“Hence now it is that those who are in the spiritual affection of truth,

enjoy an internal acknowledgment of it. As the angels are in that

affection, they utterly reject the tenet that the understanding ought

to be kept in subjection to faith: for they say, ‘How can you believe a

thing, when you do not see whether it is true or not?’ And should any one

affirm that what he advances must nevertheless be believed, they reply:

‘Do you think yourself a God, that I am to believe you? or that I am mad,

that I should believe an assertion in which I do not see any truth? If I

must believe it, cause me to see it.’ The dogmatizer is thus constrained

to retire. Indeed, the wisdom of the angels consists solely in this, that

they see and comprehend what they think.

“There is a spiritual idea of which few have any knowledge, which enters

by influx into the minds of those who are in the affection of truth, and

dictates interiorly whether the thing which they are hearing or reading

is true or not. In this idea are those who read the Word in illumination

from the Lord. To be in illumination is to be in perception. Those who

are in this illumination are said to be taught of Jehovah, and of them

it is said in Jeremiah: ‘Behold, the days come that I will make a new

covenant:—this shall be the covenant,—I will put my law in their inward

parts, and write it in their hearts; and they shall teach no more every

man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord;

for they shall all know me.’ xxxi. 31, 33, 34.

“From these considerations it is plain that faith and truth are one. This

also is the reason that the ancients, who were more accustomed to think

of truth from affection than the moderns, instead of faith used the word

truth: and for the same reason, in the Hebrew language, truth and faith

are expressed by one and the same word, amuna, or amen.

“If any one thinks with himself, or says to another, ‘Who can have that

internal acknowledgment of truth which is faith? I can not.’ I will tell

him how he may. Shun evils as sins, and apply to the Lord; then you will

have as much as you desire.”

Such then is the New Church doctrine of faith. Faith is the perception

and acknowledgment of truth from a right understanding of it. True faith

is something that grows. It is not the gift of a moment. It is attained

by leading a good life, and through obedience to the truth so far as we

know it. In the course of time we find that a pure life is clearing our

spiritual vision, and extending its range. Spiritual truths which we had

laid up in our memories, and perhaps fancied that we had believed, are

brought forth, are seen in new and striking light, are elevated into

the understanding, and are in reality believed. Thus a living faith is

attained. This doctrine finds a Divine seal in these words of the Lord:

“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it

be of God.” John vii. 17.

The remainder of this little treatise is taken up with an exposure of

the fallacies involved in the common doctrines of faith prevailing in the

Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. Faith separated from charity,

is proved to have no existence, because evil can by no possibility love

truth. Spiritual and Divine Truth may, it is true, be reasoned upon,

defended, and expounded, by wicked men, for the promotion of their own

selfish ends; but internally they are in deep hatred and denial of them,

and in the other life their detestation of them causes them to cast them

forth even from the memory. Thus the wicked have no faith and no truth.

4. The treatise on the Doctrine of Life is a brief and compendious

exposition of the nature of that life which leads to heaven and

happiness. In the first place, it asserts that all religion has relation

to life, and that the life of religion is to do good; agreeable to the

Lord’s saying: “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is

that loveth me.” John xiii. 17. It is then shown that no one can do good,

which is really good, from himself, as is taught in John, where we read:

“A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven,” iii.

27; and again: “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth

forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing;”—“He that abideth in

me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit,” signifies that

all good is from the Lord; fruit signifies good: “without me ye can do

nothing,” signifies that no one can do good from himself.

Now, it may be asked, “Why can a man not do good of himself?” For this

simple reason, that, as there is no goodness out of the Lord, if man

does good, his power and disposition to do it must, in all certainty,

be derived from the Lord alone. Man, in his highest state, is but a

medium for the manifestation of the Divine Life or Goodness. Yet while

only a medium, he must act in freedom, as of himself. The appearance is

that the good he does is self-originated, and born of his own will; and

this appearance can never be removed, because on it depends his freedom

of action. Man must subdue all tendencies to spiritual pride arising

therefrom, by habitual reference to the truth that the Lord is all in

all; and that if he has done good, or been useful, he has been indebted

for the motive as well as for the wisdom, to the Divine Mercy alone; as

Paul said to the Philippians: “For it is God which worketh in you _both

to will and to do_ of his good pleasure.” ii. 15. While thus saved by

the Divine Mercy, through a good life, and brought into spiritual health

by obedience to divine laws, man has no reason whatever to boast, or to

take credit to himself for his bliss and salvation. The advocates of

justification and salvation by faith alone, charge spiritual pride and

merit, as a necessity, upon all who believe that heaven and its happiness

are attained through the regenerative influence of a good life; but this

accusation falls to the ground when it is acknowledged that the power to

lead a good life is the continual gift and inspiration of God. If man

would only think truly, he would see that humility is the acknowledgment

of the grand primal truth of existence, that nothing we have or can do

that is good, is of ourselves, but solely of the Lord; and that just as

we are left to ourselves and our own wisdom, we do evil, and perpetrate

folly and mischief. Salvation through a good life, when thus rightly

stated and understood, is seen to involve nothing of merit, but only the

strongest reasons for gratitude, humility, and worship.

CHAPTER XVII.

_The Divine Love and Divine Wisdom—The Continuation of the Last

Judgment._

The treatise on the Divine Love and Wisdom, is a book which, when

mastered, affords a key to the whole philosophy of the New Church, and to

a rational understanding of all the writings of Swedenborg. When we say

this, it will be easily understood that it is not a book to be read in a

few hours, or hastily glanced over. Every page is pregnant with thought,

and many of its paragraphs might be expanded into volumes. It is a book

which, full of thought on the deepest subjects, demands an exercise of

like thought on the part of its reader; and if he has patience, and a

simple love of truth for its own sake, happy will he be when he has made

himself familiar with the divine thoughts which, like stars, gem every

page of this matchless treatise.

The book is divided into five Parts. The First Part sets forth, in the

simplest language, the doctrine of the Divine Nature. The Lord’s essence

is shown to be Infinite Love, and its manifestation to be Infinite

Wisdom. It is proved that the Divine Love is the only life in the

universe, and that in God “all things live, move, and have their being.”

The Lord is also proved to be very and essential Man, yet above and

independent of all space and time, filling all spaces of the universe

without space, and all time without time; and being in the greatest

and the least things evermore the same. These statements may appear

inconsequential, but in our limited space, we can not explain more

fully. We could not give the proofs satisfactorily, without quoting the

volume itself. Argument is so linked to argument, that they hardly admit

of separation.

The Second Part of the work treats of the sun of heaven, and the sun of

our world. It is shown that from the Lord flows a Divine Sphere, which

appears in the spiritual world as a sun. From its heat, angels and man

have their love, and from its light their wisdom, thus their life. This

sun is not God, but it is the first proceeding from the Divine Love and

the Divine Wisdom of God-Man. By means of this sun the Lord created the

universe and all things in it. The sun of the natural world is pure fire,

and therefore dead; and since nature derives its origin from that sun, it

also is dead. Without two suns, the one living and the other dead, there

could be no creation. The end of creation is, that all things may return

to the Creator, and conjunction may exist in its ultimates.

Part Third declares that in the spiritual world there are atmospheres,

waters and earths, as in the natural world; but that the former are

spiritual, whereas the latter are natural. We are then introduced to the

doctrine of degrees—a doctrine which must be studied and understood,

before any one can with justice speak of Swedenborg; for it is a doctrine

which lies at the basis of that peerless spiritual philosophy of which he

was the promulgator. All that we can do here in the way of exposition,

is to quote the heads of his articles which express the truth far more

lucidly than we could do.

“There are three degrees of Love and wisdom, and thence degrees of

heat and light, and degrees of atmosphere. Degrees are of two kinds,

degrees of altitude and degrees of latitude. The degrees of altitude

are homogeneous, and one derived from the other in a series, like end,

cause, and effect. The first degree is in all the subsequent degrees.

All perfections increase and ascend with degrees, and according to

degrees. In successive order the first degree constitutes the highest,

and the third the lowest; but in simultaneous order, the first degree

constitutes the inmost, and the third the outmost. The ultimate degree is

the complex, continent, and basis, of the prior degrees. The degrees of

altitude in their ultimate, are in their fullness and power. There are

degrees of both kinds in the greatest and least of all created things.

There are three infinite and uncreated degrees of altitude in the Lord,

and three finite and created degrees in man. These three degrees of

altitude are in every man from his birth, and may be opened successively,

and as they are opened, a man is in the Lord, and the Lord in him.

Spiritual light flows into man by three degrees, but not spiritual heat,

except so far as he avoids evils as sins, and looks to the Lord. If the

superior or spiritual degree is not opened in a man, he becomes natural

and sensual. The natural degree of the human mind, considered in itself,

is continuous, but by correspondence with the two superior degrees, while

it is elevated, it appears as if it were discrete.

“The natural mind, being the tegument and continent of the higher degrees

of the human mind, is a re-agent; and if the superior degrees are not

opened, it acts against them, but if they are opened, it acts with them.

The abuse of the faculties which are proper to man, called rationality

and liberty, is the origin of evil. A bad man may enjoy these two

faculties as well as a good man; but a bad man abuses them to confirm

evils and falses, while a good man uses them to confirm goods and truths.

Evils and falses, when confirmed, remain; and become parts of a man’s

love and life. The things which become parts of a man’s love and thence

of his life, are communicated hereditarily to his offspring.

“All these evils and consequent falses, both hereditary and acquired,

reside in the natural mind. Evils and falses are entirely opposed to

goods and truths; because evils and falses are diabolical and infernal,

and goods and truths are divine and heavenly. The natural mind, which is

in evils and falses, is a form and image of hell, and descends by three

degrees. These three degrees of the natural mind, which is an image and

form of hell, are opposed to the three degrees of the spiritual mind,

which is a form and image of heaven: thus the natural mind which is a

hell, is in complete opposition to the spiritual mind which is a heaven.

All things of the three degrees of the natural mind, are included in

works, which are performed by acts of the body.”

Part Fourth teaches that the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created

the universe and all things therein from Himself, and not from nothing;

this would not have been possible if the Lord were not a Divine Man; He

from himself producing the sun of the spiritual world, and by it creating

all things. In the substances and matters of which earths consist, there

is nothing of the Divine in itself; but still they are from the Divine

in itself. All created things in the created universe, viewed from uses,

represent man in an image; this testifies that God is Man. All things

created by the Lord are uses; and they are uses in the order, degree, and

respect, in which they have relation to man, and by man to the Lord their

Creator. Evil uses were not created by the Lord, but originated together

with hell, after man’s fall. The visible things in the created universe

testify that nature has produced nothing, and does produce nothing; but

that the Divine has produced and does produce all things from Himself,

and through the spiritual world.

