Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE NEW CHURCH,
SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM IN THE REVELATION :

AND SOLD BY

J. S. HODSON, 2, CLIFFORD'S INN PASSAGE,
FLEET STREET:

W. NEWBERY, 6, KING STREET, HOLBORN.

MANCHESTER: L. KENWORTHY, 7, CATEATON STREET.

[blocks in formation]

MENTAL STATES, THE CHANGES OF STATE, AND THE MEANS BY WHICH THOSE CHANGES ARE EFFECTED.

(An Address from the General Conference to the Members of the New Church throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.)

BELOVED BRETHREN,

In pursuance of the usual practice, the Conference would now address you on a subject in which we are all deeply interested, namely, that of our mental states, the changes of state, and the means by which those changes are effected.

That this is a subject of vital concern, is evident from the fact that our fitness for heaven or hell-for the various degrees of joy and happiness in the one, or of sorrow and misery in the other, depends upon our actual state, that is, upon the quality of our spiritual form, or mental organization, at the period of bodily decease. "The quality of a form,” says Swedenborng, "is its state, the perfection or imperfection of which results from order. By state, is to be understood whatever has relation to love, to wisdom, to the affections, to joy or delights, and in general to goodness and truth." Again-" All activities are changes of state, and variations of form, and the latter are from the former. By state, in man, we understand his love, and by changes of state, the affections of his love. By form, in man, we understand his intelligence, and by variations of form, his thoughts; the latter also are from the former." (T. C. R. 30, 52; A. E. 1,146.)

These extracts plainly show, not only what is meant by state and changes of state, but also that a man's real or actual state is determined primarily by the quality of his love, affections, and delights, and only N. S. No. 109.-VOL. X.

A

« PreviousContinue »