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can be transformed, after which they hate God and his angels,-good and truth and the affections thereof, with a perfect hatred; and then all and singular the influences of good and truth, and also further vastations and punishments, serve only to increase such hatred, but never to turn them from their evils and falsities.

We are however not left in this momentous question to our mere speculations and conclusions which we can and may draw from Swedenborg's writings, and which in general we are apt to interpret according to our own preconceived ideas; but in endeavoring to learn to know ourselves; and in learning to understand well and practically the process of reformation and regeneration going on within ourselves, we conceive and learn how, by the mercy of the Lord, our Remains of Good and Truth are strengthened and our evils and falsities obliterated or removed farther and farther to the circumference, where, by continual victories over them, they are laid lifeless and powerless at our feet. Just so, in the most strict analogy, as the Grand Man rises triumphantly higher and higher, his enemies will be laid lower and lower, until it can be said of them: "death where is thy sting, and hell where is thy victory!" but all honor, praise and adoration be unto Him who sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever, Amen.

E. Berlin, C. W.

ARTICLE VI.

LAY PREACHING.

Ir has long been a matter of surprise, that the receivers of the doctrines in the United States have not adopted the practice of lay preaching, which has been successfully practiced in England, ever since the doctrines were first publicly made known.

There is scarcely a Society in the church, which has not one or more members, who could not with advantage both to himself and others, cultivate the faculty of presenting the heavenly doctrines to the public. There are several Societies in this country, to my certain knowledge, which have more than a dozen members who could in a short time prepare themselves for eminent usefulness in this field of labor.

This could be done without interfering with their regular uses. There are little clusters of scattered receivers all over the country where a New Church discourse has never been heard, who would be warmed and strengthened by an occasional visit of this kind.

My attention has been called to this subject by a conversation held with a brother recently from Manchester, England, who has shown me a number of hand bills, containing what is called "Missionary Committee's Quarterly Arrangement."

These tables show so strikingly the practical workings of the system, that I send you one of them, which I hope you will be able to print. This copy is for three months in 1823. I have copies before me also for the three previous years.

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MISSIONARY COMMITTEE'S QUARTERLY ARRANGEMENT

OF THE VISITING MINISTERS BELONGING TO THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH,

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF MANCHESTER,

Jan.

February.

March.

April.

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M. Service in the Morning.

A. In the Afternoon.

E. In the Evening.

At BOLTON, Mr. BIRCHWOOD will deliver the following Course of Lectures, viz: January 26th. On the necessity of loving the Lord above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves.

February 9th. On the nature and use of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

February 23d. On the peculiar formation of the Human Mind, showing the various degrees of which it consists.

March 9th. On the nature of Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.-Matt. xii. 31, 32.
March 23d. On the certainty of the eternal duration of Hell torments.
April 6th. Recapitulatory Lecture, conveying a brief statement of the leading
doctrines of the New Jerusalem, and showing their great importance.

Mr. BIRCHWOOD will also deliver Lectures at TILDSLEY on the following subjects, viz :

February 19th. On the fall of Man, with remarks on the doctrine concerning Election and Reprobation.

February 2d. On the Person and Character of the Divine Redeemer.
February 16th. On the Redemption and the Atonement.

March 2d, On the nature of the New Birth, and the danger of trusting to Faith alone.

March 16th. On the existence of Man, after the death of his material body; and on his future state, as revealed in the Word of God.

March 30th. On the Journeyings of the Children of Israel, through the Wilderness to the promised land.

A General Meeting of the ministers, leaders, and subscribers, will take place at half past seven o'clock, on Friday evening, the 28th of March, in the School Room of the New Jerusalem Church, Peter-street, to which all friends are invited.

The Committee particularly request that every Society will appoint, without delay, one person or more to conduct the service, that they may regularly enjoy the advantages of public worship, whenever the visiting minister, through unavoidable circumstances, should be absent.

The Committee having considered that the Missionary Institution will derive great advantages by contributions collected quarterly, request every Society to forward, as early as possible, their quarterly subscriptions, with any information they have to communicate on the state of their Society. The Committee further desire all their country friends to favor them with frequent communications; as they are enabled by such information to be of greater service to the Institution.

In this list it will be perceived that fourteen out of the sixteen engaged in these ministrations, are laymen.

Among the places named in this schedule is Accrington. It is worthy of remark, that the New Church Society in this place is now the largest in England; and this Society, in its turn, is sending forth its corps of lay missionaries in a similar manner.

Those early and efficient pioneers in the Church, Clowes and Hindmarsh, co-operated with this movement. Why can it not be introduced here? In this way, the members of the New Church can more effectually conform to our Lord's command, "Go ye into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." "By creatures," says Swedenborg, in his explanation of this passage, are meant all who are in a capacity to be regenerated."

