The reader may reasonably inquire what results have followed all the
efforts which I have made to call the attention of the clergy and laity of
the New Church, and the clergy of other churches, to the importance of
using as a communion wine, the genuine "Fruit of the Vine" as the Lord has
organized, ripened, and sweetened it in the grape, instead of a leavened or
fermented wine, which, when used as a beverage, causes disease,
drunkenness, insanity, and death, in innumerable instances, among the
clergy and laity of our churches, and enslaves their children often before
their rational faculties are fully developed. I am happy to say that to-day
there are quite a number of New-Church clergymen, in this country and
England, and a large number of laymen, who, after a careful examination of
the subject, are satisfied that the good wine of the Word and the Writings,
and the only wine suitable for use as a Communion wine, is always the fruit
of the vine, and never fermented wine. Many of these clergymen and church
members have not always thought thus, and did not when I commenced writing
upon the subject.
At the Annual Meetings of the General Convention of the New Church, when
unfermented as well as fermented wine has been permitted to be used, and
full notice has been given, nearly or quite one-third of the members
present have deliberately partaken of unfermented wine.
I am satisfied, from what I have seen and heard, that one of the most
useful works which the Lord has enabled me to do was the writing and
sending the reply to "Communion Wine" to over 80,000 clergymen. The clergy
of the prevailing organizations are not so difficult to reach upon this
subject as are a majority of those of the New Church, for they have not
confirmed themselves in favor of fermented wine from the writings for the
New Dispensation. It is one thing to see new truths when they are revealed,
but it is another step to be willing to see that those truths condemn
falses in which we have strongly confirmed ourselves, or evil habits in
which we delight, and to avoid confirming ourselves in falses, and to avoid
striving to justify evils. To do the latter means to endure and resist
temptations, and to engage in a warfare until the old man with his deeds is
put off.
The New Church is descending from God out of heaven, and as it progresses,
fermented wine is disappearing from the Communion tables of Christian
Churches.
"The new wine," says Swedenborg, "is the Divine Truth of the New Testament,
and thus of the New Church." (A. R. 316.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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