Part Fifth is devoted to a description of man’s spiritual nature. It

is shown that “the Lord has formed and created in man two receptacles

and habitations for Himself, called the will and the understanding;

the will for His Divine Love, and the understanding for His Divine

Wisdom. The will and understanding are in the brains, in the whole and

every part thereof, and thence in the body, in the whole and every part

thereof. There is a correspondence of the will with the heart, and of the

understanding with the lungs; and all things that can be known of the

will and understanding, or of love and wisdom, consequently all that can

be known of man’s soul, may be known from the correspondence of the heart

with the will, and of the understanding with the lungs.”

There are many volumes in the world whose thinly spun thought, spread

over page after page, it would be easy to condense into one brief

paragraph; but the treatise on the Divine Love and Wisdom is not such a

work. It is one of those rare books which suggest and expand thought,

but can bear no abridgment or compression. We have well studied it, but

do not expect to finish it during our life on earth. Time was, when,

immersed in man made systems of faith, and wont to walk abroad in the

green fields and woods, by the sea-side, and on the mountains—we found

it difficult, nay we should rather say impossible, to see the God we

read of in our books, and thought of in our chamber, to be the same kind

Father to whom those wide and beauteous scenes owed their existence.

Justification by faith—Jerusalem—the Jews—ephod and teraphim—the Temple,

and the sacrifice—seemed to have no connection with the landscape, the

wind, the falling rain, the flowing river, and the broad and limitless

ocean. We knew it should not be so. If the Bible were God’s book, it must

have some closer affinity with his great work of nature. We knew that

one Lord was over all, and that this disunity should by no means exist.

Much mental pain and travail were our portion. The easy soothsayings of

Atheism beguiled us. We “wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way,

and found no city (doctrine) to dwell in.” We longed for the rest of

Zion. We sighed not in vain. The divine philosophy of this precious book

was revealed to us, and we knew the blessing of a faith which finds a

confirmation in every item and phase of creation, and makes the Bible and

nature evermore at one, each confirming and illustrating the other. It

gave to life new aims and aspects. It brought a mental peace we had never

hoped to enjoy, and we went on our journey of life rejoicing.

“The Continuation of the Last Judgment,” is a small pamphlet forming a

supplement to the treatise on the Last Judgment, with which it is now

generally published. It contains a very interesting account of the Last

Judgment upon the Reformed. By the Reformed, upon whom the Last Judgment

was effected, Swedenborg means those who professed a belief in God, read

the Word, heard sermons, partook of the sacrament of the Supper, yet

lived in all manner of evils. Living like Christians in externals, and

outwardly in unity with heaven, while inwardly united with hell, they

were permitted after death to form societies, and to live as in the

world; and by arts unknown in the world, to cause splendid appearances,

and by this means to persuade themselves and others that they were in

heaven. From this outward appearance, therefore, they called their

societies heavens. The heavens and the lands in which they dwelt, are

understood by the “former heaven, and the former earth, which passed

away.” Rev. xxi. 7.

At the time of the Last Judgment, the hypocrisy of these spirits was

revealed in the light of heaven, and the simple good with whom they had

associated, separated themselves with horror from them. No longer able

to simulate Christian lives, they rushed with delight into evils and

crimes of every description, openly appeared as devils, and found for

themselves the hells corresponding to their loves. At the same time all

the splendid appearances they had made for themselves vanished away;

their palaces were turned into vile huts; their gardens into stagnant

pools; their temples into piles of rubbish; and the hills on which they

dwelt, into heaps of gravel, in correspondence with their depraved

dispositions and lusts.

“After the Judgment was effected,” writes Swedenborg, “there was joy

in heaven, and also light in the world of spirits, such as was not

before. A similar light also then arose on men in the world, giving

them new enlightenment. I then saw angelic spirits, in great numbers,

rising from below, and elevated into heaven. They were the sheep there

reserved, and guarded by the Lord for ages back, lest they should come

into the malignant sphere of the dragonists, and their charity be

suffocated. These are they who are understood in the Word by those who

went forth from the sepulchers; also by the souls of those slain for the

testimony of Jesus, who were watching; and by those who are of the first

resurrection.”

After this follows a description of many things seen in the spiritual

world. He writes: “There are lands in the spiritual world, just as in the

natural world: there are hills and mountains, plains and valleys, also

fountains and rivers, lakes and seas; there are paradises, and gardens

and groves, and woods, and palaces, and houses; there are writings, and

books, functions, [_functiones_,] and employments; there are precious

stones, gold and silver; in short, there are all the things, in general

and in particular, which exist in the natural world; but in the heavens

all these things are infinitely more perfect.”

He then describes “the noble English nation” in the spiritual world;

the more excellent of whom are in the centre of all Christians, because

they have interior intellectual light. This light they derive from the

liberty they enjoy of thinking, and thence of speaking and writing. The

Dutch are then described, and then the Papists, and the Popish saints.

The Mohammedans, the Africans, and the Gentiles follow; and finally

the Jews, the Quakers, and the Moravians. The description of all these

people, as they appear beyond the grave, has an interest of a most

absorbing kind; and the light thrown by Swedenborg on their internal

character, serves to show cause for much that happens in the external

world, otherwise difficult of explanation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence._

Still living in Amsterdam, Swedenborg published, in 1764, his work

entitled “Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.” Its purpose

is to

“assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to man.”

In the first place, it is shown that the Divine Providence is the

government of the Love and the Wisdom of the Lord. This Providence has

for its sole end the formation of a heaven from the human race, and thus

has respect only to what is infinite and eternal. In the Divine sight,

things temporal and natural are of no importance except so far as they

contribute to man’s salvation.

Although the Lord thus wills and works for man’s eternal happiness, yet,

after all, heaven can only be attained through man’s coöperation. The

Lord ever performs his share of the work, but man too often fails to do

his. Weeping over Jerusalem, the Lord exclaimed: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,

thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto

thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a

hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, _and ye would not_!” Matthew

xxiii. 37. How powerfully and tenderly is here expressed the Divine

willingness to save, and how pointedly and decisively is man’s misery

attributed to his own obstinacy. As the Lord Jesus is another place

says: “Ye _will not_ come to me that ye might have life.” John v. 40.

In all the operations of the Divine Providence, human freedom is

respected. The Lord forces no man to do what is good, or believe what

is true. He drives none to heaven. It is of the Divine Providence that

whatsoever a man hears, sees, thinks, speaks, and does, should appear

altogether as his own. Without this appearance, men would have no

reception of Divine Truth, no determination to do good, no appropriation

of love and wisdom or of charity and faith, and thence no conjunction

with the Lord; consequently no reformation and regeneration, and thereby

salvation. Without this appearance, it is evident there could be no

repentance and no faith; and man would not be man, but void of rational

life like a beast. It is plain, then, that in order that man may be

saved, he must be induced to live a good life by means which in nowise

trench upon this appearance of free and independent life. Regeneration is

effected by man’s removing evils from his external life, _as of himself_;

yet, knowing that all good and truth is from the Lord, he acknowledges,

as a consequence, that all power to remove these evils is derived from

the Lord alone.

Intensely as the Lord desires that man should shun evils and lead a holy

life in obedience to his commandments, yet He only seeks to win man to

peace and heaven by means which do not infringe upon his freedom. It is a

law of His Divine Providence, that man should not be forced by external

means to think and will, and so to believe and love the things which are

of religion. It has been asked by atheists, “If there be a God, why does

he not write so on the sun, and so save men from unbelief?” Swedenborg

answers this question most satisfactorily, by showing that miracles,

signs, visions, conversations with the dead, threats, and punishments,

are totally ineffective to produce that state of love and spiritual life

which make true happiness and heaven; because these force, and destroy

the rationality and liberty which constitute the inmost life of humanity,

and by the exercise of which, man can alone be delivered from evil.

Let us read Swedenborg’s testimony on miracles. He writes: “That such

is the nature of miracles, may plainly appear from those wrought before

the Jewish and Israelitish people. Although they saw so many miracles in

Egypt, afterwards at the Red Sea, others in the Desert, and especially

upon Mount Sinai, when the law was promulgated, yet, in the space of a

month, when Moses tarried upon that mountain, they made themselves a

golden calf, and acknowledged it for Jehovah who brought them out of

the land of Egypt. The same also may appear from the miracles wrought

afterwards in the land of Canaan, notwithstanding which the people

so often departed from the worship that was commanded; and from the

miracles which the Lord wrought before them when he was in the world,

notwithstanding which they crucified him. The reason why miracles were

wrought among the Jews and Israelites was, because they were altogether

external men, and were introduced into the land of Canaan merely that

they might represent a church and its internal principles by the external

things of worship; and a wicked man may be representative, as well as a

good man. The external things of worship among them were rituals, all

which signified spiritual and celestial things. Even Aaron, although

he made the golden calf, and conducted the worship of it, could,

nevertheless, represent the Lord and his work of salvation. And as they

could not, by the internal principles of worship, be led to represent

these things, therefore they were led, yea forced and compelled, to

do it by miracles. The reason why they could not be brought to such

representation by the internal principles of worship was, because they

did not acknowledge the Lord, although the whole Word, which was among

them, treats of Him only; and he who does not acknowledge the Lord, can

not receive any internal worship. But after the Lord manifested himself,

and was received and acknowledged in the churches as the eternal God,

miracles ceased.

“The effect of miracles upon the good, however, is different from what

it is upon the wicked. The good do not desire miracles, but they believe

the miracles which are recorded in the Word; and if they hear anything

of a miracle, they attend no otherwise to it than as a light argument

which confirms their faith; for they think from the Word, consequently

from the Lord, and not from a miracle. It is otherwise with the wicked:

they indeed may be driven and forced into faith, and even into worship

and piety, but only for a short time; for their evils being shut in,

the inclinations thereto, and the delights thence derived, continually

act against the external of their worship and piety; and in order that

these evils may escape from confinement and break out, they think

about the miracle, and at length call it a delusion, or an artifice,

or an operation of nature, and so return into their evils; and he who

returns into his evils after worship, profanes the truths and goods

of worship, and the lot of profaners after death is the worst of all.

Besides, if miracles were to be wrought before those who do not believe

in consequence of the miracles recorded in the Word, they must be

continually performed, and constantly presented to their view. From these

considerations, the reason may appear why miracles are not performed at

this day.”

It is thus seen that the Lord will not force a man to lead a good life;

because, in forcing him, his humanity would be destroyed, and all that

makes life worthy and manly would be lost, seeing that the exercise of

rationality and liberty would be annihilated.

