It is one of the unhappiest features of the fallen Christian Church, that its idea of the Divine Goodness is so exceedingly obscure and confused. This arises principally from the contradictory character of the descriptions of its manifestations in the Divine works of redemption and salvation, as usually presented; for these descriptions involve such a mixture of ideas, through the predication of incongruous acts of a totally opposite quality, that those ideas of God and his dealings which are right, are, of necessity, neutralized by those which are wrong. Under such circumstances, a clear, because a simple and harmonious, idea of the Divine Goodness is impossible.

But this difficulty of forming a just idea of the Divine Goodness may be traced still further back. In the earlier periods of life the human being thinks sensually, or almost entirely draws his conclusions from outward impressions. Hence God is at first thought of as being "such an One" as man is, and, in the absence of just instruction, accompanied with the influential examples of human goodness; a child grows up with an idea of man such as he is in a state of disorder, and if it should happen, that in such a state of mind any idea of God should enter, it must be essentially the idea of a bad man invested with almighty power. But should a child have the benefit of the best instruction and example, and yet through the neglect of a suitable course of moral training, grow up selfish and self-willed, he will practically form his idea of God, not so much from the just idea of Him, aided by a just idea of man as His image, which has been inculcated by education, as from his own individual character, as the ground of his habitual state of thought; for while he declares his belief in God's immutability, he will send up such desires and even petitions to heaven, as imply the idea that God may change; and while he believes doctrinally that God is "good to all," and that "his tender N.S. NO. 51.-VOL. V.

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mercies are over all his works," he will allow himself practically to contradict his doctrine, by the indulgence of discontent, murmuring, and distrust of his good Providence. It is from this source,—it is from the unconverted will uttering falsehood in the thoughts; it is from the transgression of the wicked speaking in the midst of his heart until there is no true fear or reverence of God before his eyes, (Ps. xxxvi.) and thus stifling the better ideas in the understanding, that all false ideas of God and goodness have originated.

It is the Divine intention, that the inbred natural tendencies of the understanding to falsehood, should be counteracted by instruction; and that the inbred natural tendencies of the will to evil, should be counteracted by moral training. In the event, then, of the absence of either of these remedial means, (and especially in the absence of both) not only is the child, if erroneously instructed, left to the misguiding influences of false doctrine in forming his idea of the Divine Goodness, but he is also left to confirm himself in those erroneous conceptions of spiritual subjects, which are natural to the earlier, and therefore more imperfect periods of existence. He becomes a man, in such case, without putting away his childish things. Although in form a man, he is but a child in understanding, because he has not been instructed how to form mature conceptions, under the guidance of sound doctrine.

Hence it is that we frequently find, that in the various departments of natural knowledge, men have become close observers, shrewd discriminators, and just reasoners, while, in theology, they violate those fundamental ideas of all just and consistent religious doctrine, — the idea that God is One, and that God is good,-good AS it becomes a God to be! Such is the necessary consequence of man, as a being whose nature is compounded of opposites, thinking of God, whose nature is not, in any sense, compounded or mixed, without being warned that so far as he thinks of the uncompounded Infinite Nature after the pattern of his own compound finite nature, he must think of the Divine Nature such as it is not, by thinking of it as mixed, and consequently as having its perfections alloyed by something in the Divine Nature which is relatively not perfect, just as is the case with man.

Were not this defective state of thought the state of religious teachers themselves, they could not teach as a genuine truth, that God is angry, for anger is an alloy to love, and by such mixture, love is deteriorated. Such an alloy as this exists in finite natures, but it cannot possibly exist in a Being so entirely uncompounded, that it can be truly said of Him, and of Him alone, without qualification or reservation, that GOD IS Love.

With the blessed in heaven, there is a closer likeness to God than there could have been while they lived upon earth. They resemble in their glorified state, the uncompounded Nature of Divine Goodness. With them, the self-hood—the natural mind, with its distinct and often opposite purposes to the spiritual, is shut up. They are still, indeed, when viewed in themselves, compound, because finite beings; but they are not so in, and to their own consciousness (which is every thing to themselves), because their consciousness is derived from the spiritual part of their nature only, the natural part being shut up so closely, that to their own consciousness, it is as if it were annihilated, and no longer existed. Such is the near resemblance of a highly glorified spirit to the simple and uncompounded nature of the Divine Being.

