Ne-w Holland. See Australia.
New Ireland, a long, narrow island in the Pacific Ocean, lying to tlie north-east of New Britain (q. v.), from which it is separated bv St. George Channel; lat. 2= 40'-4o 52' S., long. 150^' 30 '-152= 50' E. Length about 200 miles; average breadth, 20 miles. The hills rise to a height of from 1500 to 2000 feet, and are riclily wooded. The principal trees are cocoas on the coast, and in the interior forests of areca-palm. The chief products are sugar-cane, bananas, yams, and cocoa-nuts. Dogs, pigs, and turtles abound. Tiie natives are ap- parently of the same race as the Australian Ncr/ritos (q. v.), but our information about them is extremely
NEW ISRAELITES
U NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH
scanty. No missionary labors have thus far been at- tempted araoiiuj them worth mentioning.
New Israelites is the name of a religious sect founded by Joanna Southcott (q. v.), a fanatical woman, near the opening of this centurj' in England. Joanna declared herself impregnated by the Holy Gliost with a child who should prove the Shiloh of the world, and, in order to prepare the way for the new dispensation, or- dered the strictest observance of the Jewish law. Al- though, after waiting for a long time, she died in 1814 in her delusion, and the splendid cradle which had been prepared for the expected Messiah still remained empt}', the New Israelites continued till 1831 to observe the Jewish Sabbath and the ceremonials of the law, in order to receive the hoped-for Messiah in a worthy manner. See jMathias, J. Soutlicotfs Projihecies and Case Stated (Lond. 1832, 12mo).
New Itinerancy. See Wesleyan New Con- nection' JIetiioui.sts.
New Jerusalem Church, a title assumed by a body of Christians adopting the views taught in the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (q. v.). They are theosophists, and thtir fundamental opinion is that'the last judgment took place in the year A.D. 1757, when " the Old Church," or Christianity in its hitherto received form, passed away, and all things became new through revelations made to Swedenborg. This is the reason why the body calls itself '• The New Church," or " The New Jerusalem Church."
I. Theory and Doctrines.—!. Of God.— The New Jeru- salem Church maintains the strictly personal unity of God : one will, one understanding, one operating ener- g3'.or producing power. Only prominent ideas can be | given in so brief a sketch as the present. The infinite, eternal Being, Jehovah, the Lord, is essential divine love or goodness, and essential divine wisdom or truth. From these two fundamental faculties or qualities proceed all his other attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. He is self-existent, before all worlds, and before the times or spaces were brought forth ; therefore is "in space without space, and in time without time." He cannot be apprehended by a merely natural idea, but only by a spiritual idea; nature is separate from him, and yet he is omnipresent in it. His love operates by his wisdom to produce all things.
' 2. Of Man. — The end, or divine purpose, in creation is a heaven out of the human race. For tliis object and use the worlds were made, and are no\v sustained, and to the same end are directed all operations of divine Providence : namely, to fill heaven with free, intelligent beings, who can reciprocate his love, who can live in in- creasing jnirity and mutual love to each other, and be growing in true blessedness forever, and whom he can gift with light, liappiness, and every good continually. Man was made in the image and likeness of God, with finite faculties corresponding to his infinite facul- ties : a will, to be the receptacle and seat of good affec- tions; and an understanding, to be the receptacle and seat of true knowledge and ideas. Man is not the pos- sessor of life, as a property inhering in himself, but is created an organism reci]iient of life, which is constant- ly commiuiicatcd by the Creator. Thus the Lord God breathed into man the breath of lives — namely, a life of affection and a life of thought — and m.an thereby became a living soul, and is a present and constant truth. The fundamental human endowments are freedom of will, by which is meant freedom of moral choice, and ration- ality, or the capacity of acquiring knowledge and exer- cising discriminating thought. These are carefully guarded and respected in all the operations of Provi- dence. At the solicitation of the sensual principle of his own mind, and in the abuse of his freedom, man turned aside into transgressidu, and fell from his prim- itive integrity. The fall was not a necessity of man's freedom, but only an incident on this earth; there may be men on other planets, free, and yet who have not fall-
en. Evil has its origin in the will of man; snflBcient freedom and sufficient power to produce it, and increase it from age to age, being a part of his original constitu- tion. '\\'ithout such freedom and power man woidd not be human, not a moral agent, but a machine or a creat- ure of instinct. Entirely free moral agents coidd not be created without involving the possibility of trans- gression, and without freedom, moral and spiritual, good cannot be appropriated.
The sin of our first parents is not judicially imputed to their descendants, but in natural generation the seed, both of the mental and material organism, is transmit- ted, a living unit, composed of soul and body ; and in the seed are treasured, latent, all the tendencies and capacities of life possessed by the parents. Hence the bias, tendency, or inclination to sin becomes native, and is inherited, growing stronger as the wickedness of each generation increases. Sin is predicable only of acts committed after the individual has begun to exercise some degree of rationalit}' and freedom. Hence in the divine economy all who die infants, as well of Gentile as Christian parents, are saved, being received by the Lord, and instructed in the spiritual world, and prepared for heaven. In this connection is developed an en- couraging view of the future of the Church. The en- tire tendencies of character being transmitted, by the same law there is hereditary good as well as hereditary evil; hence as the true Christian life is incorporated into the character of the parents, the evil tendencies of offspring will be modified ; and as the life of the Church becomes progressively purified and sanctified, constantU' better tendencies will be transmitted, the hereditary burden will be lightened, by the divine blessing on the Church, as the generations succeed, the new life in Christ Jesus coming in by degrees to replace the old corrupt life of the first Adam. Thus will come a basis for the fulness, for the latter-day glorj' of the Church. As hereditary evil is no further imputed than as it is made one's own by actual life, so with hereditary good, it is only bias that is inherited, and must be made actual to be appropriated. Thus the life of repentance, obe- dience, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and regeneration, will be just as requisite as ever to every member of the race.