It is a law of the Divine Providence, that a man should be led and taught

from the Lord out of heaven by the Word, and by doctrine and preaching

from the Word, and this in all appearance as from himself. The Lord, as

we have before seen, is the Word; and when man reads the Word, he brings

his thought into contact with the Divine Wisdom, and when he obeys its

teachings he is in very truth led by the Lord. Yet we all see that this

teaching and leading of the Lord is effected without any violation of

man’s freedom, for he is led and taught in externals to all appearance as

of himself.

It is a law of the Divine Providence that a man should not perceive and

feel anything of the operation of the Divine Providence, but yet should

know and acknowledge it. If a man perceived and felt the operation of the

Divine Providence, he would not act from liberty according to reason,

nor would anything appear to him as his own. It would also be the same

if he foreknew events. “The reason why it is not granted man to foreknow

events, is, that he may be able to act from liberty according to reason;

also, that there is nothing that a man revolves in his reason which is

not from a desire that it may come into effect by thought. If, therefore,

he knew the effect or event from divine prediction, reason would become

quiescent, and with reason love; for love, with reason, terminates in the

effect, and from that begins anew. It is the very delight of reason, that

from love in the thought it may see the effect,—not in the effect, but

before it, or not in the present, but in the future. Hence a man has what

is called Hope, which in reason increases and decreases, as it sees or

expects the event. This delight is fulfilled in the event, but afterwards

is obliterated with the thought concerning the event; and it would be the

same with an event foreknown.” The whole zest of life would be dissipated

could man foreknow the future.

While the operation of the Divine Providence is thus veiled from man’s

eyes, and it appears to him that he is alone in the world, and that on

his small prudence hangs all things,—if he would be wise he must not

be led by appearances, but rising above them, acknowledge the truth

“that self-derived prudence is nothing, and _only appears as if it were

something_, [and ought so to appear;] but that the Divine Providence in

things most singular is universal.” And because our life and intelligence

are momentarily derived from the Lord, it follows as a necessary

consequence, that all which we do that is orderly and effective, is done

by the Lord, through our yielding ourselves to Him as His instruments.

It is often urged as a reason against believing in an overruling

and universal Divine Providence, that the world is full of evil and

wickedness; and if there be an omnipotent God, he would surely never

suffer such things to exist. Swedenborg enters very fully into this

question. The reasons why Adam was permitted to fall, and Cain to slay

Abel; Solomon to establish idolatrous worship, and many kings after

him to profane the holy things of the church, the Jews to crucify the

Lord; why impiety is allowed to exist, and the impious and profligate

to be promoted to riches and honors, while the worshipers of God and

the doers of righteousness remain in contempt and poverty; why wars are

permitted, men slaughtered, the property of the innocent destroyed, and

victories go with force and not with justice; why the earth is permitted

to remain covered with idolatries, and the Christian religion to occupy

so small a place, and even there to be deeply corrupted and devastated

with heresies,—are stated at length and most satisfactorily. It is made

plain, that, were the Lord to interfere and prevent such evils by force,

it would defeat the end for which He created man, namely, salvation and

eternal life in heaven. Now as man can only be regenerated and enter

heaven through the free exercise of his understanding and free choice

of his will, any external interference of the Divine Providence with

outward circumstances would suspend the action of man’s faculties; would,

in short, dehumanise the race, and leave only animals to be dealt with.

It is not of the Lord’s will, indeed, that evil should exist; and His

Providence is unceasingly exerted to modify and mitigate it, alike in its

origin and in its effect; but, since to prevent its manifestation would

be to take from man all that makes him man, its permission is a necessity.

It was said that the Providence of the Lord is unceasingly exerted

to modify and mitigate evil, alike in its origin and in its effects.

Swedenborg very beautifully and amply illustrates this truth, and shows

that the Divine Providence is equally with the wicked and the good. The

wicked man, of his own free choice, continually plunges himself more and

more deeply into evil; because as he wills and does evil, he introduces

himself more and more deeply into infernal societies. But the Lord, by a

thousand invisible means, continually withdraws him from evil; and where

a cure or complete prevention is impossible, mitigates his fearful fate

by providing circumstances and situations in life which serve to lead

the evil into less hurtful developments. The operation of the Divine

Providence in saving man begins at his birth, and continues to the end

of his life. The Lord sees what a man is, and what he desires to be,

consequently what he will be; therefore the Lord foresees his state after

death, and provides for it from his birth to the end of his life; with

the wicked He provides by permitting and continually withdrawing them

from evils; with the good He provides by leading them to good. Thus the

Divine Providence is continually in the effort to save men; but more

cannot be saved than desire to be saved. Those who acknowledge God and

are led by Him, desire to be saved; and those who do not acknowledge

God, but guide themselves, do not desire to be saved: for the latter do

not think of eternal life and salvation, but the former do. This the

Lord sees; but still He leads them according to the laws of His Divine

Providence, against which He cannot act, for to act against them would be

to act against Himself. Now, as the Lord foresees the states of all after

death, and knows the places of those who are not willing to be saved, He,

as far as is consistent with human freedom, labors to soften man’s evil;

and if He cannot lead him to heaven, still preserves him from sinking to

the lowest hell.

From this it follows that every man may be reformed, that there is no

such thing as predestination, and that it is a man’s own fault if he is

not saved. All are created for heaven, and none for hell; and if man

sink into perdition, he does so through his own obstinacy, and through

the deliberate choice of a life of evil. As saith the Apostle: “The Lord

is long-suffering to usward, _not willing that any should perish_, but

that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter iii. 9. And the Lord himself

says: “Fear not, little flock; it is your _Father’s good pleasure to give

you the kingdom_.” Luke xii. 32.

Such, in brief, are a few of the principles in the treatise on the Divine

Providence. Nothing but a perusal of the work can give an adequate idea

of its multiplicity of details, from the laws which regulate the affairs

of kingdoms, to those which govern games of chance; and all expounded

with a lucidity of thought, which finds few parallels in works on

such recondite themes. No book in the whole circle of literature more

satisfactorily disposes of the objections against religion, current

among secularists and worldlings. The inward temptations and doubts of

the devout heart, and the weariness, cares, and fret of life, are shown

in its pages to be all permitted by that Divine Love which suffers

not a sparrow to fall unheeded; and the minutest incidents of life are

seen to be forever encircled by that Omniscience, which knows how most

effectually to guard us from evil and draw us into the holy courts of

heaven.

Any view which we take of the Divine Providence that does not recognize

this life as a beginning, a progress, and not a consummation, is

necessarily erroneous. Life here is but a discipline, an apprenticeship.

It is a school wherein we are scholars, learning such lessons as will

fit us for uses in a higher and eternal sphere. Were life consummated by

what men call death, we might have reason to complain that the comforts

and pleasures of existence were so unequally distributed; and the natural

man might exclaim with the Psalmist: “I was envious at the foolish, when

I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in trouble as other

men; neither are they plagued like other men. Their eyes stand out with

fatness: they have more than heart could wish. Behold, these are the

ungodly who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.” But when we

look at the matter from higher grounds, and in the light of the Divine

wisdom, or as the Psalmist did when he said: “I went into the sanctuary

of God; then understood I their end: how are they brought into desolation

as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors:”—“The evil doers

shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit

the earth: for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea thou

shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be: for the Lord

loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints;”—then we obtain a right

view of the matter, and find an all-sufficient reason for being patient

and not fretting ourselves. Hard though our lot in life may seem, let us

remember that

“The vain and fleeting things of earth,

(Though counted vain, alas! by few,)

In his esteem are nothing worth,

Who keeps eternal ends in view.”

Or, as Cowper says:

“The path of sorrow and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

No traveler ever reached that blest abode

Who found not thorns and briers in his road.”

CHAPTER XIX.

_Life in Amsterdam—Character of the Dutch—Meets Dr.

Beyer—Republishes his “New Method of Finding the

Longitudes”—The Apocalypse Explained._

It is very trying to the biographer of Swedenborg that he can find so

little to narrate of his outward life. Of his life in Amsterdam we have

no particulars whatever. No Boswell was there to note down his sayings,

describe his doings, his company, and conduct. But had even a Boswell

been there, we fear he would have found but little to note. Quiet days

in his study, calm reserve toward all around, musing, solitary rambles

in the streets, would supply but few incidents for the pen of the

biographer. We must be content to know that, from out his quiet study in

Amsterdam, proceeded books destined to be centers of spiritual light to

the church and to the world.

Swedenborg liked the Dutch, and with good reason, for he was favored to

know them in that land where the secrets of all hearts are unveiled. He

reports that the Dutch, above all other people, are under the influence

of the _spiritual_ love of trade, valuing it for its uses, and regarding

money only as a means to these uses, and not, like the Jews, as the final

end. They are, moreover, inflexible in their obedience to the truth, when

known; and in many other respects are an estimable people.

It is probable that Swedenborg returned home toward the end of 1764;

for in the first half of the next year, we find him in Stockholm. Soon,

however, he set out upon new travels; and in 1765, while at Gottenburg,

waiting for a vessel to England, he accidentally (as men say) met

with Dr. Beyer, Professor of Greek, and a member of the Consistory of

Gottenburg. Having heard that Swedenborg was mad, he was surprised

to hear him talk sensibly, and manifest no symptom of his suspected

infirmity. He therefore invited Swedenborg to dine with him the following

day, in company with Dr. Rosen. After dinner, Dr. Beyer expressed a

desire to hear from himself a full account of his doctrines; upon

which Swedenborg, animated by the request, spoke so clearly, and in so

wonderful a manner, that the Doctor and his friend were quite astonished.

They gave him no interruption; but when he ceased, Dr. Beyer requested

Swedenborg to meet him the next day at Mr. Wenngren’s and to bring with

him a paper, containing the substance of his conversation, in order that

he might consider it more attentively. Swedenborg came the day following,

according to promise; and, taking the paper out of his pocket, in the

presence of the other two gentlemen, he trembled, and appeared much

affected, the tears flowing down his cheeks. Presenting the paper to Dr.

Beyer, “Sir,” said he, “from this day the Lord has introduced you into

the society of angels, and you are now surrounded by them.” They were all

greatly affected. He then took his leave, and the next day embarked for

England.

Dr. Beyer sent immediately for Swedenborg’s writings, and soon became

deeply engrossed in their study. In order to arrange their subjects more

distinctly in his mind, he set about compiling an Index to them; which

as he prepared it, he sent, sheet by sheet, to Amsterdam to be printed.

He was thirteen years in compiling the work, and on the day he sent off

the last sheet corrected, he sickened, took to his bed, and in a few days

departed to the spiritual world.

