event, I am sure, that would have gladdened him more than all he has witnessed, because, as he would have termed it, it is the greatest use hitherto developed. We shall do well to improve what he has assisted to build, and as a memento of the little society in Eastcheap and the death of the last of its worshippers therein, let societies and members universally increase their interest in our noblest and most useful institution the Swedenborg Society, and our children's children will have to point back with as much pride and delight to the improvement from 1854, as we now do to the period since our departed friend first heard our glorious truths in the ever-to-be-remembered little church in Great Eastcheap. J. T. On Tuesday, August 21st, Mr. John Benton, of Birmingham, was removed from the natural into the spiritual world, in the 85th year of his age. He was born in the neighbouring village of King's Norton, and brought up in strict conformity with the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. It would appear, however, that both his father and himself had misgivings in relation to the doctrines of the tripersonality of the Godhead, the resurrection of the natural body, and some others, but were content to regard them as too mysterious to be explained and understood. He served an apprenticeship to a trade in Birmingham; and soon after he had married and commenced business for himself, just sixty years ago, a New Church friend, who had occasion frequently to call at his workshop, was invited to spend an evening at his house. They entered into conversation on religious topics, and Mr. Benton soon perceived that the views of his friend differed greatly from those commonly entertained in the Christian world. In answer to his numerous questions, some of the leading doctrines of the New Church were elicited and discussed with great interest; he found them Scriptural, rational, and eminently practical. He earnestly inquired where these doctrines were preached, and finally promised to accept his friend's invitation to attend the worship in Newhall street, to listen and judge for himself. He went, and was delighted with all he heard. He borrowed the works and read diligently. He attended a week-day meeting held at a friend's house for the purpose of reading and religious conversation. Few were those who, at that time, were emancipated from the thraldom of antiquated creeds and articles of faith; but he cared not for the charge of singularity, or the reproaches of ignorance, or the scorn of bigotry. "The seed" of truth in his prepared mind "fell in the good ground of an honest heart." He cordially received the doctrines, and through a long life, up to his latest moments, maintained them with unwavering faith. For nearly fifty years he conducted the singing of the choir and congregation, and several of our tunes were his composition. On his retirement from that office in the year 1842, the Society presented him with a beautiful Bible bearing a suitable inscription, as a testimony of affection for his worth, and a tribute of respect for his long and gratuitous services; the particulars of which were recorded in the Magazine for that year. From the year 1821, in which the Rev. J. Proud resigned his pastorate through the infirmities of age, to the year 1824, when at our late friend's earnest solicitation the Rev. E. Madeley reluctantly conceded to the wishes of the society, and became the minister, he filled the office of leader, conducted the worship, and read either printed discourses or manuscript sermons of Mr. Proud. But for his influence and services there is every reason to believe that the congregation would have been scattered, and the Sunday-school dismissed. For many years previously to the decease of his beloved wife, in 1825, and for some years afterwards, he kept open house for distant friends of the church, who from himself and family always received the warmest welcome; and a Sunday never passed without friends of the church and inquirers sharing his intercourse and hospitality. He has lent and given away more books and tracts to strangers than any other member of the society. He was the most zealous advocate for the erection of the church, and was the largest pecuniary contributor to the funds. His life has been closely associated with the history of the New Church in this town. In prosperity and in adversity, in joy and in sorrow, through good report and through evil report, he ever exhibited the same unbroken dependence on the Divine Providence, and the same devout and consistent attachment to our holy cause. His personal and family trials were both numerous and afflicting, yet they were always borne with Christian patience and resignation. That he had no frailties, and was exempt from imperfections, we could not affirm; he himself was fully sensible of them, and in the power of wisdom strove against them. To the last he acknowledged his utter helplessness, and implored the assistance of Him who is "mighty to save," even the Lord Jesus Christ in His divinely-glorified Humanity; "who pitieth us even as a father pitieth his children; for He knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust." As