The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter17
XVII.—Regeneration.
What the New Church believes and teaches in regard to man's hereditary nature, was stated in the previous chapter. From a long line of foregone ancestry he inherits tendencies to all kinds of evil. His hereditary life is supremely selfish. The properly human life is the life of unselfish love—the Lord's own life in the human soul. This is the higher or heavenly life which every man is made capable of receiving, and which we must receive before we can enter the kingdom of heaven, or before we can know from personal experience what heaven really is. It is in its essential nature the very opposite of that life into which we are born naturally, which is a purely selfish life. Therefore we must be "born again"—"born from Above"—"born of God"— before we can become truly the children of God, or have the heavenly Father's name "in our foreheads." Agreeable to the Divine declaration, "Except a man be born again [or born from Above], he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) And to be born again, or born from Above, is to be born into a new and higher degree[1] or life than that which we have received hereditarily; or, what is the same, it is to experience the birth or development of the Lord's own life within us.
The next question is (and a most important one it is, too). Under what conditions does this new birth of the soul take place? Or when, in what manner and according to what laws is this higher life developed and matured?
The doctrine as hitherto held and taught on this subject is: That regeneration or the new birth is a change of heart wrought suddenly and miraculously by the sovereign grace of God, and not according to any known laws, or with any co-operation on the part of the individual. It has been confounded or held to be identical with conversion, and to be exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit with which man has nothing whatever to do—except to wait for the mysterious operation of the Spirit.
This was the generally received view among Protestant Christians of the last century, and is probably held by many at the present day. But some have held, and still hold, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration—the belief that the new birth from Above takes place the moment the sacrament of baptism is administered. "It is a fact known to all," says Dr. Bushnell, "that the rite of baptism has been regarded by some as having a peculiar sacramental or magical power, and was understood to convey a grace immediately to the subject, washing away his sins and setting him in a regenerate state; and the language of the prayer-book [Episcopal] I suppose represents this opinion."
The New Church Doctrine.
Contrary to all this, the New Church believes and teaches that regeneration is a complete but gradual change of the character wrought in man by the sovereign power of God, but not without the individual's voluntary coöperation. That it takes place in accordance with the revealed laws of the heavenly life, but only on condition that these laws be faithfully obeyed. In other words, it teaches that men are born saints or angels (that is, born into the new and higher life) very much as they are born artists, mechanics, farmers or engineers. They inherit the germs of, or the capability of becoming, either—though the germs of the higher life are for the most part implanted in infancy and childhood, and remain stored up in the interiors awaiting the vivifying influence in due time of the beams of the spiritual Sun. But they actually become neither the one nor the other without much self-imposed labor—without first learning certain principles or laws, and then reducing these laws to practice.
This Doctrine Illustrated.
Take the accomplished musician for illustration. How has he become such? He inherited the talent or aptitude for music, as we all inherit the capability of becoming angels. And so we may say the musician was in him in potency when a child. But he was yet in an embryo state. The boy was then as unconscious of the entrancing delights which the music wrapped up within him would one day produce, as a child before birth is unconscious of its latent capabilities, or of the joys of its post-natal state. Properly speaking, the musician was not yet born. He had only an embryonic or latent existence, like that of the angel in the unregenerate man.
Observe, now, the manner of his birth,—for this will illustrate the manner in which every one who becomes regenerate, is born from Above. It will show us how we are to be brought out of our natural state in which we love ourselves supremely, into the opposite state of love to the Lord and the neighbor; or how "the new man" created in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, comes forth from "the old man" that is "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts."
First, the individual places himself, or is placed, under the instruction of a master. He becomes a pupil or learner. He takes lessons of a music-teacher. He acquaints himself with the rules of the art—certain musical laws—and then reduces these rules to practice. He does not learn them all at once, but only a few, and the very simplest at first. When he has practiced these for a time, he learns other and more difficult rules; and straightway proceeds to reduce these also to practice. Thus he goes on, learning and practicing the rules of the art. But he finds little pleasure in these first lessons. He compels himself, however, to go through with them. It is all labor and drudgery at first, which he performs reluctantly and without one thrill of delight, yet in the hope of one day becoming a musician. How stiff and clumsy his fingers are at the start. How slowly and awkwardly they hobble over the keys, like a child just beginning to walk! How much more readily they go wrong than right! And he finds it far more difficult to practice the rules, than to commit them to memory. But he struggles on, sometimes hopeful, sometimes discouraged.
At last, by dint of patience and perseverance and much hard practice, the difficulties are all overcome. The musical laws are all incarnated in him. They flow out from the tips of his fingers the moment he seats himself at the instrument. He is now able to render with facility and effect the most difficult compositions of Beethoven or Mozart. And he finds, too, that by practicing, and thereby learning to give faithful expression to, the laws that govern in the realm of music, he becomes more and more enamored with the art. Strange and unlooked for raptures transport him. He is introduced, as it were, into a new world. Sweet melodies are rippling all around him. He experiences a delight in executing, or in listening to the execution of, some grand composition, of which, at the beginning of his musical education, he could form no conception.