But man, when his spiritual state of will and thought commences by the commencement of his regeneration, is in the opposite state to that just described. Compounded of a spiritual part, which has just begun to develop itself, and a natural part, which has been developing from birth, under the strong and distorting influence of the fallen propensities of the self-hood, the feeble influences of the spiritual part are then alloyed by the importunate desires, and disorderly and strong demands of the natural part. There is in the man, at this period, a mixture of, as it were, a grain of gold with a pound of copper, but the Lord, by that mighty working, and that wise provision set forth in the New Church Writings, provides, nevertheless, that the choice of man between what is spiritual and what is natural, shall be held in equilibrium, and thus kept perfectly free; but notwithstanding this provision, it must needs be the case, that in every act there will be present but little of what is spiritual, mixed with a large alloy of what is natural. Regeneration consists in the gradual removal and diminution of this natural alloy, and the consequent, and, we might say, simultaneous increase of the pure spiritual essence of goodness and truth, which, in the Word, are represented by gold and silver.

In the beginning of the spiritual life, a man finds it difficult even to return good for good, and thus love for love, and is obliged to use strong self-compulsion to prevent selfishness from extinguishing his gratitude for kindnesses received, and to prevent such acts of kindness from being greedily appropriated as tributes to his own merit. This is owing to the presence of the abundance of the alloy of the selfishness of the natural man in every act. By self-denial, and humiliation before the Lord, some further removal of this alloy takes place, and now the Christian is able to "do good hoping for nothing again." He can now love his neighbour as himself, but, as yet, to love his enemies is an

attainment all but inconceivable to him. He can, with some conscious satisfaction, exercise true charity, and shew kindness to all who do him no harm; but he cannot exercise mercy without strong self-compulsion, and feelings of repugnance and inward resistance. "Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful," seems to him, in his present state, "a hard saying." Less conscientious persons hear this command, and approve it, and with blind self-complacency, mistake their theoretical approval of the rule for the habitual practice of it but the constant exercise of searching self-examination has prevented the character we are considering from falling into such a state of self-deception. He feels that, although God "delighteth in mercy," as yet he is not so truly God's image, as to find unmingled delight in shewing mercy, by being merciful even to those who "deal despitefully with him, and persecute him." He mourns his existing state, and hopes for a better, and while he appropriates the divine promises, and supplicates Divine aid, he is assured and comforted. He holds on his way, shunning evils as sins, and thus the kingdom of God, which "cometh not with observation" imperceptibly advances, until the alloy of the self-hood has been so far removed that there has sprung up in his breast, "he knoweth not how," a supreme delight in mercy. He can now love all without any exception. Like his Lord, he is now 66 no respecter of persons," and now, there being no counteracting shade arising from the self-hood, how inconceivably bright and clear becomes his doctrinal idea of the Divine Goodness, Love, and Mercy! The idea that God can be more merciful to one than to another, or that there can be any thing of vengeance in his dealing with even those who are in hell, is now so abhorrent to him, that the suggestion of such an idea makes him shudder as if it tended to the extinction of his very life.

So far, then, as man lives not after the flesh but after the spirit, so far the alloy of the flesh is removed, and the purities of the spirit-of the internal man, which is spiritual,-flow down, and find their basis in the "mortified," purified, and renovated natural principles of the external man. Thus, in his degree, with such a highly-regenerated Christian, the Word is made flesh in him, by his interior nature, formed in him by and from the Word-our Lord Jesus Christ,-being inrooted in the purified ground of his exterior nature, so that the life he lives in the flesh,—or in the external man,-he "lives by faith in the Son of God," the Glorified Humanity of Jehovah, and thus he realizes the apostolic saying in his own experience," Christ formed in the heart, the hope of glory."

Confused and inadequate ideas of the Divine Goodness exist in the minds of teachers, either because they have not individually attained