a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and a master, he has always been beloved and respected. His sufferings from a chronic disease of long-standing were often very severe and trying; but his final illness was in mercy brief, enduring only a few days. He had no fear whatever of bodily dissolution. He was prepared to lay down his natural and mortal body in corruption and dust, that he might be clothed with a spiritual and immortal body, and become the associate of angels. This glorious hope sustained his soul. The last voice he appeared to recognize, and to which he attempted to respond, was that of his minister, who had shared the privilege of his closest friendship upwards of thirty years. The universal esteem in which he was held was evinced by the crowd of sympathizing friends who spontaneously assembled at his funeral in the Birmingham General Cemetery. A funeral discourse was delivered on the morning of the 9th September to a large and deeply interested congrega. tion, from Rev. ii. 10:-" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." His benevolent spirit, his cheerful behaviour, his sincere love for the church, and all who belonged to it, his zeal for her welfare, and his long and earnest labours for her extension, are characteristics which have endeared him to all of us. Except when illness prevented, he was always in his place at church on the Lord's day, and always At the Holy Supper he was a in time. constant guest. It was truly to him a feast of good things. He never would live at such a distance from the church as to interfere with the paramount obligations and privileges of a regular attendance. And that he was a worshipper in its truest sense, was exemplified by his hearty responses to the prayers; and the joy and delight which the ser.. vices never failed to inspire within his soul, and diffuse over his intercourse. On account of his removal, we have no cause to mourn. On the contrary, we have abundant cause to rejoice that he has entered into his "rest," that he was spared beyond the usual run of years allotted to human probation, and was gathered like a shock of corn ripe for the harvest; and while following him in thought and affection to his new and glorious home, we are ready to exclaim,-"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !" E. M. Departed this life, Sep. 5, at Kensington, Liverpool, aged 44, John Selby, after a severe bodily affliction, borne with Christian fortitude. He had for many years been on the list of the Lancashire New Church Missionary Society, the duties of which he discharged with ability and zeal. He inherited a temperament of keen sensibility, which, while it led to the uncompromising reprehension of what he deemed amiss either in himself or in others, likewise imbued him with a corresponding appreciation of the good and the true. These he united in his teaching as a New Church preacher, also in a pervading sense of duty in the varied relationships of life; as exemplified in the fact that for thirty years he held the same secular office, with credit to himself, and satisfaction to his employers. He has left to deplore his loss a widow and one daughter, his only surviving child; his dying request to whom was, that she should ever hold firm by those heavenly doctrines which had been his stay, and best solace through life. E. S. Died, Sept. 10th, 1855, at Northampton Terrace, Canonbury, London, Caroline, wife of Mr. George Chambers, beloved by all who knew her. Cave and Sever, Printers, Palatine Buildings, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. It is not the intention of the writer of the following remarks to enter at large into the vexed question of what some Theologians term original sin, by which they would have us to understand that man sinned against God before he had any being, consequently before he knew that there is a God, and that sin is the transgression, the wilful violation of the divine law. Such matters are far too high for the writer's limited powers; he has no desire to be wise above what he finds unmistakeably written in the sacred Scriptures; on this ground he takes his stand, and solemnly avers that, while he every where finds in that sacred Volume that man is born into the world of sinful parents, and is thus involved in a vast accumulation of hereditary evil, he cannot find one passage that could be fairly interpreted as even so much as implying that man is born into the world as a sinner. The strong, unqualified, unequivocal language of Scripture used respecting the workings of the carnal mind can, we think, leave no doubt on the mind of any attentive reader, that it is intended to describe man in the fulness of his fall or aversion from God, the work of no one knows how many ages. All analogy favours the idea that the transition of man from being an image and likeness of God, to his becoming enmity itself against Him, could neither have been an instantaneous, a rapid, nor even a perceptible process. What a striking illustration is here afforded of the exceedingly deceitful nature of sin! [Enl. Series.