The Religious Life of London

The Society shows signs of life. In Islington there is a college for the education of young men for the ministry. Mr. W. White, no friendly witness, – he was driven from the community on the question of spiritualism, – writes on the testimony of Her Majesty’s inspectors: – “There are no better schools of their class in England than those maintained by the Swedenborgians of Manchester and Salford, in which about fourteen hundred children are educated.” The Swedenborgians have besides a national missionary institution, with a very limited income, and two societies for the production of tracts, one in London and the other in Manchester. The London Missionary and Tract Society of the New Church had in 1865 an income of 209l., and circulated 32,000 tracts. The Manchester New Jerusalem Tract Society had the same year an income of 154l., and circulated 100,000 tracts; their chief society is that for printing and publishing the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, established in London in the year 1810. “For half a century,” writes Mr. White, “this society was the happy meeting place of all who had any lively interest in Swedenborg, whether citizens of Hindmarsh’s New Jerusalem, or Churchmen like Clowes, or Quakers like Harrison, or unattached like Tulk.” In 1845 the Swedenborg Association was formed in London to promote the sale of Swedenborg’s writings, which were translated by Dr. Wilkinson, the Rev. Augustus Clissold, and Mr. Strull. In 1854 it was thought advisable that the Society should establish a book depôt of its own. Accordingly the Rev. Augustus Clissold subscribed 3000l. for the purchase of suitable premises. A house was taken in Bloomsbury Street. In 1865 there were 3016 volumes disposed of, valued at 217l., and the income of the Society from subscriptions and donations was in that year 205l. The operations of the Society are not, however, confined to its sales. Swedenborg’s works are kept in print, and often are given away to libraries and to persons of eminence at home and abroad. It does not appear that Swedenborg’s writings have ever been very popular. The first volume of the “Arcana Cœlestia” was published in 1749, and was completed in 1756, in eight quartos. The book fell stillborn from the press. In his “Spiritual Diary” Swedenborg describes the fact, and thus accounts for it: – “I have received letters informing me that not more than four copies have been sold in the space of two months. I communicated this to the angels. They were surprised, but they said it must be left to the Lord’s providence; that His providence is of such a nature that it compels no one; and that it is not fitting others should read the ‘Arcana Cœlestia’ before those who are in the faith.”

I hasten on to finish what I have to say as to the Swedenborg organization. There are many of his admirers who believe that the attempt to form a separate sect was not a wise one; certainly Swedenborg himself did nothing of the kind. Fletcher of Madely, who read “Heaven and Hell,” and used to declare that he regarded Swedenborg’s writings “as a magnificent feast set out with many dainties, but that he had not an appetite for every dish,” when asked why he did not preach the new doctrines, candidly confessed, “Because my congregation is not in a fit state to receive them;” and so, in the opinion of many, people might be Swedenborgians, as members of other churches, without setting up a new denomination. Such was the opinion of the chief apostle of Swedenborgianism in England, the Rev. John Clowes, for the extraordinary term of sixty-two years rector of St. John’s, Manchester. A complaint was laid before his Bishop, Dr. Porteus, charging him with the denial of the Trinity and the Atonement, and with holding heretical opinions. The Bishop summoned him to Chester, “read to him the several charges, heard patiently his reply to each, made his remarks (which discovered plainly that he was by no means dissatisfied or displeased with his opinions), and dismissed him with a friendly caution to be on his guard against his adversaries, who seemed disposed to do him mischief.” And no wonder. Swedenborg took almost as great liberties with the Pentateuch as Bishop Colenso himself.

