ADDRESS FROM THE GENERAL CONFERENCE TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NEW CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

BELOVED BRETHREN,-The Conference having concluded its session, gladly returns to the agreeable duty of addressing to you a few words of admonition and instruction. It is our great privilege to belong to a church which is to be the crown of all churches. As members of this church we should exemplify its teachings in our lives: these teachings all have relation to life, and are intended to make us wise and good. The life of the church is the life of love to God and charity to man. All its teachings have relation to this great principle of love, and lead, by regeneration, to its attainment. Before regeneration our affections are essentially selfish. Notwithstanding the many disguises which it assumes, we may detect at the root of all unregenerate conduct the natural self-love, seeking by one means or another to advance its own selfish interest. The attainment, therefore, of the higher life of the church, is by self-denial and the crucifixion of the old nature. Approach to God is departure from self; admission into the church and preparation for heaven, is in proportion to the extent and sincerity of this departure. Neglecting this, we still stand without, however earnest we may be in the building up of its external institutions. To enter within the city, its principles of love and faith must first enter into us.

But assuming that the life of the church has gained an admission into us, what are the duties which are required of us towards the church? There are many such duties; we shall glance at a very few. [Enl. Series.-No. 94, vol. viii.]

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The church is a spiritual mother. She feeds her children with the sincere milk of the Word. Now, the church expects, and has a right to expect, that all her children will have a regard for her ordinances. It is not consistent with membership in, and a professed love for, the church to be neglectful of the duties of the Sabbath, and absent from her assemblies. The worship and sacraments of the church are for the benefit of her children. These are to promote their growth in righteous. ness. But how can the church promote this object, if her members are habitually absent from her assemblies, or neglectful of her ordinances. Habitual absence must in the end produce deadness to all religious. worship and instruction. The world will claim its own in such minds, and all the rich promises of the church will remain unfulfilled.

Next to the duty of attendance on worship is the duty of punctuality in this attendance. How unworthy of our Christian character is it to enter too late the house of God! We do not act thus in the affairs of the world. If it be a journey of business, or pleasure, we are in time. And if religion is the highest of our affections, surely we ought not to be late in our attendance on its services. Moreover, how beautiful is the early assembling of a Christian congregation, and their united song of praise, in the worship of the Saviour! Such an assembly is the highest of earthly assemblies; it is the point where the church on earth joins the church in heaven. The influences of the angels descend into the minds of her members; their pure affections penetrate us with some measure of their delight, and seek to imbue us with some measure of their felicity.

Another duty we owe to the church is, to promote to the utmost of our power her unity and peace. To do this will need self-control and constant self-subjection to truth and goodness. In a community of men, and this community not regenerated but regenerating, it is certain there will be occasional differences of opinion on external matters. Now, it is the purpose of the instructions and life of the church to bring the self-will which is the fruitful source of difference into subjection, and to exalt the love of the neighbour, which causes us to have an interest in the mental freedom and activity of our neighbour. We can only agree with the sentiments which commend themselves to our reason and judgment; but whenever opinions at variance with our own commend themselves to a majority of our brethren, we may be well satisfied that these are the best suited to the then existing state of the church. If the views which prevail are, in our judgment, not best calculated to promote the prosperity of the church, let us patiently wait, and diligently but humbly labour to improve the moral character and genuine

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piety of the church, and then we may hope in the end to see higher views adopted. But let us not needlessly disturb the peace of the church to secure the adoption of external principles for which the church is not yet prepared; let us rather seek the peace of Jerusalem; let us remember "how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."

It would extend this address to an inconvenient length to enter here into the duties owing to the church and necessary for its external support. Last year a Committee presented a report on this subject, which was printed in the minutes; and although much that might be said respecting it has not even been attempted, yet the limits of this address will not admit of its discussion. I will only say, that where there is a sincere love of the church, there will be a desire to provide for her growth and prosperity by the dedication of a portion of our worldly substance to this use. All our earthly goods are the bountiful gift of our Heavenly Father; and we cannot reasonably expect His blessing while we selfishly appropriate all, or nearly all, to our own use, refusing to acknowledge, or neglecting to make provision for, the just claims of the church and of our poorer brethren. There are many reasons why, as members of the New Church, we should be liberal in our contributions for religious purposes. We know well that all we have ought to be devoted to use; and that only as it is so devoted can it be a source of the truest present comfort, much less the means of future blessedness. The hoarding of money without regard to spiritual use is condemned by every correct interpretation of the doctrine of charity. Its judicious employment is the means of carrying out the purpose of its Divine Donor, and of making to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Many institutions have been established for the spreading of a knowledge of our heavenly doctrines, and many uses are opened to the church which can only be accomplished by pecuniary liberality; and the Conference confidently and earnestly appeals to you to aid this great work. It is a work which engages all the agencies of Conference, and in which it is our highest privilege to be permitted to have a part. Let us act worthily of this high privilege. Let us ever manifest the purity and exalted beauty of our religion in a life of meekness, purity, and active beneficence; and, setting aside all selfish considerations, let us conscientiously devote a definite portion of our worldly income to the uses of the Lord's New Church.