In this and in no other way is the musician born. He comes forth not suddenly nor in any miraculous manner; but slowly, gradually after years of hard study, close application and unremitting toil. The student learns certain musical rules, and then compels himself to reduce these rules to practice. And so at last the musician is produced, developed, or born.
And the painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer are born in the same way.
And in a way precisely similar is "the new man" or angel born. In other words, we are introduced or born in a similar manner into the higher life—into a state of supreme love to the Lord and the neighbor;—are lifted out of our low natural state which is hell, into that exalted spiritual state which is heaven. And this is what is meant by being "born again," or "born from Above."
The task of learning the laws of the soul's higher life, or of receiving the truths of the Word into the understanding merely, is comparatively easy. Obeying these truths—living them—practicing them, in the parlor, the kitchen, the office, the shop, the counting-house, the market-place, the school-room, on the farm, at the fire-side, and in legislative halls—everywhere and always conforming our dispositions and conduct to their requirements, and so weaving these laws into the very fabric of our spiritual being, and making them, as it were, a part of ourselves—this is the laborious and difficult part of the work.
And it needs no argument to prove that this renewal or re-creation of the inner man—this complete change of the character or ruling love, cannot be suddenly wrought. It is the work of a life-time—the Lord's own work, but one which He cannot do without our cooperation. It takes place in the degree that one regards the indulgence of any known evil as a sin against God, and shuns it because it is a sin—at the same time conforming his life to all known truth from a sense of religious obligation. So far as he does this, his evil inclinations are overcome, and the opposite good inclinations are given him in their stead. And this is no sudden, but a gradual process. Agreeable to the teaching of Scripture, which compares the growth of this new life from its germ in the soul, to the growth of a plant from its seed; "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."
And while a man should shun evils as of himself, he should at the same time (and must if he would lay the axe at the root of the tree, and remove the prompting motive to evil) believe and acknowledge that it is the Lord who gives him the inclination and power to do so; and that in and of himself alone he is utterly helpless, having no power to shun evil or to do good.
"The regenerated man," says Swedenborg, "is a heaven in the least form; therefore also there is in him an order similar to that which is in heaven. When man is born he is, as to hereditary evils, a hell in the least form; and he also becomes a hell, so far as he takes from hereditary evils and superadds to them his own. Hence the order of his life from nativity and from actual life, is opposite to the order of heaven; for man, from the proprium, loves himself more than the Lord, and the world more than heaven; when yet the life of heaven consists in loving the Lord above all things, and the neighbor as himself. Hence it is evident that the former life which is of hell, must be altogether destroyed, that is, evils and falsities must be removed, in order that the new life which is the life of heaven, may be implanted. This cannot by any means be done hastily; for every evil being inrooted with its falsities, has connexion with all evils and their falsities, and these are innumerable, and their connexion is so manifold that it cannot be comprehended even by the angels, but only by the Lord. Hence it is evident that the life of hell in man cannot be destroyed suddenly, for if suddenly he would altogether expire; neither can the life of heaven be implanted suddenly, for if it were, the same result would follow. There are thousands and thousands of arcana of which scarcely a single one is known, whereby man is led of the Lord, when from the life of hell he rises into the life of heaven. . . . Therefore many have fallen into errors concerning man's liberation from evils and falsities, or concerning the remission of sins, believing that the life of hell can, through mercy, be transcribed into the life of heaven with man in a moment; when yet the whole work of regeneration is of mercy, and no others are regenerated but those who receive the mercy of the Lord by faith and life during their abode in the world." A. C. 9336.
"Regeneration begins when a man abstains from evils as sins, and progresses as he shuns them, and is perfected as he fights against them; and then, as he conquers from the Lord, he is regenerated. With him who is regenerated the order of life is reversed. From being natural he becomes spiritual. . . . Every man is regenerated by truths and a life according to them; for by truth he knows how to live, and by life he puts truth in practice." D. P. 84.
"They who are born of the Lord, that is, regenerated, receive the Lord's life which is divine love, that is, love toward the whole human race, consisting in the desire to save all eternally, if possible. They who have not the Lord's love, that is, who do not love their neighbor as themselves, have not his life. Consequently they are in no respect born of Him, and therefore they cannot be heirs of his kingdom." A. C. 1803.
- ↑ According to Swedenborg there are three degrees of life belonging to the soul, corresponding to the three angelic heavens, the natural, spiritual and celestial. These degrees are opened successively in all who become regenerate: and with the opening of each degree, the individual is introduced or born into a new and higher degree of life. The lowest or natural degree is opened by simple obedience to a low or natural form of truth—the literal sense of the Word. The spiritual degree is opened by a rational understanding of the truth, or a perception of the spiritual sense of the Word, and obedience thereto. And the celestial or highest degree is opened when the individual comes to act from a higher principle than mere obedience to any form of truth—from love to the Lord and the neighbor. All in whom this love has come to he the prompting motive, are born into the highest or celestial life, and are prepared for an abode among the celestial angels. Thus regeneration is seen, in the light of the New Church, to be a thing of degrees.