The result of Dr. Beyer’s study of Swedenborg’s writings, was a firm

belief in their doctrines, and an open and enlightened advocacy of them,

declaring in the public Consistory his full assent to them. As might

naturally be expected, he suffered much obloquy and persecution for his

adherence to the truth; but he was consoled in having the firm friendship

of Swedenborg, and in being favored with receiving from him many letters,

sympathizing with him in his trials, and answering many of his questions

on doctrinal and psychological matters.

Swedenborg did not make a long stay in England; but after a few weeks,

or perhaps months, proceeded to Holland, spending the winter of 1765-66

at Amsterdam. There, in the spring of 1766, he republished (it is

supposed by the solicitation of friends,) his youthful work on a “New

Method of Finding the Longitudes.” “This method,” as he informed the

Swedish Archbishop, Menander, “of calculating the ephemerides by pairs of

stars, several persons in foreign countries were then employing, who had

experienced great advantage by the observations made according to it for

a series of years.”

From the time of the completion of the Arcana Cœlestia, in 1756,

Swedenborg had been gradually composing an extensive work on the

Apocalypse. The exposition was continued as far as the tenth verse of

the nineteenth chapter, filling four large quarto volumes. He then

laid the work aside—thinking, probably, that it was too voluminous and

elaborate—and commenced anew, but on a considerably reduced scale. The

former Exposition, a clearly written manuscript, ready for the printer,

after sustaining a narrow escape from burning, (the house of a gentleman

who had it for perusal having caught fire,) was published in the original

Latin, in four quarto volumes, in 1790, eighteen years after the author’s

death. It was translated into English and printed in six octavos, under

the title of the Apocalypse Explained, in 1815. It is a most valuable

work, and one that could not well be spared from the Swedenborg Library.

Within its pages are several distinct treatises on very important

subjects, which, if extracted, would form complete and excellent books

of themselves. The exposition of the spiritual sense of the text is very

copiously illustrated by parallel passages from other parts of the Word;

and thus it must ever be a most useful work to the New Church preacher,

as affording him a ready key to the internal sense of the Scriptures.

The shorter exposition Swedenborg himself published at Amsterdam, in

1766, under the title of the Apocalypse Revealed. As was his custom, he

distributed copies of the work widely, sending it to the universities

and superior clergy, and to many eminent persons in England, Holland,

Germany, France, and Sweden.

We will now make a few notes on some of the most remarkable features

of Swedenborg’s exposition of that strange and mysterious book, the

Apocalypse.

CHAPTER XX.

_The Apocalypse Revealed._

Every one who is acquainted with theological literature, knows that

innumerable volumes of speculation have been written in attempted

explanation of the Apocalypse. He is aware that expositors have

differed about it from the earliest times; that Protestants have found

Catholicism the subject of all its denunciations, and that Catholics

have discovered that Paganism and Protestant heresy were in reality the

matters alluded to; that sceptics have proved that it refers to none

of these creeds, but is a worthless astrological treatise; and that

many good Christians, vexed and wearied with this endless contest of

opinion, have wished the book expunged from the canon of Scripture, as

altogether incomprehensible, and a mere breeder of strife. And still the

controversy goes on. The press swarms with volumes and pamphlets, all

professing to have found the key to the mystery, informing the world of

the future destiny of Europe, of the result of its wars and battles, the

precise month of the fall of the Papacy, and the time of the descent of

the New Jerusalem, the Second Advent, and the restoration of the Jews to

Canaan, and, so far as the political arrangement of the kingdoms of the

earth is concerned, almost superseding the necessity of newspapers to

the credulous believer. Wise men generally now turn a deaf ear to these

soothsayings, convinced by long and repeated experience of their utter

futility, and thinking shrewdly enough that had the Divine Providence

intended that man should know the future, the foreknowledge would have

been communicated intelligibly and not through the medium of mysteries

interpreted by men more conspicuous for temerity than for any endowment

of wisdom or common sense above their fellows. “It is a part of this

prophecy,” as Sir Isaac Newton remarks,—and the same principle is

applicable to all prophecies,—“that it should not be understood before

the last age of the world; and therefore it makes for the credit of

the prophecy that it is not yet [about 1710] understood. The folly of

interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this prophecy, as

if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness, they have not

only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt.

The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this, and other prophecies

of the Old Testament, not to gratify men’s curiosity by enabling them

to foreknow things, but that, after they were fulfilled, they might be

interpreted by the events; and his own Providence, not the interpreters,

be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things,

predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the

world is governed by Providence. For, as the few and obscure prophecies

concerning Christ’s first coming, were for setting up the Christian

religion, _which all nations have since corrupted_; so the many and

clear prophecies concerning the things to be done at Christ’s second

coming, are not only for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and

re-establishment of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein

dwells righteousness. The event will prove the Apocalypse; and this

prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old prophets; and all

together will make known the true religion, and establish it.”

With no claim to superior understanding or acuteness did Swedenborg

present his exposition of this mysterious book to the world. He humbly

declares that the mysteries of the Apocalypse are totally beyond the

power of human intellect to unravel, and that whatever of truth is to be

found in his work, owed its existence to the immediate illustration of

his mind by the Lord. We shall presently show what powerful reason there

was for this protestation on his part.

The Apocalypse, we are taught, is a portion of the Divine Word. It

was dictated directly by the Lord,—John, in Patmos, being simply an

amanuensis.

The Apocalypse is a prophetic book, descriptive of the decline and

consummation of the Christian Church, and the establishment of the new

and spiritual dispensation signified by “the New Jerusalem descending

from God out of heaven.” Being a prophetic book, it would have been

at variance with the laws of the Divine Providence for man to have

understood its prophecies until after the events it described were past;

for, as we have seen, a knowledge of the future would take from man all

freedom of action, all inclination to labor, and the whole hope and

pleasure of life. Therefore it was that the Apocalypse remained a sealed

book until the Christian Church had reached its consummation, and the

Last Judgment was effected, in 1757, when the Lord graciously opened

the eyes of Swedenborg and manifested to him, in clear light, the deep

mysteries of this prophecy.

Wilkinson, in his admirable Biography, well says: “A volume, unless it

were a reprint, would not give an analysis of the Apocalypse Revealed.

When we say that the commentary takes the text word by word, and

translates it into spirit, we still convey but a slender idea of what

is done. Our own first impressions on reading the work will not soon be

forgotten. Following the writer through the long breadths and flights of

this vast empyrean, we were momently in anxious fear that to sustain a

context of such was impossible. Each fresh chapter seemed like a space

that mortal wing must not attempt; and yet the fear was groundless, for

our guide sailed onward with a tranquil motion as if he knew the stars.

History and common sense, panting and grasping science, philosophy in its

better part, above all, the confidence in a Divine support and a supernal

mission, appeared to be covertly and unexpectedly present, to annihilate

difficulties, and pave the skyey way of this humble voyager. And when

we had again alighted from that perusal which strained every faculty to

the utmost, it was as though we had been there before, so entire was the

impression of self-evidence that was left upon the mind. Genesis and the

Revelation were closely at one in this marvellous Apocalypse—thenceforth

the most open of the Bible pages: the two ends of the Scripture called to

each other; an arch of Divine light spanned the river of the Word, and

the original Eden blossomed anew in the midst of the street of the holy

city.”

The Rev. O. P. Hiller, in his Memoir of Swedenborg, writes: “In the

Apocalypse Revealed, the mysterious book is taken up and examined chapter

by chapter, verse by verse, word by word, in the same manner as was

done with the books of Genesis and Exodus in the Arcana Cœlestia; and

the interior meaning, the spiritual sense, of every part, set forth in

such a manner as to present a clear, connected, and rational meaning

throughout the whole book, from the first chapter to the last. And what

is especially to be remarked, the spiritual sense of this book, the last

of the New Testament, is shown to be founded on the same principles, and

discovered by the same rules of interpretation, as the spiritual sense of

the books of Genesis and Exodus, the first of the Old Testament, written,

as they were, by other hands, and more than fifteen hundred years before;

a strong proof, certainly, that however varied the human instruments

there was One Divine Author of the whole. Thus, with any particular word,

for instance, occurring in the book of Genesis, and declared to have a

certain spiritual signification,—when that word occurs in the book of

Revelation, it is shown to have the same signification; and this holds

good in all cases. And, moreover, while all these various significations,

taken together, make in the book of Genesis a complete spiritual sense,

so in the book of Revelation they make their own complete spiritual

sense. Now it will be readily seen, that such a coincidence would be

altogether unaccountable, nay, impossible, unless there really existed

such a spiritual sense in the Word of God: and it is, indeed, this

uniform spiritual sense, full of high and heavenly truth, that raises

the holy volume infinitely above all other works of history or morals;

and the existence of such a sense is the strongest proof of the Divine

character of those writings which we call the Sacred Scriptures. And

truly, had Swedenborg done only this, he would have deserved the

gratitude of all who seriously revere the Word of God, for thus bringing

a new and most powerful argument from internal evidence, in favor of the

inspiration and divinity of the sacred volume.”

Well, then, might Swedenborg disclaim the authorship of the ideas in

the Apocalypse Revealed, and ask: “What man can draw such things from

himself?” Those who tell us that Swedenborg was self-deceived, must

either know very little of what they speak about, or must be quite as

ignorant of the capacity of the human mind and its powers of invention.

For ourselves, we could as readily believe that Swedenborg created the

world, as we could believe that the spiritual sense of the Apocalypse,

and of the whole Word, was a fiction of his brain. Were the spiritual

sense of the Word such a fiction, then it must be said that there lived

a man in the last century, with an intellect and creative faculty,

compared with which those of all the philosophers and poets of past

and present time combined, were as nothing. We leave revilers of

Swedenborg to make their choice; either to admit the existence of the

spiritual sense of the Word; or, denying its existence, and pronouncing

Swedenborg’s discovery either a delusion or an imposture, to admit that

Swedenborg was a man wholly unique—a genius infinitely surpassing any

which the world has ever known, and endowed with a power of invention

which the mind of a nation incarnate in one man could never hope to rival.

But it will never come to such a pass. Anyone who will take the trouble

candidly to examine the subject, will become convinced of the spiritual

sense of the Word, and of the truth of Swedenborg’s revelations regarding

it. The denial and mockery of them can only coexist with an ignorance,

more or less profound, of their nature; or, worse still, from a hatred

of the truth, grounded in the life and love of evil. The spiritual sense

of the Word is no invention. It is a discovery,—accomplished by Divine

means, however,—just as the finding of Australia was a discovery; and we

shall believe in its existence if we become _practically_ acquainted with

it through reverent thought and study; even as We should know Australia

best, did we go there.

