Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

THE RESULTS OF EFFORTS IN BEHALF OF TEMPERANCE.

The reader may reasonably inquire what results have followed all the efforts which I have made to call the attention of the clergy and laity of the New Church, and the clergy of other churches, to the importance of using as a communion wine, the genuine "Fruit of the Vine" as the Lord has organized, ripened, and sweetened it in the grape, instead of a leavened or fermented wine, which, when used as a beverage, causes disease, drunkenness, insanity, and death, in innumerable instances, among the clergy and laity of our churches, and enslaves their children often before their rational faculties are fully developed. I am happy to say that to-day there are quite a number of New-Church clergymen, in this country and England, and a large number of laymen, who, after a careful examination of the subject, are satisfied that the good wine of the Word and the Writings, and the only wine suitable for use as a Communion wine, is always the fruit of the vine, and never fermented wine. Many of these clergymen and church members have not always thought thus, and did not when I commenced writing upon the subject.

At the Annual Meetings of the General Convention of the New Church, when unfermented as well as fermented wine has been permitted to be used, and full notice has been given, nearly or quite one-third of the members present have deliberately partaken of unfermented wine.

I am satisfied, from what I have seen and heard, that one of the most useful works which the Lord has enabled me to do was the writing and sending the reply to "Communion Wine" to over 80,000 clergymen. The clergy of the prevailing organizations are not so difficult to reach upon this subject as are a majority of those of the New Church, for they have not confirmed themselves in favor of fermented wine from the writings for the New Dispensation. It is one thing to see new truths when they are revealed, but it is another step to be willing to see that those truths condemn falses in which we have strongly confirmed ourselves, or evil habits in which we delight, and to avoid confirming ourselves in falses, and to avoid striving to justify evils. To do the latter means to endure and resist temptations, and to engage in a warfare until the old man with his deeds is put off.

The New Church is descending from God out of heaven, and as it progresses, fermented wine is disappearing from the Communion tables of Christian Churches.

"The new wine," says Swedenborg, "is the Divine Truth of the New Testament, and thus of the New Church." (A. R. 316.)

The new wine for the New Christian Church is unfermented wine, pure as it comes from the hands of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the fruit of the vine, and not a leavened wine. And when men return to its exclusive use, multitudes now enslaved, diseased, and insane from leavened wine will be set free, cured and restored to their right mind by the Great Physician—by the inflowing life from Him through this physical representative of His blood.

The New Church is not a new sect or organization, but a new faith and a renewed life resulting from a revelation of Divine Truth, made by the Lord through Emanuel Swedenborg, for the benefit of all sects and all men, that the Christian Church may "revive again" and be reunited in the bonds of Charity, by worshiping the one God whose name is one—even the Lord Jesus Christ—and by striving to live a life according to His commandments.