Institution cannot fail to excite. These are points made familiar to you by experience, and every year has served to strengthen and confirm them. Neither, when addressing you, should I deem it necessary to offer any reason, far less any justification, for the mode which has been hitherto adopted of celebrating our Anniversary. The universal truths of religion which we have the happiness to know, and to embrace, are as free from inculcating an ascetic spirit, or the affectation of superior sanctity, as they are from giving encouragement to the slightest approach towards irregularity or intemperance. Religion, we have learnt, is not to be found only in the retirement of the closet, or the devotion of the church; but, being in its exercises universal like the presence of its Divine Author, may be seen and welcomed, a heavenly guest at our table, as much as, and perhaps more than, if we sought her in solitude and contemplation. Religion does not, cannot, appear among men without having Use for the companion of her steps: and it matters little, so far as Religion is concerned, in what garb she appear, provided there be nothing in it to dim her heavenly lustre or obscure her beauty. Long then may this Anniversary continue to be celebrated, and long may the members of our Society be held together by the golden circle of a Use, which has no other bounds but the wants of our fellow-creatures! The wants of our fellow-creatures! would that I could add, their desires also; for No. VII.-VOL. I. 4 C then would our delights be multiplied and enlarged, as the sovereignty of Good and Truth became more widely extended and firmly established in the hearts of men, and as we saw their happiness secured by the enduring possession of these heavenly doctrines. When I consider the intrinsic worth of the doctrines revealed in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg; the new world of truths, and those of the highest order, which they discover, before which all that has been heretofore known sinks into comparative insignificance; I feel both grieved and surprised that the Christian world should continue to vilify or disregard them. Truth has come down to us from the inmost heaven, clad in robes of light, to lead mankind by the paths of peace to the abodes of everlasting happiness; and it is spurned and contemned as if it were a minister of evil and of error, disguised as an angel for the purpose of deceiving and tempting us to our ruin. And yet if men would, with common candour and impartiality, but examine those works, which without examination they despise; and, above all, contrast them with the empty speculations, the dreams, the shadows of religion with which they are constrained to be content; I am convinced that in very many instances, I might say, in every instance, where the mind is not warped by some merely external motive, the superiority of our doctrines upon every point of faith and practice must be acknowledged, and the reason set free from the trammels which fetter and oppress it. Who that was suffering under anxiety and fear in the mazes of some cold and gloomy cavern, would not feel his heart leap for joy when first the light and warmth of heaven burst upon him? And yet the mind is involved in the darkness of a labyrinth far more distressing than what the body could endure, when faith in errors gross and palpable is perpetually called into silence every doubt, or rather to stifle the aspirations of the soul after that truth which does not shun the light of day, but which is the light of day itself. Let every disinterested man open the book of his belief; let him examine every part, its mysteries, its contradictions, the many blanks which should be filled up with information deeply concerning his comfort here, and his happiness hereafter; and then say whether it be not from the want of a clearer and better system, that he still keeps the volume open, and pores over its contents. Let him say, whether he be quite satisfied with that doctrine of an atonement which separates the Godhead into three divine persons, with different and even discordant and contradictory attributes; when at the same time, and almost in the same breath, he is required to believe, under pain of eternal condemnation, that these three, as much distinguished in character and action as any three human beings could be, are not three but one. Tortured with the mockery of an explanation, which explains nothing but its own absurdity, let him, if he can, rest at peace with the assurance, that it is all a mystery, purposely involved in endless and inextricable contradictions, as a test to try the value of the faith which can without scruple embrace it. What! and can it be, that He, whose holiest attributes are iufinite love and wisdom, and the laws of whose order are as immutable as they are harmonious and complete, can have imparted to his creature man, the object of his tenderest solicitude, the faculty of reason, as the door by which, when opened, He may communicate with him, and inspire him with his own love, and enrich him with the treasures of his own wisdom; and then, as if in sport and mockery, require of him to close that door, and keep it fast, while he is being instructed in doctrines, which can gain admittance only to the very lowest faculties of the mind, through passages shut out from the light of heaven? Such a supposition is too monstrous, too shocking to dwell upon; and yet, when analysed, is the very ground-work upon which the tottering edifice is built, and without which it must quickly become a heap of ruins. Deriving small satisfaction from this trial of his faith, he will doubtless turn to other pages of the volume of his belief, in which to discover some glimmerings of comfort and consolation, some coincidence between his reason and his faith, to reconcile him, as far as may be, to the