actually took place, and reveal the knowledge of its facts for the use of the new church which was to be subsequently formed on earth? For, in this case, the seeing or perceiving of the judgment was but the unfolding of what was subsiding in him at his conception, comparatively as the expanding of a plant from a seed is but the unfolding of what had subsided from the spiritual world in the production of that seed from its plant. During his childhood, such were the indications of his peculiar genius, that his parents were wont to think angels were speaking through him. He himself says that his first thoughts were upon religious matters, and that at a very early age, he was prone to reason with theologians about their tenet of salvation by faith alone-saying that he was kept by the Lord from imbibing such parts of the dogmatic theology of the day as would have interfered with his full reception and clear transmission of the theology of the new heaven and the new church. And he expressly says that he was prepared by twenty-two years of study of the natural sciences for the spiritual office to which he had been called. Thus it is manifest that Swedenborg had the essential divine call and preparation of which we speak. But in his case there was need of a formal call too; and he assures us that the Lord did appear to him in person for that purpose. (U. T. 779, 851.) And as to ministers for the new church, we have quoted, in a former report, his assurance that they would come from the universities or institutions of general learning. For here, such as the Lord has called by their love, and its latent vein leading them to the performance of clerical uses, receive that preparation, as of "every student who is preparing for the ministry before he becomes a priest," (U. T. 106,) without which they never can effectively perform the functions of the clerical office. And we have always thought that the ostensible new church in America greatly erred in beginning the institution of a ministry by giving merely the formal sign of the translation of the holy spirit, and the conferring of only its formal powers, without first looking for this essential divine call, and this suitable providential preparation for the right and effective discharge of its duties. The consequence of this error has been seen in the almost total failure to establish and extend the church by the labors of her first ministers. The societies which ordained them, could hardly stand up to do it, and very soon reclined on sick couches to die of marasmus after their work was done. Or they rose up to more efficiency only when the Lord, in his providence, had sent more effective laborers into his vineyard. Such is the general rule to which we suppose there may be exceptions. The Lord's calling illiterate fishermen in his first advent was for the sake of the representation and signification: for "whatever the Lord did in the world was representative, and whatsoever he spake was significative." (Ap. Ex. 31.) But after he left the world he called Paul, who was a man skilled in the theology of that day. And now, in his second advent, the ministers to propagate the doctrines of his church must have preparation similar to that of the servant whom he raised up to teach them. Still, even now, there may be exceptions to this general rule. For men may possess the learning

and talents requisite for the effective preaching of our doctrines without having graduated at the literary or theological institutions; and to certain classes of society in the very beginning of the church, preachers not learned in classic lore, but possessing strong native powers of mind, with good common sense, acute common perceptions, and the requisite acquaintance with our author's doctrinal expositions, are the best adapted mediums. Such a man was Mr. Hurdus: to some minds he was admirably suited as a teacher of new-church truths; and there can be no question that his thorough acquaintance with the theological writings of Swedenborg, combined with not a little general information, and his stern integrity in adhering to the true principles of our faith, more than once saved the little barque he was steering from being swamped in the storms which we all know it has so often encountered. And to our minds it is morally certain that recent radical changes would not have taken place in the Western Convention, if Mr. Hurdus were now on earth. In one of the documents of our appendix, (No. LV.,) we shall see him standing alone, for the true order of our church, against an otherwise unanimous vote of his society. And, therefore, we do not suppose that, because he was not a classical scholar, he ought not to have been ordained. The same remark may be made of others who have been, and are, very efficient ministers of our faith. But we contend that they would have been much more efficient, if to their other excellent qualifications, had been added the preparation for their office which Swedenborg had for his.* And we confidently assert, as a general rule, that, until this preparation is looked to, and required of all who now come into our ministry, we shall in vain endeavor to establish the New Jerusalem as a growing and prospering visible body in our land. And we repeat, that too great laxity in admitting persons into our ministry at first without it, was one chief cause of many of those societies which were first formed in this country having become defunct. Let any intelligent Newchurchman seriously inquire, what would have been the condition of our visible church now, in these middle states, if the money which was expended in building or purchasing the first three temples, had been laid out in establishing and endowing a seminary for the instruction of the children of newchurch parents upon the principles of their faith. Could not the incipient churches have continued to perform all the uses of public worship, and gradually gained the strength of numbers, by meeting in hired rooms suited to their infantile state? And if they had laid out their chief strength in establishing a seminary for their children, may we not presume that some of these children, born from and to the ecclesiastical province of the maximus homo, would have been borne, on this stream of the Divine Providence, in all requisite preparation for it, to the clerical office? Then, for every minister so called and ordained of the Lord, should we not now have had a firmly

