THE INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY AND NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE. VOL. IV.-NEW SERIES. 1843. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE NEW CHURCH, SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM IN REVELATION; AND SOLD BY JAMES S. HODSON, 112, FLEET-STREET; W. NEWBERY, 6, CHENIES-STREET, BEDFORD-SQUARE. THE INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY; ITS USEFULNESS, AND ITS CLAIMS. In the Editors' concluding Address, in the last number, it was stated, that an important change had been made in the editorial department of this Magazine. It has been deemed advisable by the Conference, and resolved accordingly, that there shall be but one Editor, whose whole energies may be expected to be concentrated upon the work, as a necessary result of a concentrated responsibility.* There are certain periods in human life when it is desirable and necessary to look back on our past career, and to take a retrospective view of the history, events, acts, and states of our life. This is one condition and means of our progressive improvement as intelligent, moral, and spiritual beings. The great object of all history is, to instruct the present generation in the experience of the past, and hence to derive new and certain criteria for our present conduct, both as a nation, and as individuals. This is true not only of nations in the aggregate, and of individuals in particular, but also of institutions, churches, societies, and of every work and employment in which we are engaged to labour and to co-operate with each other for the universal good. The “Intellectual Repository" has now completed the thirtieth year of its existence, and we may say that it has survived one generation of the human race. Numbers who felt a deep interest in the cause of Holy Truth at the period when this periodical commenced in 1812, and who were instrumental in establishing it as an humble advocate, and defender of those sublime truths and doctrines which are made known to the world through the instrumentality of the enlightened and humble Emanuel Swedenborg, are now in the eternal world; and a few only survive, who bear in affectionate remembrance their pious and enlightened zeal in the cause of the New Dispensation of love and of * See Minutes of the last General Conference, 103–111, and also the Report of the Magazine Committee, &c. p. 40. truth to the human race. This Magazine contains the records of the Church during the early periods of its rise and formation; it records its struggles and its triumphs; it preserves in its pages numerous most instructive and edifying essays and articles from the pens of the venerable Clowes; Hindmarsh, Sibly, and others, who delighted in the truth when upon earth, and who are now enjoying its ineffable splendours in the realms of bliss. This periodical is also endeared to the memory of the living, by its records of the faithful, and the dear departed, who were esteemed and beloved upon earth, and to the enjoyment of whose society in heaven they look forwards with anticipation and delight. The son and the daughter here find recorded the brief and simple memoir of a pious and an honored father, and the sweet memorial of a devout and an affectionate mother, who, in their life and christian example, had "adorned the doctrine of God their Saviour." Hence the claims of the "Intellectual Repository" have, it is presumed, a strong hold upon the affection and regard of the present generation. When we look back, we behold many difficulties which this periodical has had to encounter. The zealous individuals who first patronized it, could scarcely hope that its continuance would have been prolonged, without intermission, to the present period. It has, however, gone on progressively increasing in literary support and friendly patronage, in proportion as the truths and doctrines it advocates have become known and esteemed amongst men. The great object of this Magazine is the instruction and edification of the New Church, and the propagation of those spiritual treasures of knowledge contained in the writings of the new Dispensation, by which, as we verily believe, every subject of theology and of mental and sacred philosophy is placed in its true scriptural and rational light, and divested of those gross fallacies and falsities, which a mental naturalism and sensualism has for ages past accumulated around them. The human mind, however, viewed as to its intellectual operations is, at the present period, struggling to emerge from these gross mists of naturalism and sensualism into a purer atmosphere of rational and spiritual truth. This is evident from the general and growing desire, which is manifest to change the present modes of thinking on the most important points of theology, and from the collision of opinions which so generally prevails. The present is evidently a transition-period in the history of the human mind, which is always a period of great mental anxiety to those who sincerely seek the truth. And shall not we, who possess the wonderful discoveries of eternal truth from the opening of the Spiritual Sense of the Holy Word, and the genuine doctrines of Christianity, come forward at the present important period with more zeal and diligence than ever? To |