In the United States, where the first Swedenborgian VII.-B
Cluirch was organized in 1792, at Baltimore, j\Id., a General Convention exists since 1817, incorporated un- der the law, having associations, societies, or members in nearly all the states in the Union ; in 1873 it re- ])orteil 74 ministers, 93 societies, and 4408 members; it holds annual sessions in different cities, maintains a Board of Publication, with a publishing-house in New York, issues three periodicals, sends out missionaries, has a theological school at Waltham, Mass., an Amer- ican New-Church Sunday-School Union, and a New- Church National Church Music Society. No very precise ecclesiastical forms are prescribed in these doc- trines, much freedom being allowed in this respect to the genius and wants of different nations, and the prac- tical wisdom of the Church, the power being vested in the whole body of membership. The form principally assumed in this country' is a modified or moderate epis- copacy, with a ministry in three orders. Each state association has its "ordaining minister," or ecclesiasti- cal overseer, wliose office is permanent. In most of the congregations the worship lias assumed a partially li- turgical form, and a variety of liturgies, books of wor- ship, and manuals of devotion have been issued in this country and in England. Each congregation is free to adopt its own mode, and hence all forms are found in use, from the simple, extemporaneous modes of the Puritans, to the ritual services of the prelatical churches. In all, however, forms expressed in the exact language of Scripture are preferred. In the General Convention the lay and clerical delegates meet and vote in one body. The accredited organ of the New Jerusalem Church in Great Britain is the Intdkcfual Repository, published in London ; in Germany, the Wochen SchriJ't J'iir die Xeue Kirche, at Stuttgard ; in Italy, La Niiova Epoca ; in the United States, the Jerusalem Messenger, at New York, and Bote der Neuen Kirche, at Baltimore. In England there is also published the Juvenile Maga- zine, and in this country the Little Messenger, for the j'outh.
There is also a " New-Church Congregational Laiion," composed of ministers and churches, with an aggregate membership of about 1000, preferring that form of or- ganization, having its headquarters at Phila<lelphia, and maintaining its own Board of Publication, Tract Society, and periodical. There are, too, independent so- cieties or churches, not in association with any general body, with numbers of believers communing in other denominations, and others not in connection with any Church. (W. B. H.)
Articles of Faith.— The Scriptures, as interpreted by the voluminous and verbose writings of Swedeuborg, are taken generally as the standard of Swedenborgian doctrine ; but a synopsis of their founder's opinions was made at the first organization of the sect in the form of fortj'-two propositions, taken from his works, and these propositions were embodied in thirty-two resolu- tions, which were agreed to at the first Conference on April 16,1789. These thirty-two "Resolutions" have again been condensed into twelve "Articles of Faith," which now form the standard of doctrine in the " New Church." They are as follows :
"1. That Jehovah God, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, is love itself, and wisdom itself, or good itself, and truth itself: that he is one both in essence and in person, in whom, nevertheless, is the divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which are the essential Di- vinity, the Divine Humfaiity, and the Divine Proceeding, answering to the soul, the hody, and the operative energy in man : and that the Lord arid Saviour Jesus Christ is that Gort.
"2. That Jehovah God himself descended from heaven as divine truth, which is the Word, and took upon liim human nature, for the purpose of removing fiom man the powers of hell, and restoring to order all thinirs in the spiritual world, and all things in the Church: that he re- moved fr<iin man the powers of hell by combats against and victories over them, in which cousisted the great work of redemiition : that by the same acts, which were his temptations, the last of which was the pas-ion of the cross, he united in his humauiiy divine truth to diviue
NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH 18 NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH
good, or divine wisdom to diviuc love, and so returned into his diviuity in wlilch lie was fi-om eternity, togetlier with and in his "loiificd luiruiuiity, whence he I'oiever keeps the infernal powLMS in ^^ubjection to himself; and that all who believe in him with tlie understanding, from the heart, and live accordingly, will be saved.
" 3. That the sacred Scripture, or Word of God, is divine truth itself, containing a spiritual sense heretofore un- known, whence it is divinely inspired and holy in every syllable, as well as a literal sense, which is the basis of its spiritual sense, and in which divine truth is in its fulness, its sanctity, and its power, thus that it is accommodated to the apprehension both of angels and men : that the spiriiiial and natural senses are united by corresponden- ces like soul and body, every natural expression and im- age answering to and including a spiritual and divine idea; and thus that the Word is the medium of commu- nication with heaven and of conjunction with the Lord.
"4. That the government of the Lord's divine love and wisdom is the divine providence, which is universal, ex- ercised according to certain Used laws of order, and ex- tending to the minutest particulars of the life of all men, both of the good and of the evil: that in all its operations it has respect to what is infinite and eternal, and makes no account of things transitory, but as they are subservi- ent to eternal ends; thus, that it mainly consists with man, in the connection of things temporal with things eternal, for that the continual aim of the Lord by his di- vine providence is to join man to himself, and himself to man, that he may be able to give him the felicities of eternal life ; and that the laws of permission are also laws of the divine providence, since evil cannot be prevented without destroying the nature of man as an accountable agent, and because also it cannot be removed unless it be known, and cannot be known unless it appear: thus that no evil is i^ermitted but to prevent a greater, and all is overruled by the Lord's divine providence for the great- est possible good.