It may be said: “Well, suppose the spiritual sense of the Apocalypse does

describe the fall of the Christian Church, and the inauguration of the

New Church; and typifies the doctrine of justification by faith alone by

the Dragon; and the Romanists and their lust of dominion and atrocious

deeds by Babylon and the great Harlot sitting upon many waters; what

then? It is true such descriptions must ever have a certain interest,

but not sufficient to render them subjects of universal study in all

ages, and worthily forming a part of that Divine Book which is read by

angels in heaven, as well as by men on earth.” The objection is a sound

one so far as it goes, but it is made in ignorance of a great but very

simple truth, namely, that all that is true of a church is true of an

individual. The trust in mere truth in the intellect, and the lust of

power and glory,—the former signified by the Dragon, and the latter by

Babylon,—are evils which exist in all minds to a greater or less degree;

and the Divine description of their nature and awful consequences may be

thought of apart from any idea of Geneva or Rome. The Apocalypse being a

divine work, has infinite applications, and will be read to eternity in

spheres where the names of Romanist and Protestant are unknown; and in

societies of glorified spirits, compared with whose number and influence

this world is insignificant.

CHAPTER XXI.

_Travels—Habits—Anecdotes._

In April, 1766, Swedenborg again visited England in order to observe the

effect of his writings upon the English people. Of this visit we have no

account, except in reference to its conclusion, in September of the same

year, when he returned to Stockholm. Mr. Springer, the Swedish Consul in

London, an old friend of Swedenborg’s, has left the following interesting

record of some incidents connected with his return.

“Swedenborg was about to depart for Sweden, and desired me to procure him

a good captain, which I did. I made the agreement with a person named

Dixon. Swedenborg’s effects were carried on board the vessel, and as his

apartments were at some distance from the port, we took, for that night,

a chamber at an inn near it, because the captain of the vessel was to

come and fetch him in the morning. Swedenborg went to bed; and I went

to sit in another room, with the master of the house, with whom I was

conversing. We both heard a remarkable noise, and could not apprehend

what it could be, and therefore drew near to a door, where there was a

little window that looked into the chamber where Swedenborg lay. We saw

him with his arms raised toward heaven, and his body appeared to tremble.

He spoke much for the space of half an hour, but we could understand

nothing of what he said, except that when he let his hands fall down, we

heard him say with a loud voice, ‘My God!’ But we could not hear what he

said more. He remained afterwards very quietly in his bed. I entered into

his chamber with the master of the house, and asked him if he was ill.

‘No,’ said he; ‘but I have had a long discourse with some of the heavenly

friends, and am at this time in a great perspiration.’ And as his effects

were embarked on board the vessel, he asked the master of the house to

let him have a shirt; he then went again to bed, and slept till morning.

“When the captain of the vessel came to fetch Swedenborg, I took my leave

of him, and wished him a happy voyage. I then asked the captain if he

was provided with good and necessary provisions. He answered me, that

he had as much as was needful for the voyage. On this, Swedenborg said:

‘My friend, we shall not need a great quantity: for this day week we

shall, by the aid of God, enter the port of Stockholm at two o’clock.’

It happened exactly as he foretold, as Dixon informed me; saying, that a

violent gale accelerated the voyage, that the wind was favorable at every

turn of the vessel, and that he never in all his life had so prosperous a

voyage.”

Arriving at Stockholm on the 8th of September, Swedenborg resided in

the Sudermalm, the southern suburb of the city. Robsahm tells us: “His

house was built and arranged after his own taste; the apartments were

rather small, but suitable for himself. Although he was a man of most

profound learning, no other books were seen in his study than the Hebrew

and Greek Bible, together with his own indexes to his works, whereby he

saved himself the trouble, when referring to different passages, of going

through all he had before written.

“Adjoining the house was a rather large garden, in the midst of which he

had a summer-house, or pavilion. There were four doors to the apartment,

which formed a square, and was occasionally turned, in an instant, into

an octagon, by means of four other doors that belonged to it. One of

these doors shut with a secret lock, which being opened, there appeared

a glass door placed opposite a fine green hedge, where a bird was seen

in a cage. This new spectacle produced an agreeable surprise of a second

garden to the person who opened the door, which Swedenborg used to say

was more agreeable than the first. At the entrance of the garden there

was a parterre, well covered with flowers, which he was very fond of. He

derived no other advantage from the garden, for he gave the whole produce

of it to the gardener who waited on him; so also that of a very excellent

greenhouse, in which he took much pleasure.

“The gardener and his wife were the only servants he had; of the latter

he never desired other service than that of making his bed, and of

bringing water into his apartment. He generally made his own coffee on

the fire in his study, and took much of it, well sweetened. When at home,

his dinner consisted of a small loaf put into boiled milk, and at that

time he neither drank wine nor any spirituous liquor, nor did he take any

supper. Though he was very sparing in his eating and drinking, yet he

would sometimes, when in company, take a glass of wine, but was always in

one equal temper of mind, and cheerful.

“He had a fire constantly kept up in his study, from autumn, throughout

the winter, until spring; but his bedroom, contrary to the usual custom

in Sweden, was always cold; and according as the cold was more or less

severe, he made use of three, or four, blankets. When he awoke, he went

into his study, where there were always live coals, on which he laid

wood, with birch-bark, having a number of small bundles ready for use,

and to make a quick fire before he sat down to write.

“In his parlor was a table of black marble, on which, one would have

supposed, at first sight, that a hand of cards had been carelessly

thrown, the imitation being so perfect. He made a present of this table

to the Royal College of Mines, who preserve it with great care. This room

was neat and genteel, but furnished in a plain style.

“His wardrobe was simple, yet suitable to the season. He wore in winter a

fur gown; and when at home, in summer, a morning robe.

“He spoke very distinctly. When he began to talk in company, every one

was silent, as well from the pleasure they had in hearing his discourse,

as from a sense of his well known great erudition, which he did not

show but on occasions in which he found himself compelled to prove his

assertions, or the little weight of the arguments of some with whom he

conversed. Besides the learned languages, in which he was well versed, he

understood the French, English, Dutch, German, and Italian.”

We are thankful indeed for these details, trifling though they are. They

evince the quiet practical character of Swedenborg, and the strong common

sense which guarded him from all extravagance and eccentricity.

From the gardener’s wife, Robsahm received the following

statement:—“Entering one day, after dinner, into Swedenborg’s chamber, I

saw his eyes like unto a most bright flame. I drew back, saying, ‘In the

name of goodness, Sir, what has happened extraordinary to you? for you

have a very peculiar appearance.’ ‘What kind of look have I?’ answered

he. I then told him what struck me. ‘Well, well,’ replied he, which was

his favorite expression, ‘don’t be frightened, the Lord has so disposed

my eyes, that by them spirits may see what is in our world.’” In a short

time this appearance passed away, as he said it would. “I know,” said she

to Robsahm, “when he has conversed with heavenly spirits, for there is a

pleasure and calm satisfaction in his countenance, which charm those who

see it; but after he has conversed with evil spirits, he has a sorrowful

look.”

Concerning his temptations, they said that their master, in the night,

often spoke aloud, when evil spirits were with him, which they could

easily hear, their room being adjoining. When asked what caused his

disturbance in the night, he answered that it had been permitted the evil

spirits to blaspheme, and that he had spoken against them zealously. It

happened often that, weeping bitterly, he cried with a loud voice, and

prayed to the Lord that he might not be forsaken in his temptation, when

they assailed him. His words were, ‘Lord help me! Lord, my God, do not

forsake me!’ Those who saw him in these states, supposed he was sick; but

when delivered from them, he returned thanks to God, and said to those

who were troubled for him, ‘God be eternally praised! Comfort yourselves,

my friends, all has passed away; and be assured that nothing happens to

me but what the Lord permits, who never lays a burden on us more weighty

than we are able to bear.’

Once it was remarkable that after such a state he went to bed, and did

not rise for several days and nights. This gave his domestics much

uneasiness, and they consulted together, and supposed he was dead. They

intended to break open the door, or to call their neighbors. At last the

gardener went to the window, and discovered, to his great joy, that his

master was alive, and turning in his bed. The next day he rang the bell.

The woman went in, and related her own and her husband’s uneasiness for

him. He told her with a cheerful countenance, that he had been very well,

and had wanted nothing.

The following anecdote, narrated to Robsahm by the gardener’s wife,

places Swedenborg’s moral courage in a strong light, and shows the use of

judicious plain speaking. Bishop Halenius, the successor of Swedenborg’s

father, paying Swedenborg a visit one day, the conversation turned on

the nature of common sermons. Swedenborg said to the bishop, “You insert

things that are false in yours;” on this, the bishop told the gardener,

who was present, to retire, but Swedenborg commanded him to stay. The

conversation went on, and both turned over the Hebrew and Greek Bibles,

to show the texts that were agreeable to their assertions. At length

the interview ended, by some observations intended as reproaches to the

bishop on his avarice and various unjust actions; “You have already

prepared yourself a place in hell,” said Swedenborg: “but,” added he,

“I predict that some months hence you will be attacked with a grievous

illness, during which time the Lord will seek to convert you. If you

then open your heart to his holy inspirations, your conversion will take

place. When this happens, write to me for my theological works, and I

will send them to you.” Some months after, an officer from the province

and bishopric of Skara visited Swedenborg. On being asked how bishop

Halenius was, he replied: “He has been very ill, but at present he is

quite recovered, and has become altogether another person, being now a

practicer of what is good, full of probity, and returns sometimes three

or four-fold of the property which he had before unjustly taken into his

possession.” From that time to the hour of his death, he was one of the

greatest supporters of the doctrine of the New Church of the Lord, and

declared openly, that the theological writings of Swedenborg were the

most precious treasures given for the welfare of mankind. What a blessed

result was this of the few severe but really kind words of Swedenborg,

spoken in season!

In Stockholm, Swedenborg was very accessible, and visitors sought his

advice for all purposes. Widows went to him to inquire about the state

of their husbands in the other world; and others fancying him a wizard,

beset him with questions about lost and stolen property. Notwithstanding

the number and frequency of these visits, from people of all ranks, he

would never receive any particular ones, and more especially those of

females, without one of his domestics being present. He also required his

visitors to speak in the language of the country, saying, “I will have

witnesses of my discourse and conduct, that all pretensions to malicious

assertions and scandal may be taken away.” He had probably suffered from

the tongues of busybodies: it would have been strange if he had not;

and it was prudent for him to take this effectual plan to cut away the

foundation of all idle and malicious gossip.

