The New Doctrine on this Subject.
What, now, is the New Church doctrine on the subject? According to its teachings, the passion of the Cross was the consummation of that stupendous series of spiritual conflicts whereby the Lord subdued the hells, wrought deliverance for man by restoring the equilibrium of the moral universe, and glorified the humanity He assumed. It was the final and combined assault of the infernals upon the Prince of peace—the last and crowning act in the sublime work of redemption and glorification.
And thus the Cross becomes a symbol full of heavenly—yea, of divine significance. It symbolizes those spiritual conflicts—conflicts between heaven and hell in the soul, or between the spiritual and the natural man—which every one who enters the kingdom of heaven by being born from Above, is called to endure. This inward conflict between good and evil, is spiritual temptation. It is the battle of the Lord, sometimes fierce and desperate—always more or less painful to the soul of him who engages in it. But it is indispensable to the soul's purification and complete development—indispensable to the unfolding of the highest and noblest life, or to the final victory of the spiritual over the natural man—inseparable from and indispensable to our regeneration. It is the