August, 1861.

On behalf of the General Conference,

I am, very sincerely yours,

RICHARD STORRY.

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THE LORD WALKING THROUGH THE CORNFIELDS WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

"And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that He went through the cornfields; and His disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands."-LUKE vi. 1.

IN reading the divine Gospels, we should remember that the acts recorded of the Lord are equally as full of instruction as His words. From not attending to this, many readers, it is feared, pass over the Lord's acts and doings, except in the case of his miracles, as mere incidents in the narrative, worthy of little attention. But this is a great mistake, as his acts, such as "going through the cornfields with His disciples," as in the text; as "spitting on the ground, and making clay of the spittle," (John ix. 6.) when He cured the blind man; and also "His stooping down and writing twice on the ground," (John viii. 6, 8.) when the "scribes and pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in the act of adultery," are full of divine meaning. For "to stoop down and to write on the ground" when He heard the sin of adultery alleged against the woman, involves the fullest condemnation of the sin that can possibly be declared, though the Lord afterwards says "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." For, the Lord from Himself, that is, from His divine Love, neither judges (John xii. 47.) nor condemns any one. That "to write upon the ground" signifies condemnation is evident from Jer. xvii. 13;-"They that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters." And, on the contrary, "to have our names written in heaven," (Luke x. 20.) signifies salvation. Those, therefore, who imagine that because the Lord said to the adulterous woman-" Neither do I condemn thee," they can derive any excuse, or mitigation, or palliation, as many have endeavoured to do, for the horrid sin of adultery, are most grievously mistaken, and are amongst those "who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction." (2 Peter, iii. 16.) The Lord commands us neither to judge, nor to condemn any one, (Luke vi. 37.) and He does not do Himself what He commands His disciples not to do. The fact is, it is not the Lord that judges and condemns, as He expressly says- -“If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world; he that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him; the words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." (John xii. 47, 48.) The word which the Lord speaks is His divine Truth,

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which (when separate from His divine Good, as is the case with the wicked) judges and condemns them to hell, or "writes them upon the earth." All the Lord's acts, therefore, as well as His words are full of divine instruction, when they are "spiritually discerned."

The "second Sabbath after the first" has caused much perplexity to the commentators. The first, or prime Sabbath was the great Sabbath of the Passover, which signified the Lord's work of redemption. This is called the first in the sense of primary, as denoting that redemption is the primary cause of regeneration and of salvation, and consequently of all the virtues, graces, and happiness of the regenerate life. For without redemption, regeneration and salvation would be impossible. The prime Sabbath, therefore, represents the Lord's work of redemption and of glorification, when He had subjugated the hells, and united His Divinity with His Humanity, in His own "glorious Body." This was truly the primary or great Sabbath, especially as understood in its spiritual sense. But the second or secondary Sabbath after this, is the Sabbath of man's regeneration; for the Lord's glorification is the pattern of man's regeneration, and the process by which this is effected is described by "the Lord's going through the cornfields with His disciples, and by their plucking the ears and eating them, rubbing them in their hands;" for it will require but little elevation of mind to see, with spiritual discernment, that this divine record involves the entire process of instruction, for the reception of the knowledges of Truth and of Good from the Lord, through His Word, for the purposes of regeneration and of eternal life. For the Lord, by redemption, procured for mankind a harvest of everything True and Good for the purpose of salvation. This harvest, He concentrated in Himself, by glorifying His Humanity. Hence it is, that He calls Himself the "Lord of the harvest," also the "bread of life which cometh down from heaven;" and He commands us to pray to Him, that "He may send forth labourers into His harvest." All, whether ministers or people, are required to come and to labour in this harvest, if they desire to feed on the "bread of life," and to live for ever.

By taking a comprehensive view of the harvest, in a literal sense, as applicable to the life of the body, we may easily see it, in a spiritual sense, as applicable to the life of the soul, or to the spiritual life. For the harvest in a natural sense, involves everything suited to the nourishment and clothing of the bodily life, since we derive, under Providence, from the harvest, not only all the resources of our nourishment, but also all the materials of our clothing. Hence, in a comprehensive sense, we derive from the harvest all the means of support, of health, and of