*Swedenborg, (U. T. 418,) asks, "who loves a prelate, a minister of the church, or any canonical person, except for his learning, integrity of life, and zeal for the salvation of souls?" Does not this imply that learning is a first and necessary qualification for a minister of the church?

established and prospering society of the church, worshiping in a temple permanently its own property? But alas! how sad a reverse to this picture, does reality now present! Let us drop the curtain over what cannot be helped, and profit in future by the experience of the past. We have reason to believe, that, though there was an idea of grades in the new-church ministry when Mr. Hurdus was ordained by Mr. Hargrove, yet that idea was very imperfectly carried out in his ordination. He was probably ordained as a priest and teaching. minister, with full powers, except the ordaining of other ministers. For he exercised all the powers except this last, until it was asked for him of, and granted to him by, the General Convention of 1828. (See Journal of 10th Gen. Con. p. 2.)

The next ordination was that of the Rev. M. M. Carll, in Philadelphia, December 31, 1816. This brings us to a brief consideration of the charge that the tendency to the episcopal form of government, which has, in later years, been detected in the General Convention, took its rise in the Philadelphia society. The consideration of this matter comes up in the way of tracing out the first agitation of the question of a trine in the new-church ministry of this country. For we must see that this question did not arise in the Philadelphia society, nor was it first agitated by any of its leading members, but was first broached by a leading New England minister. The charge is, that grades in the ministry, and the use of a liturgy, adopted from the episcopal church as a model, were a tendency to episcopacy in the Philadelphia society, and from thence in the General Convention, before the eastern brethren took any part in the proceedings of that body. It is even asserted by Mr. Carll, who ought to have known better, that "so far as the First New Jerusalem Society Philadelphia is concerned, in her first public services and ministrations, the episcopal church was regarded as the model: a liturgy, now extant, was used, ceremonials, such as rising up and kneeling in certain parts of the service, the dress of the minister, reading the services in one place and delivering the sermon in another, the rule requiring written sermons, as well as grades in the ministerial office, were all adopted and FULLY RECOGNIZED by the above society, and were not objected to by the convention." (See Precursor, Vol. III., p. 22.) The reason assigned by Mr. Carll for the adoption of this order, is, at least, curious. "This choice arose," says he, "not from any strong attachment to external forms, but because it was thought by our leading members to be at least as orderly and respectable as any; and from a strong desire that the first public ministrations of the New Church should, by their propriety and decorum, silence opposition and ridicule." A very cogent reason indeed why "grades in the ministerial office" were "adopted and fully recognized by the above society"! But we think it was a great mistake to assert that grades in the ministerial office were adopted and fully recognized by the First Philadelphia Society; and we think we shall be able to show that the adoption of something resembling the episcopal form of worship, sprung from a very different cause than the intention or the desire to adopt the episcopal form of government. Still the assertion

is made by one who was the first minister of the Philadelphia society, and the fifth that was ordained in the new church of America, that grades in the ministerial office were adopted and fully recognized by that society, "and were not objected to by the convention." Thus it is asserted by high authority that the question of the trine was first agitated and fully recognized by the Philadelphia society before it was agitated in, and recognized by, the General Convention. This is certainly a very important historical fact, if it be true. And, therefore, in our historical sketch of this question in America, we are bound to examine its truth now when we are to portray the institution of the First Philadelphia Society and the ordination of its mi

nister.