Robert Hindmarsh, a printer, in Clerkenwell Close, the founder of the sect of “the New Church signified by New Jerusalem in the Revelation,” was not of the same way of thinking as Clowes or Fletcher. In 1783 he held meetings at his own house; he had an audience of two. In 1784 he was joined by others; chambers were rented in New Court, Middle Temple, under the title of “The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the heavenly doctrine of the New Jerusalem, by translating, printing, and publishing the Theological Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg.” Meetings were held on Sundays and Thursdays, at which portions of Swedenborg’s writings were read and discussed. In 1787 a chapel was opened at Great Eastcheap. In 1797 Proud came to Cross Street, Hatton Garden, a place built expressly for him; and very large congregations for some years attended on his ministry. In time the chapel became deserted, the preacher ceased to draw. In 1812 it was sold to the managers of the Caledonian Asylum, and then for a time Irving blazed in it, the comet of a season; and then once more it came back to the Swedenborgians; and now, at any rate of a Sunday night, it is a sad, lonely spot. Proud was succeeded by Noble, an engraver, who commenced his ministry in 1819, and continued it till 1853, when he closed it by his death in his seventy-fifth year. One of the blessings promised in the Old Testament to those who keep the Commandments seems to be pre-eminently enjoyed by the Swedenborgians, and that is length of days. Swedenborg himself lived to be eighty-four.

From the Wesleyans the Swedenborgians got the idea of a conference which was to govern the new Church. As represented in conference, the Swedenborgians form a congregation of 3605 members, divided into fifty-five societies. In London there are four societies, containing, says Mr. White, 566 members. In 1807 one was held, at which they decreed no one should act as minister who had not received their ordination, and recommended all who would enter the New Jerusalem to receive baptism at their hands. Since 1815, conferences have been held regularly in various towns. Conference has for its organ the Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine.

The faith of the new Church is briefly this: —

“That there is one eternal, self-existent God, who is Infinite Love and Wisdom, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

“In the fulness of time and for the redemption of man, He took upon Him human nature by birth of a virgin, and became God manifest in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

“The Lord Jesus Christ is the one only true object of Christian faith and worship, and in Him is centred the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divinity of the Father being the soul of the Son, and the humanity of the Son being the body of the Father, whence proceeds the Holy Spirit to regenerate and save mankind.

“The Lord became our Redeemer by subduing the infernal hosts, and glorifying His humanity, without which no man could have been saved, and by which all men are capable of being saved by belief in Him; such belief implying a faithful obedience to the Divine laws, as the means of receiving the gifts of salvation.

“The Sacred Scripture is the Word of God, and contains within its external or literal sense an internal or spiritual sense, being thus Divine.

“On the death of the natural body, man rises again in a spiritual body, and according to the quality of his life here, lives in happiness or in misery hereafter.

“Now is the time of the Lord’s second coming, not in person, but in the power and great glory of His Holy Word, to establish a new and permanent Church, testified in the Revelation by the holy city – New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven.”

As a philosophy Swedenborgianism is the exact opposite of Materialism. Everything in nature, Swedenborg tells us, exists first in spirit. “We are created by the Lord, so that during our life in the body we may converse with spirits and angels, as indeed was the habit of the people of the most ancient times.” During his worldly life “he (man) is not seen in spirit, because he is immersed in nature.” God is in everything – is the life of everything. In heaven all is love – in hell all is selfishness. There is besides a spiritual world.

There are four Swedenborgian congregations in London. The principal one is that in Argyle Square, King’s Cross, at which preaches the Rev. Dr. Bayley – a tall, pleasant gentleman, in the prime of life. Outside, the place presents the appearance of a well-built, superior sort of chapel; inside, the massive pillars give it almost a cathedral appearance. It holds about 700 people; there are no galleries, and it is generally well filled. The people have a respectable appearance, and some of them have arrived at the dignity of “carriage folk.” The preacher is attentively listened to, and if passages of Scripture are referred to in the course of the sermon, there is at once an appeal to innumerable Bibles. There is service twice a day; and in the afternoon there is a conversation class, at which the Sunday-school teachers meet and take tea together. In the course of the week there is a theological class; and then, in connexion with the chapel, there are societies of a friendly and philanthropic character; there is also a lending library, and a day as well as a Sunday school. At either school the average attendance is the same – about three hundred.

At the far end, as you enter, there are two desks or pulpits, one for the minister and another for the assistant reader. The minister is in the one on the right-hand side. Between them is the communion-table. Both the minister and the assistant are dressed alike, in white robes – typical, we may suppose, of the doctrine and the life.

