the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ' (2 Cor. iv. 6). II. "Then," says Dewsbury, "kindreds, tongues and the nations of the Earth make merry over the Witnesses. I see the abomination that maketh desolate and which is spoken of in the prophet Daniel. It standeth in the Holy Place." A picture surely of the havoc Hell makes within the soul when the Light of the Lord is slighted! Selfhood then wields the sceptre of undivided royalty. Its sovereignty is not disputed. The empire of Devildom seems to embrace the circuit of human nature and all within its boundaries. Chamber of Imagery, in which things of darkness make revel amid spirit-desolating abominations. But "When darker, wilder grows the night, The heart becomes a And shapes of evil haunt the sight, Dewsbury clung to the Cross, and dared at least to hope. III. A "wilderness-temptation" is next spoken of. There is the conflict of two antagonistic principles, each struggling for victory-its prey, a human soul! "I witnessed the Scriptures fulfilled in me of Paul's condition, wherein he complained, as I did then, of finding a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, that when I would do good, evil was present with me,-the sense of which caused me to cry, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' As I was crying to the Lord to free me from the burthen I groaned under, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying 'My grace is sufficient for thee; I will deliver thee!' By the power of this Word I was armed with patience to wait in His counsel-groaning under the body of sin in the day and hour of temptation—until it pleased the Lord to manifest His power to free me, which was in the year 1651." IV. "The spirit of life from God then entered into the witnesses," continues Dewsbury, "and they stood upon their feet. Then great fear fell upon all that saw them; and the temple of God was opened in heaven, and I saw in the temple the Ark of His Testament; and there were lightnings, voices, thunders, earthquakes, etc. Then the mystery-Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and the abomination of the earth; 'which made all nations drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication,'-she was discovered unto me; and God remembered her when the mighty Day of the Lord's power was manifest upon her." It would appear that goodness and truth, as two great witnessing lights in the firmament of Dewsbury's internal man, were now refulgent, in alternating states of happiness, no more to be obscured by the phantasmagoria of Evil which had hitherto veiled the presence of divine things. Darkness and its falsities fly away before the instreaming glories; the sphere of the Lord's all-embracing love is felt (the temple of God), and His Divine Wisdom (the Ark of His Testament) is made manifest. Illustration and perception (lightnings and voices) are induced upon the higher reaches of the mind, and their effects are exhibited in regard to the illusions which would fain linger, if but for a moment only. The Spirit in its own heavenly light then reveals what Hell (Babylon) was capable of in its hour of domination. Dewsbury is shown that a manhood grounded upon compromise is necessarily an insincerity and adulterous. Its hideousness being realised, its very shadow disappears from the path of individual progress, and—in the light of a new dispensation of truth -there is consummated, in the "Mighty Day" of the Lord's presence and power, a Visitation that involves judgment and salvation. V. "Jesus Christ was revealed from heaven in flaming fire pouring vials of wrath upon Babylon, and rendering vengeance upon all in me that knew Him not and disobeyed His Gospel. With His Spirit of Judgment and the Spirit of Burning, He purged away the filthy nature that did me imbondage:" such is the next phase of Dewsbury's religious experience. It is to this crisis he refers subsequently, when addressing an assembly, he says: "I stand here as a witness for the God of heaven, that I never heard the voice of Christ (as His follower) till I was slain and baptized, and lay as a little child under His heavenly chastisements. As soon as ever my soul was brought to this; in my humiliation,-O then the dreadful Judgment was taken away and the Book of Life was opened unto me. The Lord spake comfortably to me; 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love!' and I was made a Christian through a day of vengeance and of burning like an oven. The haughtiness and pride of man in me was brought low. In this conformity to Christ's death, people may die into life, and blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them.' Away with all your own wills... you must come to have your life separated from you Every one of you that lives at home in the bosom of Self takes this with you: Though you profess the truth and live in an outward conformity thereunto,-yet if you secretly indulge your corrupt wills and live a flesh-pleasing life . . . and are not rent off from your lusts-you cannot enjoy the Lord of Life. 