was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth." A martyr is a confessor of the truth, and one who witnesses this confession in the midst of danger and, if need be, with the loss of bodily life. The importance of this confession is recognised in all Christian teaching. "Whosoever," says the Saviour, "shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God but he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 8, 9). But to confess the truth we must first know the truth, and have that interest in it which makes it the object of our supreme regard, more precious than rubies, more valuable than life itself. Such was the estimation in which the truth was held in the early age of the Church. The constancy with which the disciples of the Saviour held the faith and witnessed a good confession in the prospect of the most cruel sufferings and fearful departures from this life, sheds a halo of glory over the early history of the Christian Church. Of Antipas who is here named we have no certain knowledge. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, says, "There are records extant of others that suffered martyrdom in Pergamus, a city of Asia. Of these we mention only Carpus and Papylus, and a woman named Agothonice; who after many and illustrious testimonies given by them, gloriously finished their course" (bk. iv. c. 16). He does not here mention by name Antipas, although his words imply that others suffered in this seat of Satan besides those he has named. The tradition which remains respecting this martyr, if founded upon fact, is so disfigured by fiction as to be utterly unreliable. It is possible that an individual martyr of this name may have suffered in the early history of the church at Pergamos; or the name may be employed, as some have supposed, in the same manner as the names of Balaam, Jezebel, and others which occur in the Apocalypse, to indicate a principle rather than point to a person. It is probable indeed that in the mind of the inspired writer was some sufferer for righteousness' sake whose fortitude in trial and whose testimony to the truth entitled him to honourable distinction. This is the opinion of the commentators, and is accepted by Swedenborg in the Apocalypse Explained. But whatever was in the mind of the inspired writer, and however true might be the literal fact here intimated, in the mind of the Spirit was the principle which Antipas is introduced to represent; and it is this principle alone which can really instruct and interest the Church at the present day. We have escaped the dangers which beset the early disciples of the Saviour; the more subtle dangers that arise from unsubdued evils and alluring falses threaten our spiritual life, and bring us into conflicts in which we must conquer or perish. The conditions under which we are subjected to temptation are widely diversified, and the grounds of Divine judgment respecting success or failure must be proportionately varied. This Church dwelt in the very seat of Satan, where error was most subtle and most alluring, and where evil was most powerful. Albert Barnes has a very pertinent comment on this feature. He says truly-"In order to judge correctly of those who have embraced error or have been led into sin, it is necessary to understand what there may have been in their circumstances that gave to error what was plausible, and to sin what was attractive; what there was in their situation in life that exposed them to these influences, and what arguments may have been employed by the learned, the talented, and the plausible advocates of error, to lead them astray. We often judge harshly where the Saviour would be far less severe in His judgments. We often commend much where in fact there has been little to commend. It is possible to conceive that in the strugglings against evil of those who have ultimately fallen there may be more to commend than in cases where the path of virtue has been pursued as the mere result of circumstances, and where there never has been a conflict with temptation. The adjudications of the great day will do much to reverse the judgments of mankind." Swedenborg in his earlier comment on the address to this Church, the one given in the Apocalypse Explained, dwells on this subject of temptations. In his later comment, in the Apocalypse Revealed, he enters more interiorly into the representation of this Church, and discloses more fully the underlying principles of evil and error which are specially denoted by the condition and circumstances in which it was placed; but our limited space compels us to reserve these explanations for our next number. PURE AND WHITE. GOD, who made the lofty mountains, God, who made the deep blue ocean, And its surges doth control, And the clear and crystal river Which so peacefully doth roll, Gleaming in the warm sunlight, He would have us pure and white. God, who made the little lambkins, Whose are all things fair and bright, None but He, the great Creator, Could such wond'rous work fulfil, As to make the tiny insects, And endue them with such skill! God of matchless power and might, Help us to be pure and white! God, who made the summer flowers Which perfume the breath of morn, And the lovely hills and valleys Doth with matchless grace adorn, And who fills the earth with light, He would have us pure and white. God, who bids us call Him Father, And who deigns with us to dwell, Loves us more than earthly parents, Though their love no tongue can tell, Made us to be angels bright, Ever pure and clothed in white. Every thought and word and action. Must be pure and full of love; Sin doth never enter Heaven, For it hath no part above; Only those whose hearts are right Ever can be pure and white. Jesus from the realms of glory Watches all His children here, If we would be found all spotless SARAH LOUISA MOORE. 