66

X. Y. Z.

ARTICLE VII.

TRUE CHARITY.

THE exercise of CHARITY may be seen in the organizations of the Old Church manifesting itself almost entirely outwardly; whoever adjoins himself to them, finds his reward in it, fulfilling, as is thought, these words, "Behold these Christians how they love one another." The first Christian church became a literal church, and therefore died, because the letter killeth, and now that it is dead and buried, there has arisen from its ashes (because it is said that it has failed in the ends of its creation, that is, of Charity and Brotherly Love, various associations among men, as a substitute, in "Odd Fellowship," Life Insurance Companies, and the like, all of which are of the earth, earthy. King-craft and priest-craft have brought the human race, both in politics and religion, down to the lowest degree of degradation and suffering. The oppression and sufferings in Europe at this time, as heretofore, answers the question, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" How shall redemption manifest itself in this state of things? Evidently on Homœopathic principles of like curing like. Kossuth, the great Peter the Hermit of this day, arouses the slumbering Old Church with his bewitching oratory, until there is now, as then, one exclamation, "It is God's will," in our Great West, that "there shall be liberty throughout the world" (as on the State-House bell in Philadelphia). Who does not see that this event contains the true principles of cure? The Church of Faith separate from Charity, as antidotal to Peter with the key of Heaven! The New Church, or the Church of True Charity, can have little to do with this crusade but to behold and see the glory of the Lord, because it is spiritual and internal, its work is higher and holier; its working is unseen to the natural mind. True charity in the church on earth does not manifest itself before men, to be seen of them, but its duties and labors are in giving bread to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty soul. Outward alms, temples, kings, and priests, are not to be built to its god. The temple, which was forty years in building, shall be thrown down, and one raised up, not built with hands, eternal in the heavens. It is lamentable to see the consequences to the rising generation, who wish to obtain a subsistence for themselves and families, if they do not unite themselves to a popular church, Masonic Fraternity, Odd-Fellowship, Whiggery, Democracy, Free-soil, or Insurance on Lives; it has become to the common natural mind, almost a certainty, that there is no God in Heaven and earth, to save the soul and body, except these associations. But it behoves the man of the New Church, to place himself on this rock, "They that put their trust in God, shall never be confounded," "He is the bread of life," let us put our trust in Him.

J. A. A.

ARTICLE VIII.

THE PARABLES EXPLAINED.

No. I.

INTRODUCTION.--THE WISE AND THE FOOLISH BUILDER.

In compliance with an earnest and repeatedly expressed wish, on the part of some of our most respected readers and subscribers, to be favored, through the pages of the Repository, with a spiritual exposition of the Parables, we have concluded to appropriate a portion of each No. to one or more of the explanations contained in the Rev. Mr. Clowes' work on that subject. His little volume entitled, "The Parables of Jesus Christ, explained in the way of Question and Answer," is decidedly the best, if it be not the only, work of the kind, to which the New Church can lay claim, and as it is exceedingly scarce in this country, we shall doubtless be performing a valuable service to a large majority of our readers, particularly those in the Western and Southern States, by bringing it in this way before them. Probably many new receivers are scarcely aware of the existence of the work, and if our insertion should provoke a demand for its re-publication, the result will be still more happy.

INTRODUCTION.

Q. WHAT do you mean by a parable?

A. The word parable is derived from a Greek verb, signifying to compare, and therefore it means a comparison made between things in their own nature different, but which yet in some points have a resemblance to each other.

Q. In what respect do the parables of JESUS CHRIST differ from other parables or comparisons?

A. They differ in this respect, that they are not mere comparisons, but real agreements or correspondences, between the things compared ; thus they are the agreements or correspondences between things natural and things spiritual.

Q. And in what do you conceive these agreements or correspondences to be founded?

A. In the eternal laws of creation, by which it is appointed that all natural things and objects shall be the representative images and figures of those spiritual and eternal realities in which they originate, and that thus the universal world of creation, with all its parts, may be a representative theatre of that eternal world from which it is derived, and with which it is in perpetual connexion. When JESUS CHRIST, therefore, spoke in parables, He expressed eternal spiritual truths relating to His kingdom, under images of natural things relat ing to the kingdom of this world, and in this figurative language impressed those truths more beautifully and affectingly on the minds of His hearers, than he could have done in any other way.

Q. What then would you say was the reason why JESUS CHrist spoke in parables?

A. This mode of speaking answered a double purpose; first, in communicating to His humble and sincere disciples the lessons of

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