sacrifice he has been required to make. Alas! he may turn over page after page, and except in that which is drawn directly from the Holy Scripture, he will find nothing but similar sacrifices to be offered upon the same altar; or else an appalling blank, where he had hoped and longed to find overflowing consolations. I cannot doubt but that there are very many, who, when thinking for themselves, and not hood-winked and led by the authority of others, are troubled and disturbed at the visionary indistinctness in which the tenets of Christianity are wrapped by the comments and traditions of men. The everlasting Sun of Righteousness, though it be obscured for awhile, and its glory dimmed, will occasionally appear in every human mind, and by influx communicate some glimpses of a possible truth, which, comprehending all things in the most perfect harmony, may be seen, by the reflected Light of Reason, to be the very Essential Light, from which Reason itself has both its birth and its existence. Who among us that has seen the beauty of the holy city, her bulwarks and her palaces, can believe that the humble and sincere Christian, when in the retirement of the closet, and removed from the paralyzing influence of false systems and long established opinions, will be content with dreams as dark and confused, as they are painful and unreal? If, having drunk of the cup of suffering, he look with trembling hope to a life beyond the grave, as it is called; what sort of consolation will he find, what picture of the great reality will he have set before him? Theories like weeds in a neglected garden, wild and luxuriant in their growth, as they are rank and unprofitable! Theories, as irreconcilable with one another, as they are all with the Word of God and the principles of reason. I do not wonder then at the anxiety, the pertinacity with which men cling to this world with its chequered scene of fleeting joys and oft-recurring sorrows, when so cheerless, so unsubstantial a prospect is presented to them in the doctrine of the resurrection. That the soul should owe all its powers and faculties, and its very consciousness of existence, to a partnership with the body, and that it should remain deprived of all in cold oblivion, a state differing but little from annihilation, until, at the day of general resurrection, they are to be restored to one another; or, that the soul, according to the hypothesis of a late learned prelate, should be conveyed, after its separation from the body, down into the hollow cavity of the earth, where, in a place which he calls paradise, it is to pass, along with the general assembly of departed shadows, a dreamy indistinct kind of life, like the half consciousness which intervenes between sleep and wakefulness, until, at the consummation of all things, it should be restored with its body to the surface of the earth and to the light of day! These, truly, are doctrines fashioned, no doubt, for the purpose of reconciling to the loss of worldly life, and of weaning men from its fallacious perishablė delights! but how well calculated they are to attain their object I need not say. Look around, and see the mass of Christians drinking of the cup of sensual pleasures to the very dregs, as if to drown all thoughts of the Hereafter; and then say, whether they have had any good effect, or rather whether their effect has not been to enhance the value of the Present, by contrast with the supposed Future. But if it be asked what this Society has to offer in exchange; we can reply, A system of religion, as clear and consolatory as it is pure and holy. A revelation given by the LORD of heaven and earth to man to raise him from worldly pursuits and pleasures to heavenly happiness and joy; from the fleeting shadows of time and space, in which his thought and speech, his will and action, are naturally inherent, to the distinct substantial realities of an eternal state. A gift far more precious than mind can conceive or tongue can utter, which, did he know, and could he appreciate its value, he would clasp to his heart, and bow down in thankful adoration before that ETERNAL LOVE, who thus prepares the way for His descent, that He may gain the victory over the enemies that lurk within the mind, bring the propensities of his will into right subordination, and even while on earth, establish the heavenly kingdom in his soul. In this the Lord's Second Coming the veil of the mind, which obscured the Holy of Holies, is rent asunder, and men have now the opportunity, if they have the desire, and the frame of mind fitted to nourish the desire, of beholding the one Divine Object of their worship, and the heavenly kingdom which surrounds Him. No longer confused and staggered by contradictory mysteries, or called upon, with Tertullian, "to believe them to be certainly true, because they are impossible;" every one may see, and, if he please, in heart acknowledge, that it was the ONE JEHOVAH GOD, the Essential Love and the Essential Wisdom, perfect, immutable, who, by means of a natural Human Form, descended into nature, that he might reduce all things to order, and save mankind. In no part of this doctrine will he discover the trace of a divided sovereignty; no anger in one sovereign and pity in the bosom of another; no imputed righteousness; no sacrifice, according to the common notion of a sacrifice, to atone for sin; no fatherly severity which could require it. The one Being who creates and sustains us by his continual presence, moved by the intensity of his love towards his children, becomes our Redeemer and our Saviour, and restores our minds with all the distinct faculties which compose them, to a heavenly order, and so fits us for heavenly joys. And, as if to shew forth the fulness of his love, he now reveals to man the quality of those heavenly joys, and opens to him the very heavens |