1 THE EAST AND SWEDENBORG, 1 (INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL.) THE object of these pages is to state the plan and views of the humble and microscopic Journal which we propose to edit, the sole end of which is to bring its modest contribution in aid of the search after Truth-so dear and precious to every human being who really loves it and thirsts ardently for it. With this end in view, aided by the religious movement newly stirred up in the West, in consequence of the decreed infallibility of the Pope, we desire to recommend to the attention of our Russian readers the serious study of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, considered from the point of view of Eastern orthodoxy, and also from that of a completely disinterested and impartial view of science. To study in this spirit the writings of Swedenborg,—that protest, as sublime as it is profound, against the West, may show to the East precisely in what the corruption of the Western world consists. Swedenborg, whose readers and disciples are already numbered by thousands in England and America, is almost unknown in the East. If regarded from a point of view neither Protestant nor Catholic, Swedenborg would be a real acquisition to the whole Christian world. He would conjoin that which is still new in the West with that which is already old in the East. This manner of considering Swedenborg would revive the languishing life of brotherly love This is the manuscript which we spoke of in our last number as having been received from a lady of exalted rank in Russia, who desires to see it in the Repository. Our readers will see that it must be taken cum grano salis, and this we propose to supply next month when we give the remaining part of the "Journal." amongst Christians, divided as they are by all kinds of religious disputes, polemics, and hostilities. There would arise from the East and from the West worthy representatives of this new Christian love, not from the narrow official and despotic forms of an impossible union amongst religious professions, but in the spirit of mutual and universal love—that beneficent and overflowing love without which all languishes and dies. Hitherto Russian orthodoxy has produced very few theologians who could study Swedenborg's writings in an independent spirit, and fewer still who could peruse the rich and remarkable literature of which he was, I venture to say, the creator in England, America, and a part of Germany. The few theologians who know anything of Swedenborg know him only as having written some things hostile to Roman Catholic notions, as they learn, for instance, from the Symbolique of Dr. Moehler, or from writings not more impartial by Protestant authors who have known him less; so that no Roman Catholic or Protestant exposition can satisfy the East, the East being, as Swedenborg himself says, a severe protest against the West. For a long time the West has turned away from the ancient simplicity and clearness of Christian orthodoxy, and confirmed this deviation by every species of casuistic and scholastic argument. The man of the West, be he Catholic or Protestant, brought up in these vitiated principles, sucks in with his mother's milk this destructive leaven; and contemporary science, though resisting with all the power and might of its method this corruption, as fatal as systematic, succeeded only in arresting the evil in one part This of this intellectual organism, discomposing it more and more. incurable evil of the spirit not having given way to the offered remedies of science, and advancing with frightful rapidity, reached on one side the so-called Ecumenical Council,1 and on the other annihilated itself in faith without works, predestination, and the right of free inquiry of Luther. In this last extremity, the West lost all true faith, retaining only a blind faith, and a belief in rationalism, that negation of all faith! These are not idle words-nor hostility, nor unjust prejudice flowing out in bitter expressions, but the true and faithful exposition of the very fact, which the West presents to every clear eye, without the aid of microscope or telescope. The minds of the majority of the West cannot be saved from this fearful epidemic, which must inevitably remain at the foundation of every intellectual development; how then could we dare to hope that the majority of readers, and even admirers of Swedenborg could escape completely from it! Hence Swedenborg himself cannot by the greater number of his readers in the West be 1 The Council of Nice. |