'While I am at home in the body, I am absent from the Lord.' The body of sin is a lodestone to draw from the life of God and from glorying in the Cross of Christ; this is flesh and blood, and these cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." ૨ VI. "So through the righteous law of Life in Christ Jesus," says Dewsbury, to whose strange history of conversion we again revert, "I was made free and am free from the body of sin and death. Through these great tribulations my garments are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb; Who hath led me through the gates of the City into the New Jerusalem, where nothing enters that works abomination or makes a lie, but [only] what is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. There my soul now feeds upon the Tree of Life after which I had so hungered and thirsted, and which stands in the paradise of Godwhere there is no more curse or night, but the Lord God and the Lamb is1 my light and life for ever and ever." Here ends Dewsbury's panorama of soul-progress from the darkness of Pandemonium, onwards and upwards into the Paradise of the purehearted. "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of My God, and he shall go no more out"-at length the pillar-man, William Dewsbury, was at peace, and for some six and thirty years further should joy in the privilege "to spend and be spent" in carrying to waiting hearts the everlasting Gospel of Repentance and Regeneration. 1 The plural "are" would be written by a modern Quaker, but the early Friends looked upon the word Christ as signifying the appreciably human of the One God; it signified that which had been glorified on earth and with which man's affectional nature holds a certain relationship: thus "the Lord God and the Lamb" is One Divine Person. Those people who ran into many words, George Fox, in his early preaching days, cautioned not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey Him." His Epistle to Justice Bennet begins with "thou that dost profess God and Christ in words, see how thou dost follow Him." He says of himself that he was a diligent reader of the "holy Scriptures that speak at large of God and Christ, though he knew Him not but by revelation." From the time of James Naylor's unfortunate schism, however, Friends discontinued this method of speech, and clung to the phraseology of Scripture, as a means of preventing dangerous controversies. In reply to the charge that George Fox had put Christ for God, where he said "Christ is all," William Penn says: "Now hear what the Apostle says in the matter, Col. iii. 11: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.' And if Christ be all and in all, and He that is all and in all be the true and living God, then, because Christ is all and in all, Christ is the true and living God" (Works, ii. 137). Of himself Penn writes to Dr. John Cottenges: "I do heartily believe that Jesus Christ is the only true and everlasting God, by whom all things were made that are made, in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth; that He is as omnipotent, so omniscient, and omnipresent, therefore God." The italics in these extracts are the present writer's. 231 Miscellaneous. NATIONAL MISSIONARY INSTITUTION AND STUDENTS' AND MINISTERS' AID FUND. The meeting on behalf of these institutions, of which notice was given in our last, was duly held at Argyle Square Church, London, on the evening of Monday, April 12th, and, except for the much regretted absence of the Rev. John Hyde, President of Conference, who was prevented by indisposition from occupying the chair, fully equalled the anticipations of its promoters. The company partaking of tea in the schoolroom at six o'clock was somewhat small, comprising only about a hundred friends, but the subsequent meeting, which commenced in the church shortly after seven, was more numerously attended, including members of each of the metropolitan New Church congregations, and, with one exception, all the London ministers and leaders. On the motion of the Rev. J. Presland, the Rev. Dr. Bayley was called to the chair, and the meeting was opened by singing hymn 215. The Rev. W. Bruce then offered a suitable prayer, after which portions of letters from the Revs. John Hyde and R. Storry, and from Mr. Austin, minister of the Camberwell Society, were read, explaining the reasons for their absence, and expressing sympathy with the purpose of the meeting. The Chairman alluded to the absence of Mr. Hyde, whose zeal in the cause which they had met to strengthen was, he was afraid, the occasion of his illness; and he was only expressing the general feeling of the meeting when he said they one and all deeply regretted it. He was satisfied that there was no institution nor class of institutions better calculated to promote their efforts at usefulness than the National Missionary Institution and Students' and Ministers' Aid Fund. Their original promoters had felt that no inadequate mediums should be employed for disseminating the principles of that system which took in the whole Word from beginning to end, embracing all the glories of the past and all the hopes of the future. A system of this kind demanded persons who could comprehend it, and who were in some way able to give expression to it. It was felt, But therefore, that all should combine to enable young men to have that training which would assist them in placing before the public what was grand in itself, and calculated to produce such glorious results. Having read the original resolution passed on the subject in the Conference of 1855, Dr. Bayley proceeded to remark that this resolution embraced the two leading objects of the present meeting. First, there was the purpose of furnishing assistance to young men of the right quality who had not the means of prosecuting the necessary studies, but who were wanted for Church work, and whom the Church should prepare to do that work efficiently. And so far extremely beneficial results had come from the efforts made in that direction, several ministers now occupying New Church pulpits having been aided in this way. they had not been able to do half enough. A second object was that of enabling these gentlemen, when prepared, to have a little foothold for a while. There were, at the