Nicholas Collin, a young clergyman, at this time visited Swedenborg, and

thus pleasantly narrates his interview. “In 1765, I went to reside at

Stockholm, where I continued for nearly three years. During that time,

Swedenborg was a great object of public attention in the metropolis,

and his extraordinary character was a frequent topic of discussion. He

resided at his house in the southern suburbs, which was in a pleasant

situation, neat and convenient, with a spacious garden and other

appendages. There he received company. Not seldom he also appeared in

company, and mixed in private society; sufficient opportunities were

therefore given to observe him. I collected much information from several

respectable persons who had conversed with him; which was the more

easy, as I lived the whole time as a private tutor in the family of Dr.

Celsius, a gentleman of distinguished talents, who afterwards became

bishop of Scania. He, and many of the eminent persons that frequented his

house, knew Swedenborg well.

“In the summer of 1766, I waited on him at his house. Introducing myself

with an apology for the freedom I took, I assured him that it was not

in the least from youthful presumption. I was then twenty, but had a

strong desire to converse with a character so celebrated. He received

me very kindly. It being early in the afternoon, delicate coffee,

without eatables, was served, agreeable to the Swedish custom; he was

also, like pensive men in general, fond of this beverage. We conversed

for nearly three hours; principally on the nature of human souls, and

their states in the invisible world; discussing the principal theories

of psychology by various authors. He asserted positively, as he often

does in his works, that he had intercourse with spirits of deceased

persons. I presumed, therefore, to request of him, as a great favor,

to procure me an interview with my brother, who had departed this life

a few months before, a young clergyman, and esteemed for his devotion,

erudition, and virtue. He answered, that God, having for good and wise

purposes separated the world of spirits from ours, a communication is

never granted without cogent reasons; and asked what my motives were. I

confessed that I had none besides gratifying brotherly affection, and an

ardent wish to explore scenes so sublime and interesting to a serious

mind. He replied, that my motives were good, but not sufficient; but that

if any important spiritual or temporal concern of mine had been the case,

he would then have solicited permission from those angels who regulate

these matters. He showed me his garden. It had an agreeable building,

a wing of which was a kind of temple, to which he often retired for

contemplation; its dim religious light rendering it suitable for such a

purpose.

“We parted with mutual satisfaction; and he presented by me, to the said

Dr. Celsius, an elegant copy of his Apocalypsis Revelata, then lately

printed in Amsterdam.”

Swedenborg was of a very mild temper, upright, just, and incapable of

perverting the truth. Robsahm, one day, asked him if a certain preacher,

lately deceased, and greatly esteemed in Stockholm for his flowery

sermons, had a place in heaven. “No,” said Swedenborg, “he went directly

into the abyss; for he left his devotion in the pulpit: he was not pious,

but a hypocrite; proud and greatly vain of the gifts he had received

from nature, and the goods of fortune he was continually seeking to

acquire. Truly,” continued he, “false appearances will stand us in no

stead hereafter; they are all separated from man at his decease; the mask

then falls from him; and it is then made manifest to all, whether he is

inwardly good or evil.”

The exact month of Swedenborg’s next foreign travel is uncertain; but

just before he undertook it, Robsahm met him in his carriage, and asked

him how he could venture to take a voyage to London, at the age of

eighty, and expressed a fear lest he should not see him again. “Be not

uneasy, my friend,” said he, “if you live, we shall see one another

again, for I have yet another voyage of this kind to make.”

At Elsinore, on these voyages, he frequently visited M. Rahling, the

Swedish Consul, and during this transit, he made the acquaintance of

General Tuxen, at the Consul’s table. The General asked him how a

man might be certain whether he was on the road to salvation or not.

Swedenborg answered, “That is very easy. A man need only examine himself

and his thoughts by the Ten Commandments; as, for instance, whether he

loves and fears God; whether he is happy in seeing the welfare of others,

and does not envy them; whether on having received a great injury from

others, which may have excited him to anger and to meditate revenge, he

afterwards changes his sentiments, because God has said that vengeance

is His, and so on; then he may rest assured that he is on the road to

heaven: but when he discovers himself actuated by contrary sentiments, he

may know that he is on the road to hell.”

This led Tuxen to think of himself, as well as others; and he asked

Swedenborg whether he had seen King Frederick V. of Denmark, deceased

in 1766, adding that though some human frailty attached to him, yet he

had certain hopes that he was happy. Swedenborg said, “Yes, I have seen

him, and he is well off; and not only he, but all the kings of the house

of Oldenburg, who are associated together. This is not the happy case

with our Swedish kings.” Swedenborg then told him that he had seen no

one so splendidly ministered to in the world of spirits as the Empress

Elizabeth of Russia, who died in 1762. As Tuxen expressed astonishment at

this, Swedenborg continued: “I can also tell you the reason, which few

would surmise. With all her faults, she had a good heart, and a certain

consideration in her negligence. This induced her to put off signing many

papers that were from time to time presented to her, and which at last so

accumulated that she could not examine them, but was obliged to sign as

many as possible on the representation of her ministers; after which she

would retire to her closet, fall on her knees, and beg God’s forgiveness,

if she, against her will, had signed anything that was wrong.”

At the conclusion of this interesting interview, Swedenborg went on board

his vessel, leaving a firm friend and future disciple in General Tuxen.

Some years after, Tuxen wrote: “I thank our Lord, the God of heaven, that

I have been acquainted with this great man and his writings. I esteem

this as the greatest blessing I ever experienced in this life, and hope I

shall profit by it in working out my salvation.”

Swedenborg’s stay in London at this time must have been brief; for on the

28th of November, 1768, we meet him again in Amsterdam, whither he had

gone to print another important work, “Conjugial Love, and its chaste

Delights; also Adulterous Love and its insane Pleasures.” This book he

published with his name, as written “by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede.”

This is the first of his theological works to which he affixed his name.

His reason for giving it in this instance, is said to have been, that no

other person might be censured for writing on this delicate subject. We

will now examine the contents of this wondrous book.

CHAPTER XXII.

_Conjugial Love._

A wise man might well suspect the soundness of any system of morals

which did not take into careful consideration the conjugial relation.

Marriage—the most important event in life, the relation which occupies

the whole thought of one sex, and the most serious regards of the other,

the institution around which all that is highest find holiest in life

groups itself, family, home, all that human hearts hold dear—must ever

hold a prominent place in a true code of moral and spiritual laws. How

then could the subject be omitted from the heavenly writings of the New

Jerusalem? or how could its apostle forget or pass it by.

Swedenborg, in his treatise on Conjugial Love, first speaks of marriages

in heaven. He shows that a man lives a man after death, and that a woman

lives a woman; and since it was ordained from creation that the woman

should be for the man, and the man for the woman, and thus that each

should be the other’s,—and since that love is innate in both, it follows

that there are marriages in heaven as well as on earth.

Marriage in the heavens is the conjunction of two into one mind. The mind

of man consists of two parts, the understanding and the will. When these

two parts act in unity, they are called one mind. The understanding is

predominant in man, and the will in woman; but in the marriage of minds

there is no predominance, for the will of the wife becomes also the

will of the husband, and the understanding of the husband is also that

of the wife; because each loves to will and to think as the other wills

and thinks, and thus they will and think mutually and reciprocally. Hence

their conjunction; so that in heaven, two married partners are not called

two, but one angel. When this conjunction of minds descends into the

inferior principles which are of the body, it is perceived and felt as

love, and that love is conjugial love.

To this doctrine of marriage in heaven will arise an objection from the

Lord’s words to the Sadducees, when they asked Him whose wife, in the

resurrection, a woman should be, who had been married in succession to

seven brethren. The Lord replied: “The children of this world marry, and

are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain

that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are

given in marriage.”—Luke xx. 34, 35. To understand this reply, we must

bear in mind the nature of the question. A woman had been married, quite

in accordance with worldly usage, to seven husbands. Of course, nothing

of this kind takes place in heaven; for, as the Lord says, there “neither

can they die any more.” After that fashion indeed there is no marrying or

giving in marriage in heaven. In truth, marriages, such as they are in

heaven, could never have been comprehended by the gross and carnal-minded

Jews; and had the Lord entered into detail, He would have been as grossly

misapprehended by them as when He said, “Destroy this temple, and in

three days I will raise it up.” And they said: “Forty and six years was

this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?” not

knowing that he “spake of the temple of his body.” John ii. 19-21. Now

Swedenborg very plainly shows that Christians think as naturally of

marriage as the Jews did of the temple, if they suppose that the true

marriage of minds does not take place in heaven, or that it was any but

the carnal and sensual connections of earth that the Lord declared had

no place in eternity. In the spiritual sense of the Lord’s words, by

the marriage that does not take place in heaven, is meant the spiritual

marriage, or union of goodness and truth in the mind; in other words,

regeneration: this must be accomplished in this life, or not at all.

When the spiritual sense of the Word is understood, this interpretation

becomes manifest as the only true and rational mode of understanding the

text; and all the rest of Scripture goes to confirm it.

Moreover it is true that there is no marriage in heaven in the exact

sense of the word. Partners are born into this world, and by life in

it are disciplined for each other. Separate, they are but parts of one

whole; and in each there is a continual longing for unition. Seen by

the eye of Omniscience, they are ever married; they are one, however

divided they may be by space or circumstances. Their meeting in heaven

and recognition of each other is only the external completion of what had

before in essentials been effected. And in this sense it may be said that

there are no marriages in heaven; for all are married, in reality, before

they reach heaven.

Marriages on earth, Swedenborg teaches, are at this day entered upon

so generally from merely worldly and sensual motives, and with so

little regard for similarity of mind, that, save in few cases, they

are not maintained and perpetuated in the other life. Married partners

commonly meet after death; but as their internal differences of mind are

manifested, they separate; for no married partners can be received into

heaven, except such as have been interiorly united, or are capable of

being so united into one; which is understood by the Lord’s words: “They

are no longer two, but one flesh.” Such as are thus separated—possibly

both very good people—meet, in due time, congenial partners, whose souls

incline to union with their own, so that they no longer wish to be two

lives, but one.

The meeting of young partners in heaven is thus charmingly

described:—“The divine providence of the Lord extends to everything,

even to the minutest particulars concerning marriages, because all the

delights of heaven spring from the delights of conjugial love, as sweet

waters from the fountain head. On this account it is provided that

conjugial pairs be born, and these pairs are continually educated to

their several marriages under the Lord’s auspices, neither the boy nor

the girl knowing anything of the matter; and after a stated time, when

both of them become marriageable, they meet in some place as by chance,

and see each other, and in this case they instantly know, as by a kind

of instinct, that they are pairs; and by a kind of inward dictate, think

within themselves—the youth that she is mine, and the virgin that he is

mine; and when this thought has existed some time in the mind of each,

they accost each other from a deliberate purpose, and betroth themselves.

It is said as by chance, by instinct, and by dictate, and the meaning is

by Divine Providence: since, while the Divine Providence is unknown, it

has such an appearance; for the Lord opens internal similitudes, that

they may see each other.”

