Search -
Christianity, the logic of Creation [letters].
Christianity the logic of Creation - letters Author:Henry James Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER III. textit{Paris, Oct. ]. My DEAR W. The great disease of the religious mind at present is, that it obstinately persists in looking upon religio... more »n as a textit{private question instead of a textit{public one, as an affair of the individual conscience instead of the associated one. One is not surprised at the old sects continuing in this traditional way, but I am surprised that you, who read Sweden- borg, should not have begun to get out of it, for Swedenborg shews us in every page of his books, that revelation proceeds upon strictly textit{universal principles, and that not one single word of it is to be spiritually interpreted in a private or personal sense. The old theory of religion is that God is a respecter of persons, that He approves one sort, the morally good, and saves them; and disapproves another sort, the morally evil, and damns them. Viewed spiritually, of course this is arrant superstition, because all men are alike worthless in the Divine sight, the morally good and themorally evil; and God would quite as gladly, therefore, bless one as the other, only that the morally good man, in consequence of the conceit he derives from the general estimation in which he is held, will not permit himself to be blessed. These are they, who being secure of the honour that comes from men, do not aspire after that which comes solely from God. " It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a textit{rich man to enter the Divine kingdom." And Swedenborg shews you that no angel in heaven ever feels himself rich in comparison with others, without, textit{ipso facto, tumbling into infernal company. Still the church has maintained itself in the world hitherto on this most sandy foundation. It has always been thought that there was an textit{essential dif...« less