The service begins with a hymn, followed by certain passages from the Bible, in which all the congregation join, with the help of an efficient organ and choir. Then the minister reads, while the congregation kneel, a prayer of confession and supplication, ending with a prayer to “our Father who art in the heavens.” Then the congregation stand while the minister reads the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes. Again passages from the Psalms are sung, and there is another prayer, varied according to its being the first, or second, or third, or fourth Sunday – a variation deserving to be imitated if ever we have a reformed Book of Common Prayer. In these prayers there is a scrupulous avoidance of evangelical formulas. Of course we hear nothing of the blood of Christ to wash away the stain of sin; and if terms are used common to other denominations, they are carefully toned down. Instead, praise and adoration are offered “for the establishment of a church upon earth as the means of raising us to heaven, and may it be increasingly receptive of those exalted principles which constitute Thy spiritual Zion; and may it speedily advance to that glorious state which is the subject of prophetic promise. Grant that the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from Thee out of heaven, may be more and more extensively welcomed; and that all who are enabled to perceive its heavenly nature may show forth the knowledge of Thy truth by a life in agreement with its dictates.” Hymns, more philosophical than theological, are sung, and sacred anthems. No reference is made to other churches, or to other bodies of Christians. Amongst the special services we find Christ is thanked for His victory over the hells. God is, we are told, one in essence and in person; and in Him is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The partaker of “the Holy Supper,” as it is called, is required “to acknowledge that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the only God of heaven, and that His humanity is divine.” In the Marriage Service we are told, “Love truly conjugal is the union of two minds, which is a spiritual union, and all spiritual union descends from heaven. Hence love truly conjugal comes from heaven, and its origin, from the marriage of goodness and truth there.” But while we have been looking through the liturgy, the preacher has read a short prayer, and has commenced his sermon, the text of which, you may be sure, is taken from the Old Testament. Let us listen. I have said it is sure to be taken from the Old Testament. The reason is, Swedenborg rejects the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, or, rather, declares that they have no “internal sense.”

Once upon a time, as the story goes, an aged minister was asked the reason why he abounded in expositions in preference to regular sermons. His reply was, because when he was persecuted in one text he could flee unto another. Swedenborgian preachers need no such excuse. According to their master, Scripture has a threefold sense —the celestial, the spiritual, and the literal or natural. In this Swedenborg was not original. He recognised a threefold sense in Scripture corresponding to the threefold nature of man – as body, soul, and spirit. This idea was undoubtedly suggested to him by the threefold division of mankind according to the Gnostic system. “The celestial sense,” writes the Rev. Mr. Clowes, “according to Baron Swedenborg, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine love, and whatsoever has a tendency to excite that love in the will and affections of the devout reader. The spiritual sense, again, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine wisdom, and whatsoever is communicative of that wisdom to the devout reader’s understanding and thought. And lastly, the natural or literal sense involves in it whatsoever relates to the expressions of the Divine love and wisdom, and is best adapted to convey those heavenly principles to the reader’s mind, and to impress them on his life.” According to this method, then, the Swedenborgian has a fulness and a liberty which, in the pulpit, should give him a power of amplification denied to those whose Biblical exegesis is of a more old-fashioned character. If, for instance, as Swedenborg says, the history of the Creation in Genesis means the rise of the most ancient church – if by Noah is meant the ancient church in general – if Shem typifies true internal worship, Ham corrupt internal worship, Japheth true external worship, and Canaan corrupt external worship – it seems to such as the writer the Swedenborgian preacher may do what he likes, and in his flights of rhetoric may leave his brethren of other denominations far behind. Take, for instance, the plague of frogs. An ordinary preacher could make but little of it; but a Swedenborgian will tell you that frogs mean false doctrines, and then what room you have for expansion! Again, if I take the word Egypt in the Old Testament to mean the “natural principle,” how much more can I say than he who means by Egypt – Egypt and nothing else! At the same time this very liberty seems to hamper and confine the Swedenborgians. There is something narrow and pedantic about their preaching. As Swedenborg studied the Bible and read no other book, so they seem to confine themselves exclusively to Swedenborg; and as they have none of them his genius, or his fulness, or his power, the result is something very far-fetched and tame and second-hand. You feel that in accordance with their own system of interpretation they might do much more than they actually do. “It is unquestionably true,” however (writes Mr. George Bush, late Professor of Hebrew in the University of New York), “that the piety inculcated by the doctrines of the New Church is of a more genial and cheerful stamp than that which is usually found under the auspices of the prevailing creeds, because the doctrines impart a higher and sublimer view of the infinite love and benignity of the Lord towards the human race, as willing the salvation of all, and ordering every event of His providence with a view to eternal ends of mercy in regard to each individual, and incessantly aiming to withhold him from hell, so far as it can ‘be done consistently with his moral freedom.’” When Tennyson writes: —