The charge which we are now considering, was made in reply to one of the reasons that were assigned for constituting the Central Convention, namely, "that we do not think the episcopal form of government, which the Eastern Convention is evidently seeking to induce upon the entire church in this country, is advisable at present." It is attempted to invalidate this reason by charging that there was a tendency to this form of government in the Philadelphia society, and from that in the General Convention, because that society adopted the epis copal form of worship-adopted and fully acknowledged grades in the ministerial office, before the eastern brethren took any part in the proceedings of the General Convention. Before we look at the origin of the Philadelphia society, we take leave to say a word in answer to this charge, and in explanation of what our objection to the Eastern Convention really was.

We state distinctly that we did not allude to grades in the ministry, or to the episcopal form of worship, when we objected to the Eastern Convention that it was seeking to induce upon the entire church in this country the episcopal form of government. For, in our view, there should be a trine in the ministry of every church, whatever its form of government may be; and the episcopal form of government exists in churches which have not the form of worship of the church of England. Thus the Methodists have both a trine in their ministry and an episcopal government, although they do not use the episcopal form of worship-although they have not a liturgy after the model of the church of England, nor "ceremonials, such as rising up and kneeling in certain parts of the service," nor "the dress of the minister," nor "reading the service in one place and delivering the sermon in another," nor "the rule requiring written sermons." Moreover, in objecting to the episcopal form of government in the Eastern Convention, we did not object to a trine in the church, because the presbyterian form of government has a trine. Thus there are, in the government of the presbyterian church, presbyteries, synods and general assemblies. And the general assembly is a supreme judicatory, having such a control over the lower bodies as a court of appeals has over inferior courts-having, for instance, the right to inspect the records of the proceedings of the lower bodies, and the power to annul, alter, or condemn them.

What then did we object to in the Eastern Convention? We

man.

objected to the tendency to place supreme ecclesiastical power, influence or control in the ordaining ministers as bishops of the general church. And we more especially objected to the vesting such power, influence or control in one man as the head bishop. This, whatever might be its propriety as a principle of abstract order, we did not think applicable to the present condition of our church in this country, and especially in these middle states. We thought the form of government for our church in this country should be assimilated as near as possible to the form of civil government. Hence we would have had the supreme power vested in the whole church as a general body, in which the clergy should have been an ecclesiastical council, for the administration of such things as relate to the divine law and worship. The clergy were to be arranged in a trine of subordinate grades for their own government, and not for the government of the church. Those were to hold the highest grades who performed the most general functions. And the representative ecclesiastical head was to be the presiding officer of the council for the time being. This officer was not to be permanently but annually elected; and the office, like that of the president of the United States, was to be held by any one man for only a limited time. The great thing to which we objected was the vesting supreme and lasting power in any one This we regarded as a tendency to papacy in essence if not in form. The general body of the church was only to have a general government for the performance of general uses; and was to have no more control over particular churches than the general government of the United States has over the particular states. These, for all local uses, were to be independent of the general body. Hence the president of the general body, or any ordaining minister, was to exercise no episcopal authority-was not, in other words, "to institute societies" or "to watch over" the minister of any particular society. And a tendency to vest in the president of the General Convention a supervisory authority over the ministers and particular societies in its connection, so that a society in its connection would have no right to employ a minister not belonging to that body, without first consulting its president as to the propriety of its doing so,-is something more than an episcopal form of government in our church in this country, to which we have all along objected and to which we do still most strenuously object. The pastor or teacher of a society was, in our view, to be subordinate to the officer of the higher grade in the general government of the church; but by virtue of this the general officer would no more have a right to inspect and control the order and doings of a particular society, than the pastor or teacher has a right to inspect and control the domestic order and private doings of any one of the families which compose his society. Thus we would have had the ecclesiastical order of our church resemble the civil order of our country.

Well, then, the question is, where did this tendency to episcopal government begin? And supposing that this form of government is necessarily involved in the order of a trine of discrete grades in the ministry, where, and when, and by whom was the question of this