by a deputation of all the professing male members of the N. J. Doctrine-with the Rev. Mr. Ralph Mather as their chairman and consecrator: on which occasion they all imposed their hands on my head, under the influence of an appropriate prayer."

This statement is important, because it corrects an error, into which we were led by following an article already cited from the N. J. Magazine, (p. 81, note,) respecting the time of Mr. Hargrove's ordination by Bishop Asbury, namely "at one of the Methodist Conferences, in the autumn of 1795." But the specific statement of the mode of his ordination by the deputation of all the male members of the church at Baltimore with "the Rev. Mr. Ralph Mather as their chairman and consecrator," is peculiarly important, because it shows that Mr. Hargrove was in fact ordained by Mr. Mather with the concurrence of the church at Baltimore. This we are aware was the design of raising Mr. Mather to the pastorate-namely, to ordain through him Mr. Hargrove, and so to derive an ordination from the new church in England. We received this impression from personal intercouse, in former years, with some of the old members of the church at Baltimore.

When, therefore, we say above, that, in the first institution of the new church both in London and Baltimore, there was a trine, we must not be understood to speak in reference to the priesthood distinctively. In London there were at first but two grades of prieststhe one ordainer and the two ordained. There were indeed licensed or other preachers, eight of whom, appointed by the London Society, were employed in preaching to it before the ordinations of June 1, 1788: but if inaugurations into the ministry are to be made by the promise of the holy spirit and by the representation of its translation," (Canon iv. 7,) then a mere license to preach does not introduce into the ministry, and consequently the licentiateship is not a grade of it. Therefore we say there were at first but two grades in London. So in Baltimore, there were at first but two-the pastor and his assistAnd these were not acknowledged as distinct grades. For Mr. Hargrove was considered equal to Mr. Mather, and took his pastoral office without any additional formal inauguration into it. So the Rev. Messrs. James Hindmarsh and Samuel Smith, were ordained on the same plane with their ordainer, and immediately took his office out of his hands, by ordaining Messrs. Wright and Sibly, the next candidates for the ministry.* It is believed that Mr. Robert his statements in his own words, and leave the church to judge of them. Our statements have been made, either from our own knowledge, or from documents before us, or from the information of the older members of the church here with whom we have conversed.

ant.

*The Rev. Mr. Mason contends, "that in the new church, before any idea was agitated about a trine in the ministry, such a trine did exist; it had actually come into spontaneous existence without any external contrivance; it needed no thought, no effort, to bring about this result, because it is one of the things that must be' in the very nature of things, and therefore a matter in which man has no choice." (Int. Rep. for Feb. 1848, p. 50.) To this we reply, Is not a man a rational free-agent, and cooperator with the Lord, in establishing the external order of his church? Are men to be led by instinct in this as animals are in the order of their creation-bees, for instance,

Hindmarsh, the first ordainer, was not at first regarded as a minister for any other purpose. At length, however, he became a regular preacher, and administrator of the sacraments, without any other ordination than that of the lot, by which the Lord ordained him. And the General Conference has for years acknowledged him as standing at the fountain head of the new-church ordinations. Still it is clear, that neither in England, nor in America, was there any distinct idea of the order of a trine of ministers in the new-church priesthood, when the first ministers were ordained. This remark will now be seen to be especially true in respect to the new church in America.

