The New Church; What, How, Why/Chapter3
III
WHY
THE New Church is now instituted because that stage of human development is reached when a new and spiritual era can be entered.
When the Lord was upon earth He said, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now." Then mankind was not able to receive or comprehend a full disclosure of divine truth. There was no interest in spiritual things. The Lord came with a spiritual kingdom of spiritual glory and power, but the world wanted a natural kingdom of physical glory and power. So it crucified Him who stood for spiritual law, life, and power. Yet the beginning was instituted, and preparation was made by revelation of truth given in the Lord's time. This preparation then made was but partial, because the revelation of truth could not, on account of the internal states of the world, be made in its fullness. The truths then revealed became obscured, resulting in the church splitting into antagonistic sects. This brought to realization the need of a clear and full revelation of divine truth.
Therefore now the Second Coming is made by new revelation of truth, opening fully the Word, wherein is all truth. The world has its well-ordered governments, guaranteeing justice, liberty, and freedom of conscience, and is beginning to desire for practical purposes a knowledge of internal and heavenly law. This is the essential basis for a spiritual kingdom, which the New Church is to proclaim and to be.
1. Its External Form
We are accustomed to think of a church as a class of people united upon a creed, like the Methodist church, the Episcopal church, and the Catholic church.
Yet these are not Churches, but they are different sects of one Church, which is the Apostolic Church. A Church primarily is a form of goodness and truth from the Lord in the lives of men. When a new dispensation occurs, a new form of good and truth is revealed. This truth and good from the Lord constitute a Church. To preserve and propagate a new form of truth and good, it is necessary that there be some who receive that truth and good, and keep it distinct from the former forms of faith. There are essential to a Church, therefore, new revelation of divine truth and good, and a body of men and women who receive them, stand for them, and teach them. This necessitates the organization of an external body having its ministry who teach, its societies for worship and the cultivation in liberty of its distinctive life, and all the offices of use appertaining to an organized Church.
To this end the New Church is organizing, educating its ministers, forming societies, instituting schools and colleges, and endeavoring to teach, to live, and to form the life according to the truths of the New Dispensation of Heavenly Revelation. The proclamation of the Second Coming of the Lord through the opening of His Word, the salvation of mankind through the power of the Lord in truth intellectually wielded, the presence of God face to face with man in the tabernacle of His Word, a heretofore unknown sanctity of His love in the heart, make the New Church different internally from any former church, and oblige it to have its distinct, external organization and form, similar outwardly to former churches, but internally different, from the quality of its faith and life that is to be developed and extended.
2. Definite Doctrine
The New Church comes, not only reaffirming old truth, but to affirm new truth, truth more interior and never before revealed. "Behold, I make all things new." So complete is this revelation that it gives access to all truth, which never before has been provided. It is therefore the most perfect and glorious revelation that has ever been made. It is the good wine saved until the last, when the marriage supper of the Lamb is come.
Heretofore the states of developing man have been such that only partial truths have been made known. Truth has been held back because the development needed to make it useful had not occurred. In Scripture language it has been true of interior truths, "Ye cannot bear them now."
However glorious was the mission and noble the work of the former Church, its faith was and is necessarily an undeveloped faith, a faith akin to a hope for what was not known. Now faith is to be an intelligent faith, that sees by means of definite and mathematical doctrine. In the Ancient Church and in the Apostolic Church, God was not clearly understood. A mystery was a part of their faith.
In the New Church, mystery is cleared away. Here is definite doctrine that enables one to see clearly the essentials of faith. This church is shown plainly of the Godhead. It has definite doctrine, making clear, rational, and intelligible the foundation of religion, which is a right idea of God.
The fundamental doctrine of the New Church is that there is one God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is that God. In Him is a trinity, not of persons, but of essentials, called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, represented in man, who is the image of God, by the soul, the body, and the proceeding life. Such as is one's idea of God, so is his whole religion. This fundamental truth being clearly revealed, the nature of God as a Divine Human Being is comprehended. This in turn makes intelligible what man is, and his ordained relation to God and to man. Out of these unfolds the Lord's purpose with man here and hereafter.
There is definite doctrine in regard to the law that rules over man as a natural and a spiritual being. The natural world and life become clear to the understanding, and the spiritual world is comprehended as really and intelligently as is the natural.
The office of the Church is made known as the preserver of the Word of the Lord, the teacher of truth revealed from Him, and the saver of souls as a minister of the Lord.
Baptism is revealed to be a Divine provision for introduction into the Church on earth, and at the same time insertion among Christians in the spiritual world. Its uses as an aid to regeneration are clearly made known.
The institution of the Lord's Supper as a help to regenerating man, a means of the Lord's presence, association with angels, and conjunction with the Lord, are rationally unfolded.
Repentance, which is essentially the shunning of evil, learning the truth, and doing what truth teaches, is philosophically set forth.
Salvation, which is the subjugation of evil in ourselves by the Lord's presence and power, is intelligibly explained.
In the full revelation of truth, there is now at hand and accessible to the final Church every doctrine and truth of doctrine, rationally and satisfactorily explained. Every provision is now made in this Church for the enlightenment, regeneration and salvation of mankind.
The Word is fully opened so that it is seen to be from God alone, and so made that He communes with man and reveals Himself fully by it and by it alone.
In the full revelation of the nature of heaven and hell, the wisdom and the love of God, the destiny of man and of the nature of the Heavenly Father, new motives for spiritual living are awakened, and all spiritual thirst and hunger can be satiated at living fountains of water.
3. Its Growth
Other Churches have come and gone, but the New Church is the final Church. It will never pass away or be superseded because unto it there is the revelation of all truth which gives access to all life. In it the Lord will be worshipped as He is in heaven, and the increase of His government will know no end through the spiritual development and regeneration of men and women who are of it.
The growth of the New Church will be slow, because its growth is not accomplished merely by the addition of numbers, but by the development of spiritual thought, affection and life. Nor can the efforts of man alone extend it, for its healthy increase is founded upon the opening of the mind to comprehend intellectually the things of heaven and God. The Lord alone does this as He sees that man can be kept in the life of heavenly enlightenment to the end, which depends upon the quality of affection for truth.
The growth of the New Church, though slow, will be sure and permanent. For its increase is not from masses of people moved by persuasion, excitement or emotion to accept a statement of faith, but from the calm and resolute judgment made through enlightened reason and the insight into truth that comes from a love of its good.
Its growth depends also upon another factor, which makes it sure and orderly. A new church depends upon a new heaven which must be formed in the spiritual world to act as the soul of the New Church upon the earth.
Heaven is so related to the earth that as the Church in heaven increases by the addition of regenerating people passing from the earth, the Church upon earth will grow.
In reality there is but one kind of Church growth that is to be cared for, or that is possible, and that is the growth of the character and spirit, the wisdom and love of the Lord Jesus in the minds and hearts of men.
For this growth the New Church stands, and commends for its accomplishment the daily reading of the Word, the Writings of the New Dispensation, and the government of the individual life in accordance thereto. The Church assures all who will do so, that their faith will be illumined until doubt turns into mental sight and an unknown and unconceived blessing of divine joy will be given, which is as "the days of heaven upon the earth."