-No. 24, vol. ii.] 3 x Although it is not our intention to enter at large on the subject of original sin, it may be proper briefly to notice that class of passages of Scripture so often quoted by the advocates of that doctrine in its defence; we need only notice one or two of them, the others will readily suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. Job asks respecting man that is born of a woman, -"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" and he answers-"not one." (xiv. 4.) The same thing is expressed in the words of Eliphaz:-"What is man that he should be clean? and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous?" (xv. 14.) Such was also the deep conviction of David when he said," Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. li. 5.) Now what do these and all parallel passages prove? Surely not that that the infant born into the world is, at the time of its birth, a transgressor of the divine law, an actual worker of iniquity, but simply, as already stated, the subject of hereditary infirmity. The passage last quoted, if attentively considered, will, we think, be found to throw no small degree of light on this important subject. David, no doubt, uttered the words in the spirit of true contrition, yes, of genuine repentance as to his own personal sins; but are we to suppose that he threw the blame of his transgressions on his God, to whom he prayed? Certainly not. Besides, it is well known and fully admitted by the best expositors of Scripture that the language of this Psalm, as well as that of many others in which David speaks of his iniquities having taken hold of him, gone over his head, compassing him about, prevailing against him, &c., is descriptive of the Lord's temptations which he underwent in purifying the humanity which he assumed from his mother;-descriptive of the particular state in which he was as mentioned by the Evangelist where it is said," Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses (Matt. viii. 17.) The reference here made by the Evangelist is evidently to Isaiah liii., which is supposed to sanction the doctrine of vicarious suffering; but if the infirmities and the sicknesses mentioned by the Evangelist meant actual sins, or transgressions of the divine law, how could it be true that the Lord was HOLY when born of Mary, a sinful woman, as all women are? Here, we contend, is a fundamental principle which cannot be set aside or evaded by any apparently opposing passages of Scripture. We do not wish to shun the strongest that can be urged. They who advocate the penal, and deny the purificatory nature of the sufferings and death of Christ, affirm that He was treated as an unclean and an accursed object by his Father, who declared him his well-beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," is language which any one may understand; but-Cursed was He who was Holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, who fulfilled the law to the smallest iota, magnified it and made it honourable, is language which is something more than paradoxical; language which never has been, and never can be verified, and yet its import forms the very essence of the Creed of Christendom. There is one passage of Scripture of which we would give the advocates of the doctrine of original sin the full benefit, as they often quote it to shew that the disciples of our Lord entertained that doctrine in common with the Jews. In John ix. we are informed that the Lord opened the eyes of a man who had been born blind; his disciples seem to have thought that this calamity was the result of either his own sin or that of his parents, and they refer the matter to the decision of their Master. Now had the man's blindness been the consequence of sin committed by either himself or his parents, that sin must have been committed before the man was born; but the absurdity of attributing the blindness to any such cause is shewn by the Lord's reply, which plainly teaches that the man's blindness was caused neither by any sin of his own, nor by any sin of his parents, but was permitted for the purpose of manifesting the merciful work of God in removing it, as an act significative of the great end for which He was manifested in the flesh, namely, to open the eyes of the blind, as predicted in Isaiah xxxv. 5, and elsewhere. But it may, perhaps, be thought, from the nature of the preceding remarks, that we wish to soften down, so as to render more palatable, the fearful account which the Scriptures have given us of the corruption of human nature. Far from it; our aim is quite otherwise; and it would be, in the fullest sense of the words, "labour in vain," to attempt to palliate what all human experiences so strongly confirm. What, then, does the infallible language of Scripture teach us respecting the real evil,-the wickedness of the human heart? We might here quote largely, but a few words shall suffice. We are informed, then, that the human heart is not only deceitful, but "deceitful above all things;" that it is not only wicked, but "desperately wicked;" that this deceitfulness and wickedness are so great as to be far beyond the comprehension of the human intellect, and known only to omniscience itself. (Jer. xvii. 9.) A word added to this declaration of the Searcher of Hearts would be superfluous. |