The Rev. Messrs. Mather and Hargrove, the first new-church miin the government of their hive, and the constitution of a new queen bee, when the old one dies or is killed? Must not the order of the church be first the knowledge of truth formed in the intellectual plane of the mind, and this order be brought out as a new will thereby produced, in the conformity of the natural man to the spiritual man in ultimates? Undoubtedly, there was in England, there was here in America, and there will be every where, a tendency to a trine in the first institution of the church for this is according to the universal flux of the divine order. But this trine must be indistinctly marked at first; and can only come into more distinct and perfect form as the rational mind of the collective church is more fully formed. And the doctrine of the trine, no more than any other doctrine of the church, comes into spontaneous existence as a matter in which man has no choice;" because the divine order flowing into the church must always be modified by man's form, as a being made to act in freedom according to reason. But if, in fact, the trine had actually come into spontaneous existence, as a matter in which man has no choice, and we may add, no consciousness, knowledge or acknowledgment, where was the trine existing here when Mr. Sibly was ordained by Messrs. James Hindmarsh and Samuel Smith, instead of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh? How does Mr. Mason see, and define, the first, second and third grades of the trine, as having come into actual spontaneous existence in the new church of England at this time? Mr. Sibly was made an ordaining minister at once, without inauguration into any lower grades; and not long after his ordination, he had an assistant, who read the prayers and otherwise led the worship of the congregation, while he preached. The having of such an assistant, is, we believe, a general custom in England now. But is this assistant regarded as holding the office of the ministry in its first or lowest grade? Was it so when the assistant was first employed? Listen to what Mr. Sibly's first assistant says of himself. Mr. Jonathan Pratt, in a letter addressed to the Rev. John Ha grove, of Baltimore, and dated London, February 28, 1803, says-With regard to my: elf, I am no minister. I only read prayers to our little society, of which Mr. Sibly is minister. I am now in my sixty-fourth year; and so long as the Lord sees fit, I am desirous of being useful. But we are volunteers, as neither Mr. Sibly or myself have any thing for what we do; and never will have-only the best of all rewards, a consciousness, in our own breasts, that, to the best of our abilities, we are doing the Lord's work." Mr. Sibly was ordained in 1790; and in 1803, thirteen years afterwards, Mr. Pratt, his assistant, says of himself, "I am no minister." Where, then, was the trine in the ministry, as an acknowledged order of the new church in England at this time? There was, indeed, the licentiate receiving his authority to preach from the magistracy of England, and appointed to preach by the London Society; such as Mr. Mather, Mr. Salmon, and others. And we have supposed that this was the first grade in the english new-church ministry. But was it so regarded and acknowledged at the time in England? And if this were, how could there be a trine acknowledged, when Mr. Robert Hindmarsh was not acknowledged as standing in a grade above those whom he ordained? Are we not justified in saying there was no distinct idea of the order of a trine of ministers in the new-church priesthood, when the first ministers were ordained in England?

nisters in America, were ordained July 8, 1798. From this time, we have no record of any ordination having been performed for twelve years. The first that appears was that of the Rev. Hugh White, who is mentioned as a minister of the new church, residing in Virginia, and as the author of a learned pamphlet entitled "Cosmogenia," which was commended, and, we believe, reprinted, in England. He was a native of Scotland, and a deeply learned, though, as some thought, an eccentric man. A memorandum on the manuscript of Mr. Hargrove above mentioned, makes the date of his ordination 1810. Mr. Hargrove says "The Rev. Hugh White, a Scotch Presbyterian, living near Monticello in Virginia, received our doctrines, and made a journey to Baltimore to obtain ordination in the New Jerusalem Churchhaving brought sufficient vouchers of his moral character, and standing as a highly graduated linguist and mathematician, from the first characters in his place of residence."

From this ordination we can learn nothing in regard to a trine. It does not appear that Mr. Hargrove had yet any notion of grades in the ministry. He does not say with what powers he ordained Mr. White. Although there was a trine in the methodist church, from which he had come, of bishops, elders and deacons, it is probable he, as yet, thought only of one grade and one ordination in the new church. Therefore, it is quite probable, that he ordained Mr. White, as Mr. Mather and himself had been, merely a pastor of a church or congregation, without saying any thing about specific powers and specific limitations. The question of trinal order had not yet risen in his mind, as it was not agitated in England, when the form of ordination, used in the case of Mr. Sibly and others, and adopted here, was devised there. We have no evidence that this form was drawn professedly from the writings of Swedenborg, where alone the order of the trine is distinctly taught. Our english brethren did not begin to do this till the year 1813, when, as we have seen, the circumstance of the ordination of a minister and the consecration of a temple made the consideration of this question necessary in the London Conference. Then the propriety of looking to the authoritative teachings of our church in the theological writings of Swedenborg for what is true order in this matter, seems first to have been thought of. And we have seen that the elaboration of this question in the London Conference led to the formal declaration of the trine as the true order of our ministry by the English General Conference in 1815. Now we have evidence that Mr. Hargrove had his mind turned to the consideration, and brought to the affirmation, of this order by the Minutes of that Conference, before he performed his next ordination, in 1816. In the "Minutes of a General Conference," held in London, "from Tuesday the 16th to Thursday the 18th of July, 1816-60," p. 11, we find the following-" Besides the letters addressed to the Conference, the Rev. M. Sibly read a letter which he had lately received from the Rev. J. Hargrove, of Baltimore, in America, in which that gentleman states his approbation of the plan for arranging the ministry, as agreed to at the last Conference, and communicates the intelligence of the welfare and gradual

increase of the Society of the New Church in that city." The plan of arranging the ministry here alluded to, was that of the trine, declared to be the true order by the Conference of 1815. And thus we see that Mr. Hargrove had thought of and approved that plan at or about the beginning of 1816.

