Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/255

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What the generally accepted doctrine concerning hell was, at the time Swedenborg wrote and for many years thereafter, is well known. True, it was the doctrine of the Bible—but of the Bible as understood by those who "perceive not the things of the spirit of God"—of the Bible as interpreted by the carnal mind, and in accordance with the gross conceptions of the natural man, and the sensuous philosophy of the old Age. It was a literal fire-and-brimstone hell which the church of that day believed in. And no doubt this was the doctrine best suited to the external and low state of the people of that period.

But that Age is consummated; and doctrines well enough adapted to its condition and needs, being in complete correspondence with its sensuous character, are by no means suited to this new and more enlightened Age. The old doctrine of a literal fire-and-brimstone hell, into which sinners were supposed to be cast by an angry God, there to writhe in endless agony, would not now be listened to by any intelligent congregation in Christendom. Consequently the old doctrine is rarely heard from the pulpit of to-day, or encountered in our current religious literature. Thoughtful people must have a different doctrine on this subject, to satisfy the demands of their reason, or—