Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

THE DAWN OF A NEW DISPENSATION.

We behold the dawn of a new day before we see the sun, from whence the light proceeds.

The young in the Baptist Church, not having been baptized in infancy, are brought up to feel that they are out of the Church, and that they have to be converted, or "to get religion," before they join the Church, instead of being brought up to feel that, having been baptized, they belong to the Church and must believe its doctrines, and live the life which they teach. Thus I remained out of the Church until I was over thirty years of age. After I was twenty-three years old I attended different churches, as was most convenient. For a time I attended the Episcopal Church, while studying medicine; and after I graduated I attended the Congregational Church for several years more frequently than any other; but I had no thought of joining that Church, for during those days I always thought that immersion was the only true mode of baptism.

While practicing medicine in Detroit, a gentleman whose family I was attending asked me if I would not like to read a work on "Heaven and Hell," written by Emanuel Swedenborg, who claimed, he said, to have had open intercourse with the spiritual world, and to have written of what he had seen and heard in that world. He said that he had read it, and believed that the views therein contained were rational and true. If I had ever heard of them at all, at that time, I had never heard the writings of Swendenborg spoken of favorably before. Out of respect to the gentleman, I took the book home with me, but did not feel sufficient interest in it to attempt to read it through in course, but read here and there a few pages; and, after keeping it a few weeks, I returned it to the owner, feeling from what I had read no interest in its contents. Not long after this a lady whom I was attending asked me if I would not like to read Professor George Bush's reasons for accepting as true the revelations contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Well, I thought to myself, if the gentleman who lent me "Heaven and Hell," if my patient here, who is a very intelligent woman, and Professor Bush, whom I had understood was a very learned man, believe that Swedenborg's writings contain truths good and useful, it may be well for me to read the pamphlet then before me. So I took the book home with me and commenced reading it. About that time Rev. George Field commenced the delivery of a course of lectures on Creation and the first chapters of Genesis, treating the subject from the standpoint of Swedenborg's writings. I attended his lectures, which added very much to my interest, and I read Bush's reasons with care. Then I obtained "Heaven and Hell," and read it carefully through with the greatest interest. When a small boy I remember very well listening with fear and trembling to a discourse delivered by a clergyman, on "God is angry with the wicked every day," in which the speaker dwelt upon the fearful sufferings which the Lord had in reserve for the wicked in a hell of fire and brimstone, where they were to be tortured forever and ever.

When I came to read Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell," I found a very different and more rational doctrine taught—that heaven consists in loving the Lord and the neighbor, or in religious obedience to the divine commandments; and that hell consists in loving one's self and the world supremely, or sensual and selfish gratification, without regard to use; that either heaven or hell is within us, according to the character of our ruling love; that the Lord casts no one into hell, but does all He can, without interfering with man's freedom, to prevent men from going to hell; if they go there, they go of their own free choice, among their like, where selfishness in some form rules the hearts of the inhabitants; they would not and could not be happy among those who are ruled by love to the Lord and the neighbor; or by obedience to the divine commandments. The spiritual world is a more real world than this; therefore, in that world the motives, thoughts, and intentions of men cannot be hidden as readily as in this world; consequently, there is a great gulf between heaven and hell. One is opposite to the other. When love to the Lord and to the neighbor rules in the hearts of all the inhabitants, there is no need of penal laws or punishments, for each one is a law unto himself, and all are striving to do good to each other and to all; consequently, unity, peace, and harmony prevail.

How different from this is hell, where selfishness prevails; where the love of dominion over others, or the love of vain show, the love of acquiring unfairly that which belongs to others, the love of riches for the sake of being rich, and of selfish and sensual gratification without regard to use, rules in the hearts of all the inhabitants. We know that such perverted passions make a hell hot enough here; and, as death does not change the character of a man's ruling love, they will make a hell hot enough hereafter. But the Lord, in His mercy which endureth forever, by His angels governs the hells as well as the heavens, and does not permit vindictive punishments. All punishments are for the benefit of evil doers, to restrain and prevent them from doing evil to others and themselves, and from sinking to greater depths of wickedness; we may, therefore, safely leave the inhabitants of that world in His care.

No man or woman can read "Heaven and Hell" attentively, carefully, and prayerfully without great benefit. It is clearly shown that, to escape hell, an evil man has but to repent, to look to the Lord and shun evils as sins against Him, and that the Lord is no respecter of persons, but that He gives to every man the ability to do this, if he is willing. When we examine ourselves carefully in the light of the Sacred Scriptures, and discover an evil, if we shun that evil as a sin against the Lord, He keeps us in the effort to shun all evils, and enables us more clearly to see other evils to which we are inclined. Here is an open door for approaching the Lord, free to all; there is no mystery about it. If an evil man is to be reformed, he must repent or face about and commence a life of shunning evils as sins against God; otherwise, there will be no radical change, but a miserable shuffling from one evil habit to another. Even if a man shuns one evil habit, like the smoking or chewing of tobacco, because it injures his health and is likely to destroy his life, and not because it is a sin, and without the acknowledgment that it is a sin, he is almost sure to seek as a substitute some form of intoxicating drinks—opium, strong coffee, or tea. We make a great mistake, as Christians, if we try to substitute coffee- or tea-houses for saloons; not that the effects of coffee and tea are as pernicious as intoxicants, but they are unnecessary, and often diseases and great suffering result from their use. We should strive to show men and women, in the light of this day, what substances are unmistakably injurious to health and endanger life, and strive to lead them, by precept and example, to shun their use as sins against God.

After reading "Heaven and Hell" I read the "True Christian Religion," which is the last work that Swedenborg published, containing the essential doctrines of the New Christian Church, or the New Jerusalem now descending from God out of Heaven, "making all things new." In this work it is clearly shown that God is one in essence and in person, and that in the Lord Jesus Christ that one God is manifested to men. God is love. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was, with God and the Word was God." Here we have the Father or Divine Love, the Son or Divine Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit or Divine Proceeding, flowing from the Father because He is a being of infinite love, wisdom, and power, through the Son, a trinity in unity. The Divine Being is no more three persons than a man is three persons, because he is created in the image of God and has affection or love, an understanding, or thoughts, words, and acts that flow from his love through his understanding out toward his fellow men. All the doctrines of the New Christianity are based upon the Sacred Scriptures and appeal to our highest reason; and we are to receive them because we see them to be true and in strict harmony with the Word when the latter is correctly understood.

But I have neither time nor space to discuss these doctrines here. I will simply say, that when we come to see clearly that there is but one God whose name is one, who was manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that whoso seeth Him seeth the Father, then a number of false doctrines which proceed from and cohere with the doctrine of a tri-personal Deity will disappear like mists before the rising sun; and we shall be prepared to see and understand the rest of the beautiful and rational doctrines taught in "The True Christian Religion," and the mystery of Babylon and all man-made creeds will disappear before this new revelation from our Lord Jesus Christ.

After reading the "True Christian Religion" I read the work on Divine Providence, which gives such a clear view of the Lord's providential care over men that it strengthens and encourages the earnest seeker after truth wonderfully. It is a book which should be read by every Christian man and woman.