The third minister, then, ordained in the new church of America, was the Rev. Hugh White. The fourth was the Rev. Adam Hurdus, who had formed around him a society of the new church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Hurdus was born, not far from Manchester, England, April 16th, 1760, and resided in that town for twenty-one years before coming to America. He was born and brought up in the established church of England, but joined the Methodists early in 1783. His attention was first drawn to the new church by the Rev. J. Wesley's thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg published in the Armenian Magazine. In this way he was led to read those writings, and became favorably impressed by them, until the refutation of Mr. Wesley's thoughts, which he read in the New Jerusalem Magazine, published in London in 1790, more fully convinced him of the divine mission of Swedenborg. He was among the first who established a society of the new christian church, separate from the old, in Manchester. This society was formed in 1793, and erected the first temple for new-church worship in England, situated in Peter Street. In this society, Mr. Hurdus continued an active member till April, 1804, when he emigrated to the United States. He stopped first in Philadelphia; then crossed the Alleghany Mountains to Pittsburg; and at last settled in Cincinnati. Here, in 1808, with eight children, and with the view of preserving them from the falsities of the consummated church, he performed worship according to the new faith in his own house. Being a man of mechanical genius, and having made a small chamber organ, he used it as an accompaniment to his singing in worship, and was at first both minister and organist. His organ was the first in Cincinnati. The novelty of it, with singing, attracted many to the service, which was conducted according to a liturgy altered from that of the church of England for the use of the first society of the new church in that country. Similarity to the episcopal forms induced many of the Episcopalians to think that Mr. Hurdus was one of them; and led them to attend regularly on his worship, for that reason. The few books of the new church which he had were loaned freely, and their truths received by some; so that in 1811, seventeen or eighteen persons signed their names in a book, provided for that purpose, as believing in the Lord's second advent. This was the origin of the Cincinnati society, which has flourished so much since. Meetings were held regularly every Lord's Day, and continued to be well attended. And several who met with this society at different periods, leaving it to cultivate new lands or settle in new towns, propagated the seeds of the new faith throughout the western states. "In the summer of 1816," says Mr. Hurdus himself, "in a mercantile trip to Philadelphia, Adam Hurdus called and staid some days with the Rev. J. Hargrove, Baltimore-at whose request he was baptized and ordained. The certificate of the same bears date July 29, 1816."

Not having seen Mr. Hurdus's certificate of ordination, we do not know with what powers he was ordained. It seems that he was ordained by Mr. Hargrove alone, and at Mr. Hargrove's request, without any formal concurrence of the churches at Baltimore or at Cincinnati. This was certainly a rather loose way of doing this sacred business. But it must be borne in mind, that the notions of ecclesiastical order, that prevailed at first in this country, respecting the admission of persons into the new-church ministry, were extremely indefinite and lax; and there is nothing, perhaps, which we have had more cause to regret, than the extreme readiness and great haste which those who first assumed ordaining powers evinced in conferring ministerial powers upon any body and every body who asked for them, as well as pressing them upon some who did not ask for them, without previously determining from the Word and the writings of the church what should be the true order of the ministry and the right source of its ordinations. In England we have seen, they proceeded more cautiously. And it was not long before the sad effects of a contrary course produced more caution in this country. At first, there seemed to exist something like a disposition to offer a sort of premium to candidates for our ministry, by making admission into it as easy as possible, and by conferring its highest powers upon whomsoever should first ask for them. The idea seemed to prevail that the only thing needed to make a minister of the New Jerusalem was a society to preach to, a temple to preach in, and a formal ordination. A divine call and suitable preparation, seem not to have been at all looked for. We suppose that a person is divinely called to the newchurch ministry, by that vein of his love which leads him from affection to the pursuit of theological studies, and by that mental aptitude for the performance of clerical functions, which a man receives by influx from the Lord through the spiritual world in his very conception. For such influx is tacit divine speech. And whatever use to mankind a man, by influx from the Lord through the spiritual world into him in his conception and birth, is designed and fitted to perform, to that use as his office, he is called by the Lord in a voice that is spiritually audible to the moral and mental perceptions of his fellow-men. In this way we believe men are divinely called to the various civil, military, naval, judicial, and executive offices of state, as well as to the leading offices of science, and the skilful handicrafts of art. And there is no difference in kind, whatever there may be in degree, between a divine call to these offices and that to the ministry of the church. Such is the Lord's essential call. There may be, when the Lord in his wisdom deems it proper, a formal call also. Such was the case with Swedenborg. No reflecting man of the new church can now doubt that he was called by the Lord, in his conception, gestation, birth, and education to mature manhood, to the high and holy office which he filled. Who can doubt that it was the concentrate influx through the spiritual world, in its preparation for the last judgment, into the soul of Swedenborg at its conception, as a focal point of that influx, which fitted and enabled him to see, in the spiritual world within himself, that judgment, as it