Page:A Hindu Gentleman's Reflections Respecting the Works of Swedenborg and the New Jerusalem Church.djvu/18

8 constitute the chief cause of the non-perception, the concealment, the discolouring, and the darkening of truth, have exercised alike their sway on the minds of men in all countries and in all ages. Christianity, when viewed in the light of religious truth, must undergo the same metamorphoses as all other truths at the hands of subsequent generations of mankind. It is in the hands of nature, and it must follow the course of nature, in the assumption of forms and outward appearances; but its substantive essence, which constitutes its life and soul, is the same,—the same conscientious individuality in childhood and in youth, in mature age and in old age; though it is blooming and frisky in childhood, comely and attractive but irresolute and violent in youth, sedate, calm, and resolute in mature age, and wise, solemn, and venerable in old age.

While I was writing this, and coming to the consideration of this point, I most happily met with a still more satisfactory solution of this very question in n. 479, Chapter VIII., on Free Determination, in the True Christian Religion. In enumerating the general considerations which confirm the proposition that man has free determination in spiritual things, the author alludes to the fact of the Christian Church being divided into several sects, and each of these overspread with heresies. The author characterises this division with such other evils as the existence of many wicked people in the Christian world, and of some who even glory in their wickedness, and contrive stratagems against the pious, just, and upright. So, according to Swedenborg, the free determination which man has, and which he has amply shown throughout the chapter as a necessary condition of man's existence in this world, accounts, and accounts most satisfactorily indeed, as I now perceive, for the division of the Christian Church into so many sects in which we see it has continued to be divided and subdivided ever since the time of the Apostles. Thus I have