“Behold we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt last – far off – at last to all,And every winter change to spring.“That nothing walks with aimless feet,That not one life shall be destroyed,Or cast as rubbish to the void,When God hath made the pile complete” —

he merely reproduces Swedenborgianism. Again, the Swedenborgians claim for their system an active philanthropy superior to that of any other sect. If heaven and hell are in us – if, as we develop the good we arrive at heaven, or as we develop the bad we sink into a deeper hell – no sects have greater provocatives to a godly life, and we might expect in their preaching a glowing sympathy with human right and popular progress, which assuredly in their pulpits in England finds but little utterance. Swedenborg teaches, in the strongest manner, that no man can lead a spiritual life apart from civil and moral life. Again and again he argues that the life which leads to heaven “is not a life of retirement from the world, but of action in the world. A life of charity, which consists in acting sincerely and justly in every situation, engagement, and work, in obedience to the Divine law, is not difficult; but a life of piety alone is difficult, and such a pious life leads away from heaven as much as it is vulgarly believed to lead to heaven.” The Christianity of his day he proclaims again and again to be worthless. It was founded on opinion, not on conduct. He who believes otherwise than the Church teaches is cast out of its communion; “but he who thieves, if he does not do so flagrantly, lies, betrays, and commits adultery, if only he frequents a place of worship and talks piously, passes as a religious man.” When a great abuse has to be attacked – when a hoary wrong in Church and State has to be swept away – when help is to be given to the wretched and the perishing, have we ever seen the Swedenborgian minister coming to the front as a leader? On the contrary, you will find him in his New Jerusalem ignoring humanity altogether, and torturing with tedious complacency Genesis and Revelation alike. If I were a preacher of any denomination, I would have Swedenborg’s works by me. They should be the fruitful source of many an argument to illustrate or arouse; but if in the future the pulpit is to maintain its place and power, the Swedenborgians, unless they turn over a new leaf, must retire into the background. Look at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, for instance, on a Sunday night; you will not find thirty people there; yet it stands in the midst of a teeming population, where the devil preaches to a crowded congregation every day and every hour. Let it not be supposed, however, that Swedenborgianism is perishing for lack of new blood. It was only a few days since I heard of a clergyman of the Church of England, who had resigned his living in consequence of his joining the Swedenborgians. Of the fancies of Swedenborg let me say there are those to whom they suggest much – reveal much. According to the man’s own statement, he was sent from God, and saw and revealed the secrets of the invisible world. Sometimes his revelations are very indecorous. Here is one. “Spiritual angels dislike butter, which was made clear to me from this circumstance: that although I am fond of butter I did not for a long while, even for some months, desire any, and during which time I was in association with them; and when I had tasted butter I found it had lost the pleasant flavour it once had to me. That the spiritual angels caused this aversion was plain from the fact that when a celestial angel was with me, and I was impelled to eat some good butter, the spiritual angels caused an odour of butter to rise from my mouth to my nostrils by way of reproach; still, however, they are much delighted with milk, and when I partook of some the relish was more grateful than I can describe. Milk belongs to the spiritual, as butter does to the celestial angels – not that they delight therein as food, but on account of their correspondence.” I should have said Swedenborg divides all angels into two orders – the celestial angels are the angels of love or the will, the spiritual angels are those of truth or the intellect. Angels, according to Swedenborg, are poor guides in worldly matters; “they only regard the good intention, and can be adduced to affirm anything which promises to advance it.”

