CHAPTER XVIII.

NO VENGEFUL RETRIBUTION AT THE CREATOR'S HAND: BUT THE TORTURES OF THE WICKED ARE THE FRUIT OF THEIR

VOLUNTARY PREFERENCE FOR SIN.

Divine Order the Basis of Man's Present and Future Condition.-This Order Made Known through Revelation and Human Instruments.-Swedenborg an Interpreter of Spiritual and Natural Laws.—Man's Personality, Environment, and Experience Far More Positive in the Spirit World.-Parallel between the Present and Future Existence.-Evil is the Voluntary Violation of God's Law in Man's Moral and Material Constitution.-As the Author of this Law, the Lord is One with those whom He Creates.-Sin Ruptures this Connection, and Penalties Naturally Follow.-SelfPreferred Guilt, and not the Lord, "Slays the Wicked."-The Broken Harmony of the Normal Relation Brings Torture.-Wickedness the Reigning Objective which Delights and Enslaves Them, in their Companionships and Occupations.-Their Former Selves, Faces, Limbs, Thoughts, Motions, Transformed into Hideousness. -No Material "Fire and Brimstone," but Hell is Bred and Burns within.

By Rev. CHAUNCEY GILES, of the "New Jerusalem" Church (Swedenborgian).

It is impossible to come to any rational and just conclusions concerning the punishment of the wicked after the death of the material body, without a true knowledge of man's nature as a spiritual being, the laws of life in the spiritual world, and the relations of its inhabitants to the Lord. Personal opinions, the decrees of councils, and all theories derived from human governments, are of no avail in understanding the question, except so far as they are in accord with the laws of the divine order.

These laws are revealed in the sacred Scriptures; they are embodied in the material creation, and organized in the nature of man. These three modes of revealing the laws of the divine order, and of the Lord's methods of rewarding obedience and punishing disobedience to them, are the complements of each other. Immutable law. takes on various forms which manifest its nature in greater variety

and fullness. The Lord uses the created Word to give men the written Word. He employs human instruments to reveal the divine Word. They must agree. The Lord, who is infinite wisdom, cannot contradict himself. Each form of his truth must be interpreted by the other. What the Lord has revealed to us in the sacred Scriptures, concerning the nature and punishment of sin, must be interpreted by the nature of man as a spiritual being, by his inherent and essential relations to the Lord, and by the divine methods of creating, rewarding, and punishing man while he lives in the material body. In a word, spiritual law must be interpreted by natural law.

This is the method pursued and strictly adhered to by Swedenborg in his statements of the doctrines of the New Church concerning the punishment of sin, and all other questions of man's nature and spiritual destiny. It is the purpose of this article to state as clearly as possible what the doctrines of the New Church teach upon this subject. I propose to state them affirmatively and in my own language, but it must be understood that I am not expressing merely personal opinions, but the doctrines of the New Church as disclosed in the writings of Swedenborg and generally accepted by its members.

The condition of man as a spiritual being, after he has been raised up from his material body, is the subject we are considering. It is necessary that we get a distinct and true idea of what he is as a spirit. The doctrines of the New Church affirm that he is a human being in the human form. He possesses all the faculties that belong to a human being. He is organized within and without, in general and particular, as a man. He sees, hears, feels, talks, and acts as before. He is the same person, is in the same form, and possesses the same character. He has not lost nor gained any knowledge by the change of worlds. He acts from the same motives. If the love of self and the world had been the ruling motive of his life while he dwelt in a material body, it remains so still. He preserves his identity in general and particular. He has simply passed from one province of the universe to another. This transition has been effected by his removal from the material body. It was not a passage through space, as we go

from one country to another. He was in the spiritual world while he dwelt in the material body, though unconscious of it. The change consisted simply in casting aside the material body, which is the instrumental means by which man lives in the material world, while it also acts as a veil to the spiritual senses and prevents all consciousness of the presence and influence of spiritual beings and spiritual objects.

The world into which man is consciously introduced by his resurrection from the material body is a substantial world in the true and fullest meaning of the word. It has its atmospheres which the man, now a spirit, breathes, and by means of which he gains his consciousness and hears the voices of friends. It has its sun, and he sees by its light, and gains sensations by contact with spiritual substances and forces. He walks upon a spiritual earth which is as solid to the spiritual foot as the material earth is to the material foot. He is environed by a great variety of objects corresponding to those in the three kingdoms of nature. But they are not material. They are of the same nature as the substance of which the spirit is organized and bear the same relations to every spiritual sense. Everything is more substantial and distinct to his spiritual senses than the objects of the material world are to the material senses.

The good and the evil alike are welcomed by the inhabitants of the spiritual world, who delight to render the new-comer every service in their power. He is left in perfect freedom to think and speak as he pleases, to go where he chooses, and to associate with those who are the most congenial to him. He is not questioned as to his former life. He reveals it by his actions, the society he prefers, and the thoughts and feelings he expresses. If he is a wicked man, he talks and acts like one, and selects associates of a similar character. In this way he convicts and condemns himself. The principle is precisely the same that is in universal operation in this world. He is drawn by the forces of spiritual attraction by which like seeks like. He is not driven away by the Lord, or repelled by the angels. On the contrary, they offer their friendly services to instruct him in the truth and lead him to good. But as he does not like the truth he

will not listen to it. As he does not feel in freedom with the pure and wise, he leaves them and seeks companions who are agreeable to him.

This process of judgment, called the separation of the sheep from the goats, is truly effected by the Lord, but not in an arbitrary way. No violence is done to man's freedom. The wicked depart from the good because all the principles of love and wisdom which constitute heaven are repugnant to them. They join the wicked because they are attracted by kindred evil affections. They are repelled by all the divine forces which constitute the life and joy of the inhabitants of heaven. This repugnance between the pure and the vile, the true and the false, is not a sentiment that can be changed by merely willing to do it. It is caused by difference in the organic states of the wicked and the righteous. The wicked cannot breathe the air of heaven. Their lungs have become so perverted and deranged in form that the pure, vital atmosphere of heaven would torture them. They would gasp like a fish out of water. The light of heaven is so bright and clear that it would dazzle and blind them. They would be like owls and bats in midday brightness.

This inability of the wicked to associate with the righteous follows as a natural consequence of sin. It is essential to a correct understanding of our subject, therefore, that we should have a true knowledge of what sin is. This question, then, demands our careful consideration. The answer which the Lord gives, and the one generally accepted, is that sin is the violation of law. Its meaning will be modified, however, by our conception of the nature of the law broken. Is it natural law according to which the material body and the material world act? Or is it of the nature of civil law enacted by legislators, or imposed by an arbitrary ruler? Our doctrine of the punishment of sin will be greatly modified by which of these two theories we adopt.

It is the doctrine of the New Church that all moral and spiritual laws are natural, and not in any respect artificial or arbitrary. They are the ways in which the Lord creates and sustains all things. They are the ways in which he creates the material world, the material body, and the human spirit, and adjusts one substance and form