We are now led by Swedenborg, and introduced to a knowledge of the nature

of conjugial love, and shown in what consists its essential blessedness.

He shows that this love originates in the marriage of goodness and

truth. Every one who has experienced anything of regeneration, knows

that there is no bliss so intense, no joy so extatic, as that arising

from well-doing, and submission to the will of the Lord. When right is

done because it is right, when truth in the understanding is carried

into action, then good is inseminated in the will by the Lord, and

conjoining itself to truth in the understanding, the soul overflows with

the sweetest peace, and the most interior delight. The conjunction of

goodness and truth is the heavenly marriage, to which the Lord compares

the kingdom of heaven; and He says that it is not here, nor there, but

within us. Under the symbols of marriage and love, the regeneration of

the soul is continually described in the Word; and the meeting of Jacob

and Rachel at the well, when “Jacob kissed Rachel,” and for very joy,

“lifted up his voice and wept,” beautifully typifies the meeting of

goodness and truth, and the gladness resulting from their approaching

union.

It was said that in man the understanding predominates, and in woman

the will. In the mind of each, then, it is evident, there never can

be a perfect marriage, seeing that individual minds are in themselves

imperfect, the balance of the will and intellect being in no case

equal. The mental perfection or _wholeness_ of man then necessitates

marriage. Truth loves good, and good loves truth; and so the will and

the understanding ever long for conjunction. It is plain, then, that

in man there must always be an unsatisfied desire, if he remain by

himself; and so, also, to even a greater degree, with the woman. This

insatiable desire for conjunction of soul, can not well appear in its

strength in this life for many reasons; nor can it receive here its full

satisfaction, as it will in eternity.

True conjugial love can exist only between two; and in polygamists and

adulterers it is utterly destroyed. Again, it can only exist with the

regenerate, with those who love the Lord and their neighbor, and delight

in keeping the divine commandments. In proportion as married partners so

live, they become more and more closely and interiorly conjoined; and

their minds flowing into one, their peace, joy, and bliss are ineffably

increased. With the wicked there is no conjugial love. Their life, being

internally evil, conceals the deepest hatred; and the apparent affection

which they may display in the world, arises either from sensual love, or

worldly expediency. Be it well noted by all, that marriage can yield real

happiness only to the religious—to those who love God and honor His laws.

It is impossible for us to give, even by way of catalogue, a view of

the details into which the treatise on Conjugial Love enters. It is so

richly studded with great principles, that no condensation is possible.

It is thus with all of Swedenborg’s books; so that an exhaustive review

is impossible. He never treats his readers to long moralizings that can

be condensed into one paragraph; but all his writings are crowded with

thought, so that one is prompted not to condensation, but to expansion.

This excuse, which we have had to present on previous occasions, must

form our apology for the following extracts, selected as illustrations of

some of the leading truths in this treatise.

_The Delights of Conjugial Love._—“As conjugial love is the foundation

love of all good loves, and as it is inscribed on all the parts and

principles of man, even to the most particular, it follows that its

delights exceed the delights of all other loves, and also that it gives

delight to the other loves, according to its presence and conjunction

with them; for it expands the inmost principles of the mind, and at the

same time the inmost principles of the body, as the most delightful

current of its fountain flows through and opens them. The reason why all

delights, from first to last, are collated into this love, is on account

of the superior excellence of its use, which is the propagation of the

human race, and thence of the angelic heaven; and as this use was the

chief end of creation, it follows that all the beatitudes, satisfactions,

delights, pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which the Lord the Creator

could possibly confer upon man, are collated into this love.”—n. 68.

_Love truly Conjugial is essential Chastity._—“The reasons are, 1.

Because it is from the Lord, and corresponds to the marriage of the Lord

and the church. 2. Because it descends from the marriage of good and

truth. 3. Because it is spiritual, in proportion as the church exists

with man. 4. Because it is the foundation love, and head of all celestial

and spiritual loves. 5. Because it is the orderly seminary of the human

race, and thereby of the angelic heaven. 6. Because on this account it

also exists with the angels of heaven, and gives birth with them to

spiritual offspring, which are love and wisdom. 7. And because its uses

are thus more excellent than the other uses of creation. From these

considerations, it follows that love truly conjugial, viewed from its

origin and its essence, is pure and holy, so that it may be called purity

and holiness, consequently, essential chastity.”—n. 143.

_Conjugial Love in Ancient Times._—“I have been informed by the angels,

that those who lived in the most ancient times, live at this day in the

heavens, in separate houses, families, and nations, as they lived on

earth, _and that scarce any one of a house is wanting_; and that the

reason is, because they were principled in love truly conjugial; and that

hence their children inherited inclinations to the conjugial principles

of good and truth, and were easily initiated into it more and more

interiorly by education received from their parents, and afterwards as

from themselves, when they became capable of judging for themselves, were

introduced into it by the Lord.”—n. 205.

_Marriage elevates Humanity to its Highest Form._—“The most perfect and

noble human form results from the conjunction of two forms, by marriage,

so as to become one form; thus from two fleshes becoming one flesh

according to creation. In such a case the man’s mind is elevated into

superior light, and the wife’s into superior heat.”—n. 201.

_The Children of Good Parents._—“Children born of parents who are

principled in love truly conjugial, derive from their parents the

conjugial principle of good and truth, by virtue whereof they have an

inclination and faculty, if sons, to perceive the things appertaining

to wisdom, and if daughters, to love those things which wisdom teaches.

Hence a superior suitableness and facility to grow wise, is inherited by

those who are born from such a marriage, and also to imbibe the things

relating to the church and heaven.”—n. 202-4.

The capacity of women to perform the duties of men, and men those of

women, is thus spoken of.

“The wife can not enter into the duties proper to the man, nor on the

other hand the man into the duties proper to the wife, because they

differ like wisdom and the love thereof, or like understanding and the

will thereof. In the duties proper to the man, the primary agent is

the understanding, thought, and wisdom; whereas in the duties proper

to the wife, the primary agent is will, affection, and love; and the

wife from the latter principles performs her duties, and the man from

the former performs his; wherefore their duties, from the nature of

them, are diverse, but still conjunctive in a successive series. It

is believed by many that women can perform the duties of men, if they

were initiated therein like boys, at an early age. They may indeed be

initiated into the exercise of such duties, but not into the judgment, on

which the rectitude interiorly depends; wherefore those women who have

been initiated into the duties of men, are bound, in matters of judgment,

to consult men, and then, if they are left to their own disposal, they

select from the counsels of men what favors their own particular love.

It is also supposed by some, that women are equally capable with men

of elevating the intellectual vision, and into the same sphere of life,

and of viewing things in the same altitude; and they have been led

into this opinion by the writings of certain learned authoresses; but

these writings, when examined in the spiritual world, in the presence

of the authoresses, were found to be the productions, not of judgment

and wisdom, but of ingenuity and wit; and what proceeds from these two

latter principles, on account of the elegance and neatness of style in

which it is written, has the appearance of sublimity and erudition; yet

only in the eyes of those who call all ingenuity by the name of wisdom.

In like manner, men can not enter into the duties of women, and perform

them aright, because they are not in the affections of women, which are

altogether distinct from the affections of men. As the affections and

perceptions of the male and female sex are thus distinct by creation,

and consequently by nature, therefore, among the statutes given to the

sons of Israel, this was also ordained: ‘A woman shall not put on the

garment of a man, neither shall a man put on the garment of a woman;

because this is an abomination.’ Deut. xxii. 5. The reason is, because

all in the spiritual world are clothed according to their affections;

and the affections of the woman and the man can not be united, except as

subsisting between two, and in no case as subsisting in one.”—n. 175.

The latter portion of the treatise on Conjugial Love is devoted to the

melancholy subject of the disorders of the married life, to coldnesses

and quarrels, separations and divorces; and finally to adulteries,

fornications, and all the abuses of the sexual relations. Of this it

would be out of place to speak here, except to remark, that it follows,

as a consequence of the fact that conjugial love makes man’s highest

bliss and purest heaven, that its violations and abuses must needs lead

to the bitterest misery and deepest hell. This portion of the treatise

has subjected Swedenborg to some gross calumny, which, if sincere, could

only have arisen from a very superficial acquaintance with the principles

of its author. And yet it is hardly possible for a man to write on such

subjects, without provoking the censure of the sickly virtuous and the

hypocritically pure. Religious people too generally treat the dire

sexual evils which infest and corrupt society with silence and aversion;

passing them by as the priest and the Levite did the wounded traveler.

When the spirit of Jesus more fully actuates the church, and the love of

the neighbor prompts to heal the world’s evils by all efficient means,

then, we have no doubt, Swedenborg on Scortatory Love will be taken into

council.

We have used the term “conjugial,” after Swedenborg, who generally uses

the Latin adjective _conjugialis_, in preference to _conjugalis_, perhaps

because softer in sound.

Interspersed between the various chapters of the treatise, are memorable

relations of scenes which the author beheld in the spiritual world, and

conversations which he had with spirits and angels on the subject of

conjugial love. Many of these possess the most fascinating interest,

and convey at the same time the most profound and beautiful truths.

One interview which he had with two angels of the third heaven is so

beautiful that we present it at length.

“One morning I was looking upwards into heaven, and I saw over me three

expanses, one above another. I wondered at first what all this meant; and

presently there was heard from heaven a voice as of a trumpet, saying,

‘We have perceived, and now see, that thou art meditating concerning

conjugial love. We are aware that no one on earth at present knows what

true conjugial love is in its origin and essence. Yet it is of importance

that it should be known. With us in the heavens, especially in the third

heaven, our heavenly delights are principally derived from conjugial

love; wherefore in consequence of leave granted us, we will send down

to thee a conjugial pair for thy inspection and observation:’ and lo!

instantly there appeared a chariot descending from the third or highest

heaven; in which there was seen one angel; but as it approached there

were seen therein two. The chariot, at a distance, glittered before my

eyes like a diamond, and to it were harnessed young horses white as

snow; and those who sat in the chariot held in their hands two turtle

doves.... When they came nearer, lo! it was a husband and his wife; and

they said, ‘We are a conjugial pair; we have lived blessed in heaven

from the first age of the world, which is called by you the golden age,

and during that time in the same perpetual flower of youth in which thou

seest us at this day. I viewed each attentively, because I perceived that

they represented conjugial love in its life and its adorning; in its life

in their faces, and in its adorning in their raiment.... The husband

appeared of a middle age between manhood and youth; from his eyes darted

forth sparkling light derived from the wisdom of love; by virtue of which

light his face was radiant from its inmost ground; and in consequence

of such radiance, the skin had a kind of refulgence in the outermost

surface, whereby his whole face was one resplendent comeliness. He was

dressed in an upper robe which reached down to his feet, and underneath

it was a vesture of hyacinthine blue, girded about with a golden girdle,

upon which were three precious stones, two sapphires on the sides, and

a carbuncle in the middle; his stockings were of bright shining linen,

with threads of silver interwoven; and his shoes were of velvet: such

was the representative form of conjugial love with the husband. But with

the wife it was this; her face was seen by me, and it was not seen; it

was seen as essential beauty, and it was not seen because this beauty

was inexpressible; for in her face there was a splendor of flaming

light, such as the angels of the third heaven enjoy, and this light made

my sight dim; so that I was lost in astonishment: she, observing this,

addressed me, saying, ‘What dost thou see?’ I replied, ‘I see nothing

but conjugial love and the form thereof; but I see, and I do not see.’