CHAPTER XIV.

the irvingites, or apostolical church

If the absence of brotherly love for religious people, if a scorn of all who worship God different from themselves, constitute heresy – and surely the Apostle John shows that it does very clearly – then there are no such heretics in London as the Irvingites, who worship in a very magnificent cathedral in Gordon Square. Irving, I imagine, with all his genius, had a very uncatholic spirit. Take, for instance, his celebrated missionary sermon. Requested by the directors of the London Missionary Society to preach the annual sermon at Surrey Chapel – how did he begin?

When he ascended the pulpit he entered on a kind of audible soliloquy. Said he, “How shall I encourage myself to address the thronging multitude by whom I am surrounded? I will even cast about for a few examples. There are three of a notable character which now strike me: that of the Apostle Paul preaching before the Jewish Sanhedrim, that of Bernard Gilpin preaching before the Court of King Edward VI., and, that of a Scottish Divine preaching before the Commissioner of the General Assembly. On these three examples, as on a sacred tripod, I feel my spirit propped; but especially the last, the Scottish Divine preaching before the Commissioner of the General Assembly. If he could venture to encounter the hoary-headed eldership and substantial theology of the North, surely I may, without fear, address myself to the flimsy evangelism of the South.” In this kind and flattering way did Irving speak of the great body of English Dissenters.

Of the Irvingite Church, the late Drummond, the banker, M.P. for Surrey, was also an elder, and the same spirit lent bitterness to his sarcastic and biting tongue. It was a treat to see and hear him, especially when the topic was at all theological. Irving describes Drummond as one “who hath taken us poor despised interpreters of prophecy under your wing, and made the walls of your house like unto the ancient schools of the prophets.” But out of his own house Drummond seemed to have taken little else or nothing under his wing. His mission apparently was to preach that in nothing was there anything – that we were all whited sepulchres. The Egyptians placed a skeleton at their feasts to remind them of their mortality. The Sultan Saladin, it is said, had a similar message dinned daily into his ears by a herald especially appointed to that purpose. Mr. Drummond voluntarily took that duty on himself. In his eye we were all morally dead; all virtue was gone clean out of us; the Church was in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. Nor had Dissent one ray more of Gospel light. Under the mask of patriotism he saw the grovelling soul of the placeman; in the love of liberty the desire of licence; in the rulers of the land a lamentable lack of understanding; in the people a blind, senseless, untaught mass. Drummond was such a one as Tennyson describes: —

“Thou shalt not be saved by works;Thou hast been a sinner too.Ruined trunks on wither’d forks,Empty scarecrows I and you.”

Thus did he perorate with the thinnest of voices, and gentlest manner, to a House of which, for many sessions, he was the delight and puzzle, all the while he was a member of the Irvingite Church.

A great claim is set up by this Church. Like Aaron’s rod, it is to swallow up all the rest. So great is its hatred of sects, it forms a new one. While calling itself the holy and Apostolic Church, it makes no exclusive claim to the title. It acknowledges it to be the common title of the one Church baptized unto Christ. It claims to be no body of separatists from the Church of England. The members recognise the continuance of that Church from the days of the Apostles, and of the three orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, by succession from the Apostles. They have no sympathy with Dissent in any of its forms. That is schism, and is to be condemned accordingly. They meet in separate congregations, but they are not open to the charge of schism, on the ground of their meeting being permitted and authorized, so they say, by an ordinance of paramount authority which they believe God has restored for the benefit of the Church. At once their ecclesiasticism strikes the most superficial observer; the idea of the Church, that it is a mere assembly of believers, is rejected by them on every occasion and in every way. Their great glory is that the Apostolical order exists and is manifested in them.