time the Fund was established, and there would be for many years to come, societies that were unable entirely to sustain themselves, or adequately and without assistance to pay a minister. A better instance could not be given than that mentioned in Mr. Storry's letter. The Society at Leeds possessed a spacious church, but they were a very small body,prevented for many years from making much progress for want of an efficient minister. Recently they had engaged the services of a gentleman, previously connected with the Baptist denomination, but who felt that he would be more useful as pastor to a New Church congregation. The Leeds friends, however, were only able to raise a hundred pounds. Would it not be a pity then, if for want of earnest help this good effort could not be encouraged? these days what could a minister do with a hundred pounds in a town like Leeds, with a family and position to maintain? They ought to supplement it with, say £50 the first year, £40 the second, and so on, reducing the aid by £10 a year, until the Society was in a position to pay its way. But we have also the National Missionary Institution, In which is another means of spreading a knowledge of the glorious truths given to us by the Lord. Not only have we to provide for the wants of small societies and students, but where there are no societies at all, we want some one to carry the principles of the New Church to the many who are almost driven to despair by the doubts and contradictions that surround them on every side. The meeting could have, therefore, no better cause nor nobler work than that they had assembled to help. education for its students, material means were also requisite for their sustenance. This support was provided by Conference, and if it were withdrawn, the College, however desirous, could not continue the education of theological students. Several of our ministers were aged, and young men would be required to take their places at no distant date. Four applications for adoption as students had already been made to the Committee, who were at present unable to grant compliance for want of sufficient means. Dr. Tafel concluded by expressing a hope that these means would shortly be forthcoming. The Rev. W. Bruce, in seconding the motion, pointed out that if the New Church was to exist as an external organization, machinery was requisite. Where there were congregations there was and ought to be a demand for ministers, and it was in accordance with a well-recognised law of social life that the wealthier societies were called upon to assist their poorer brethren. Small societies had been mentioned, and these ought to be supported as centres from which our doctrines might be disseminated. It had seemed to be the The Rev. Dr. Tafel then moved the first resolution as follows:-"Since it is of the first importance for the spread of the New Church among the intelligent portion of the community, and for the establishment of its doctrines in the rational mind of its members, that the ministers of the New Church be systematically trained in a knowledge of the doctrines of the internal sense of the Scriptures, and that they should be taught how to preach these doctrines in their power from the letter of the Word, and how to support them by rational considerations drawn from the whole range of the natural sciences (according to A. R. 544), -Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting it is a primary opinion of some that ministers, like duty, incumbent upon all the members of the New Church, to support liberally the fund established by the General Conference for the proposed education of the candidates for the ministry.' In proposing this resolution Dr. Tafel pointed out how the man-child spoken of in the Revelation symbolized the doctrines of the New Church, and the rod of iron with which he was to rule all nations the truth in its ultimates. One of these ultimates was the letter of the Word, and it was the work of the ministry to teach New Church doctrines from the letter of the Word. Ministers to do this must be well acquainted with the teachings of the Church as to the science of correspondences, and this must be acquired systematically like any other science, since it was impossible for it to be acquired by perception. Another sense of the "rod of iron" was that of natural science, which was therefore necessary in the preparation of students for the ministry. Dr. Tafel further contended that the education of students should be conducted in a properly appointed college, and that as the New Church College only provided poets, were born not made, but this was not so. Of all men a New Church minister most required education, and this was evident from the fact, that at the formation of the Students' Aid Fund its strongest supporters were those New Church ministers who had felt the want of a systematic training. It should be remembered that, in entering the ministry of the New Church, young men had but little prospect in a worldly point of view, and it was therefore the bounden duty of their lay brethren to second their efforts. Mr. Bateman, in supporting the resolution, thought that there could be no doubt as to the necessity of supporting the Students' and Ministers' Aid Fund. The object of that fund was twofold. Firstly, to give young men studying for the ministry means to provide the necessaries of life, and secondly, to assist them in the early years of their ministrations, when they would probably be attached to small Societies. It was now necessary that New Church ministers should be not only able to teach the doctrines in the neighbourhood of their societies, but that they should be |