Hereupon she turned herself obliquely from her husband; and then I was

enabled to view her attentively. Her eyes were bright and sparkling from

the light of her own heaven, which light, as was said, is of a flaming

quality, which it derives from the love of wisdom; for in that heaven

wives love their husbands from their wisdom and in their wisdom: and

husbands love their wives from that love of wisdom and in it, as directed

towards themselves; and thus they are united. This was the origin of her

beauty; which was such that it would be impossible for any painter to

imitate and exhibit it in its form, for he has no colors bright and vivid

enough to express its lustre; nor is it in the power of his art to depict

such beauty. Her hair was adjusted in becoming order so as to correspond

with her beauty; and in it were inserted diadems of flowers: she had a

necklace of carbuncles, from which hung a rosary of chrysolites; and she

had bracelets of pearl: her upper robe was scarlet, and underneath it

was a stomacher of purple, fastened in front with clasps of rubies. But

what surprised me was, that the colors varied according to her aspect in

regard to her husband, and also according thereto were sometimes more

glittering, and sometimes less; in mutual aspect more, and in oblique

aspect less. When I had made these observations, they again discoursed

with me; and when the husband spoke, he spoke at the same time as from

his wife; and when the wife spoke, she spoke at the same time as from her

husband; such was the union of their minds from whence speech flows; and

on this occasion I also heard the sound or tone of voice of conjugial

love; inwardly it was simultaneous, and it likewise proceeded from the

delights of a state of innocence and peace. At length they said, ‘We are

recalled; we must depart:’ and instantly they appeared again conveyed

in a chariot as before. The way by which they were conveyed was a paved

way through flowering shrubberies, from the beds of which rose olive and

orange trees laden with fruit. When they approached their own heaven they

were met by several virgins, who welcomed and introduced them.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

_Attacked by Dr. Ekebom—Visits France—Letter to Hartley, and

Hartley’s Opinion of Swedenborg._

In the spring of 1769, Swedenborg published at Amsterdam, A Brief

Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church, “in which work,” he says,

writing to Dr. Beyer, “are fully shown the errors of the existing

doctrines of justification by faith alone, and of the imputation of the

righteousness or merits of Jesus Christ.” He sent the little book to all

the clergy throughout Holland, and to the most eminent in Germany; but,

on second thought, sent only one copy to Sweden, to Dr. Beyer, requesting

him to keep it to himself, for true divinity in Sweden was in a wintry

state.

Swedenborg’s long preservation from attack and controversy, at this

time came to an end. On the 22d of March, 1769, Dr. Ekebom, Dean of the

Theological faculty of Gottenburg, laid before the Consistory there

a series of objections against Swedenborg’s theological writings,

laden with untruth, and full of personal invective. The Dean branded

his doctrine “as in the highest degree heretical, and, on points the

most tender to every Christian, Socinian.” He stated, further, that

he “_did not know Assessor Swedenborg’s religious system, and should

take no pains to come at the knowledge of it_.” As for Swedenborg’s

chief works, he “_did not possess them, and had neither read nor seen

them_.” Swedenborg’s written reply, transmitted from Holland, was mild

and effectual. He cited his writings themselves, and proved that,

according to Scripture, the Apostolic Creed, and whatever was not

self-contradictory in the orthodoxy of the churches, his doctrine was

anything but heretical. But the self-acknowledged ignorance and prejudice

of the Dean were not to be removed by anything he might say. “Was not

this,” to quote Swedenborg’s own words, “to be blind in the forehead,

and to have eyes behind, and even those covered with a film? To see and

decide upon writings in such a fashion, can any secular or ecclesiastical

judge regard as otherwise than criminal?”

About the end of May, or the beginning of June, Swedenborg left Amsterdam

for Paris, “with a design which,” in writing to Dr. Beyer, he says,

“must not be made public beforehand.” We hardly understand the remark,

except that he anticipated some difficulty with regard to the object

of his journey,—the publication of another little work, entitled, “The

Intercourse Between the Soul and the Body,” in the French capital.

On his arrival in Paris, Swedenborg submitted his tract to M. Chevreuil,

Censor Royal, who, having read it, informed him that a tacit permission

to publish would be granted, on condition, as was customary in the case

of doubtful books, that the title should say, “printed at London,” or

“at Amsterdam.” This, Swedenborg’s nice sense of truth and honor could

not submit to, and he abandoned his intention of publishing it in Paris.

His enemies in Gottenburg then circulated a report that he had been

ordered to quit Paris, which he, in a letter to Dr. Beyer, pronounced a

direct falsehood, and appealed for the truth of the case to the Swedish

Ambassador to France.

“Rumor also,” writes Wilkinson, “has been busy with Swedenborg upon

this journey. The French ‘Universal Biography’ connects him with an

artist,—Elie,—who, it is alleged, supplied him with money, and furthered

his presumed designs. Indeed, he has been accused of a league with

the _illuminés_, and with a certain politico-theological freemasonry,

centuries old, but always invisible, which was to overturn society,

and foster revolutions all over the world. We can only say that our

researches have not elicited these particulars, and that every authentic

document shows that Swedenborg stood always upon his own basis,

accepted money from no one, and was just what he appeared—a theological

missionary, and nothing more.”

The short visit to Paris was terminated by his departure for London,

where, unfettered by censors, he published his little book—“The

Intercourse Between the Soul and the Body.”

One of Swedenborg’s warmest and most intelligent English friends, was the

Rev. Thomas Hartley, A. M., rector of Winwick, Northamptonshire,—himself

an author, and assistant translator of the first English edition of

“Heaven and Hell.” At this time he wrote to Swedenborg, fearing that

he might be in want of money, and offering to supply his needs; also

requesting an account of his past life and connections, as a means of

refuting calumnies. In his reply, Swedenborg satisfied him on these

points. He says to Mr. Hartley: “I take pleasure in the friendship you

express for me in your letter, and return you sincere thanks for the

same: but as to the praises you bestow upon me, I only receive them as

tokens of your love of the truths contained in my writings, and so refer

them to the Lord and Saviour, from whom is all truth, because he is the

Truth. John xiv. 6.

“I live on terms of familiarity and friendship with all the bishops of

my country, who are ten in number; as also with the sixteen senators,

and the rest of the nobility; for they know that I am in fellowship with

angels. The King and Queen also, and the three princes, their sons, show

me much favor. I was once invited by the King and Queen to dine at their

table,—an honor which is, in general, granted only to the nobility of

the highest rank; and likewise, since, with the hereditary Prince. They

all wished for my return home,—so far am I from being in any danger of

persecution in my own country, as you seem to apprehend, and so kindly

wish to provide against; and should anything of the kind befall me

elsewhere, it can not hurt me. But I regard all that I have mentioned as

matters of little moment; for, what far exceeds them, I have been called

to a holy office by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested

himself in person to me, his servant, in the year 1743; when he opened my

sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted me the privilege

of conversing with spirits and angels, which I enjoy to this day. I am

a Fellow, by invitation, of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm:

but I have never sought admission into any other Literary Society, as I

belong to an angelic society, wherein things relating to heaven and the

soul are the only subjects of discourse and entertainment; whereas the

things which occupy the attention of our Literary Societies are such as

relate to the world and the body. As for the world’s wealth, I have what

is sufficient, and more I neither seek nor wish for. Your letter has

drawn the mention of these things from me, with the view, as you suggest,

that any ill-grounded prejudices may be removed. Farewell! and from my

heart I wish you all felicity in this world and in the next; which I

make no doubt of your attaining, if you look and pray to our Lord.—E.

Swedenborg.” Dated, London, 1769.

Mr. Hartley, in 1781, when far advanced in years, thus gives his opinion

of Swedenborg:—

“The great Swedenborg was a man of uncommon humility. He was of a

catholic spirit, and loved all good men of every church, making at the

same time all candid allowance for the innocence of involuntary error.

However self-denying in his own person, as to gratifications and

indulgences, even within the bounds of moderation, yet nothing severe,

nothing of the precisian, appeared in him; but on the contrary, an

inward serenity and complacency of mind were manifest in the sweetness

of his looks and outward demeanor. It may reasonably be supposed that I

have weighed the character of our illustrious author in the scale of my

best judgment, from the personal knowledge I had of him, from the best

information I could procure respecting him, and from a diligent perusal

of his writings; and according thereto, I have found him to be the sound

divine, the good man, the deep philosopher, the universal scholar, and

the polite gentleman; and I further believe, that he had a high degree

of illumination from the spirit of God, was commissioned by Him as an

extraordinary messenger to the world, and had communication with angels

and the spiritual world far beyond any since the time of the Apostles.

As such, I offer his character to the world, solemnly declaring, that,

to the best of my knowledge, I am not herein led by any partiality or

private views whatever, being now dead to every worldly interest, and

accounting myself as unworthy of any higher character than that of a

penitent sinner.”

Two others of Swedenborg’s English friends were Dr. Messiter and

Dr. Hampé, who had been preceptor to George I. From a letter of Dr.

Messiter’s, we extract the following remarks on Swedenborg’s character:—

“I have had the honor of being frequently admitted to Swedenborg’s

company, when in London, and to converse with him on various points

of learning, and I will venture to affirm that there are no parts of

mathematical, philosophical, or medical knowledge, nay, I believe I might

justly say, of human literature, to which he is in the least a stranger;

yet so totally insensible is he of his own merit, that I am confident he

does not know that he has any; and as he himself somewhere says of the

angels, he always turns his head away on the slightest encomium.”

Swedenborg’s stay in England at this time does not seem to have been

longer than sufficed for the transaction of his business; for in

September, 1769, he sailed for Stockholm, arriving there at the beginning

of October. But we must now suspend the narrative of his life to offer a

few remarks on his little works,—“A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of

the New Church,” and “The Intercourse Between the Soul and the Body.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

_“Brief Exposition of the Doctrines of the New Church,” and

“The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body.”_