A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion. Robert Hindmarsh

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СКАЧАТЬ the whole volume of revelation as a downright imposition on the credulity of mankind. Yet how different will it's character be found, when it is understood and admitted, that there is in every part of the Sacred History an internal spiritual sense perfectly distinct from the letter; and that in that sense heavenly and divine things are exhibited to view under natural and external representations! For it is now well known, that the method of writing here alluded to was practised by the wisest among the ancients; and that they were held in the highest esteem, who shewed the most skill in describing spiritual and moral subjects in historical forms. Of a still higher character, because of divine origin both as to matter and as to expression, are the first chapters of Genesis, which are to be interpreted in the following manner.

      By the creation of heaven and earth is spiritually understood the new creation or regeneration of man in general, particularly of the man of the Most Ancient Church, which was called Adam, or Man, because it was a truly celestial church, and a model of every human virtue. By heaven is meant it's internal, and by earth it's external. By the six days of labour, and the seventh day of rest, into which Jehovah entered, after he had finished his work, are understood the various stages of man's regeneration, and the heavenly peace which then succeeds. The most perfect state of this church is described in the ​second chapter, from the 7th to the 17th verse, where man, being formed into the image and likeness of his Creator, is pronounced to be a living soul, and placed in the garden of Eden, which was well watered, and enriched with the choicest fruits of the earth. The garden itself, called also paradise, denotes the wisdom and intelligence of the man or men thus created anew, and made celestial: the trees pleasant to the sight, and good for food, denote their interior perceptions of truth and good: the tree of lives in the midst of the garden, denotes their love and wisdom derived solely from the Lord their Creator: and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, denotes faith or science capable of being derived from themselves, or from their own sensual principle, in an external way, contrary to divine order; on which account they were prohibited from eating of the fruit of this latter tree, but allowed to eat freely of the other trees.

      The state of man, prior to the fall, widely differed from his present state. Before that period his will and understanding were perfectly united, and formed only one mind; insomuch that, as soon as ever any love or affection was in motion, it instantly produced it's proper science or thought, the one being inseparable from the other. In that happy age, called by way of eminence the golden age, men needed no external instruction, but obtained all necessary knowledge by an internal influx, like a dictate from heaven. Hence they had no written revelation, because divine truths were inscribed on their hearts: neither did they exercise any external worship, like that of succeeding times, because they needed no stimulus, no formal excitation, to the performance of duties, which to them were the constant and sweetest employment of their lives. They were born also into the ​science of all things conducive to their well-being and happiness, whether natural or spiritual. The whole theatre of nature was to them only a picture of heaven. Every object that met their eye, from the sun in the firmament to the smallest particle of dust on the earth, furnished them with an opportunity of contemplating it's true and proper archetype in that eternal world, of which they were in a manner already inhabitants, even while dwelling in the body. They had no external respiration, no sonorous, articulate language, such as took place afterwards; but communicated their ideas one to another by numberless changes of the countenance, especially by the varied motions of the lips, and by the lively expressions of the eye. Moreover there was no deceit, no such thing as hypocrisy; but the countenance was the ready and faithful index of the mind: the consequence of which was, that, enjoying a mutual perception of each other's states, they both communicated and received more certain, distinct, and rapid successions of thought and affection, than any sonorous and articulate language can now possibly convey.

      How long man remained in this his primeval state of integrity and perfection, into which he was successively introduced after his birth as a natural man; or how many generations of men continued to enjoy the heavenly life above-described; cannot at present be known. But it is probable, that symptoms of a tendency to decline might have appeared soon after this primitive church had arrived at it's fulness of maturity, and long before any gross corruptions had entered among them, so as to cause their entire expulsion from the garden of Eden, and at length their total destruction by a flood, or inundation of lusts and false persuasions.

      The Origin of Evil, and the Fall of Man,

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      VI. The Origin of Evil, and the Fall of Man.

      MAN, when formed into the image and likeness of his Creator, was in the just and full exercise of two original faculties, called rationality and liberty. By rationality is meant the faculty of understanding what is true and false, also what is good and evil: and by liberty is meant the faculty of thinking, willing, and acting, in a state of perfect freedom. These two faculties were implanted in man at his creation; they are still in him at his birth into the world; and they are never absolutely taken away from him. But they are not, properly speaking, his own; they are only lent or continually communicated to him, being of and from the Lord in him, insomuch that they may be said to be the dwelling-place or residence of God with every man, enabling him to think and speak, to will and act, in all appearance as of himself. These faculties, thus appealing in him as his own, constitute his capacity of entering into reciprocal conjunction with his Creator, and consequently of living for ever. By these also he is capable of being reformed and regenerated; and by these he is distinguished from the brute beasts.

      Man then being thus created and formed into an image and likeness of his God, and feeling in himself the life imparted to him in all respects as if it were his own, his integrity consisted in perpetually acknowledging from his heart, that all he had was the Lord's in him. But it is plain, that, while this derived life appeared to be in him as his own, though in reality it was not so, he must necessarily have had the power either of ascribing it to the Lord, according to the real truth of the case, or to himself, according to the mere appearance. For without this possibility he could not have existed a single moment ​as a rational and free agent; in other words, he could not have been a man, but would have been a kind of automaton, an intellectual machine, or at best a dignified brute. While he thought, willed, and acted, in and according to the truth, notwithstanding the appearance, he remained in the order to which he was created: but as soon as ever he yielded to the appearance, and by reasonings from the senses confirmed himself therein, he then abused those faculties, with which he was endued, and by turning to himself departed from his Creator. Thus, instead of standing in the true order of his life, which consisted in the perpetual acknowledgment, that he was only a recipient of life from God, he erroneously confirmed himself in the appearance that such life was his own: and thus, by the abuse of his two faculties of rationality and liberty, he formed in himself the origin and beginning of evil.

      All this is described in the Sacred Scripture in a way peculiar to the genius of the most ancient people. The language used for this purpose may be called parabolical, or, as the apostle Paul expresses it, allegorical: but in truth every word is significative of, and correspondent with, some specific matter of contemplation included in the general subject. In language of such a character the serpent, which deceived the woman, and through her the man, denotes the sensual principle, which by fallacious appearances, and plausible but false reasonings, flatters and seduces first of all the will or selfish propensity, represented by the woman, and afterwards the rational faculty itself, represented by the man. For the man, the woman, the serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the garden of Eden itself, all represented and signified states of affection, thought, and life, in each individual member of the church, and ​at the same time in that collective body of men, of whom consisted the first or most ancient church on this earth. The way, in which that church fell, was the same as that in which every succeeding church has fallen: each church, when arrived at maturity, has СКАЧАТЬ