Page:A Brief Account of the Character and Writings of the Honourable Emanuel Swedenborg.pdf/5

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"To this test, viz. the authority of the Sacred Scriptures, we offer the writings of the inspired Swedenborg, for examination and decision in every point of doctrine, and may challenge the most able opposer to shew wherein he has falsified, or even misapplied any part of them in what he has advanced: may, I think it may be affirmed with truth, that no one ever more highly exalted their honour and dignity, or exhibited more demonstrative proofs of a clear and comprehensive understanding of them; and even where he enters upon the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, (for these things, according to St. Paul, are an allegory) he executes this part of his office with so much religious reverence for the letter, that they who have not as yet attained to the spiritual sense of them, (if they are serious and unprejudiced) will be so far from having any reason to be offended, that they will rejoice to find that those portions of Scripture,which at first sight seem to contain so little of divine instruction, are significant of the most important truths. Even the wisdom of God in a mystery: Thus the pious mystical, and the pious literal Christian may unite in the spirit of love, and as different parts of the same temple, have their respective degrees of sanctity.

“It is particularly observable, that no writer, the knowledge of whom has come down to us, has opened the relation which things bear to each other in the natural and spiritual worlds, in the way of correspondence, in any degree equal to what our learned author has given on this subject, shewing how the invisible things of God in the latter may be clearly seen and understood by the things that do appear in this visible creation: His exposition of Genesis and Exodus, intitled Arcana Caelestia, in 8 vol. 4to, abound with instances of this kind, and are a rich treasure of heavenly secrets. In the same work we are given to see how the Spirit of God shadowed forth, and delineated the great mysteries of Gospel redemption, through regeneration, before and under the law, and so forming them into one consistent plan of the Divine wisdom and goodness for the recovery of poor lost man, by the Great Jehovah's assuming our human nature in the person of Jesus Christ; But our enlightened author proceeds still farther in the following work, and goes on to comfort us under the present sad degeneracy of the Christian Church, with a prospect of the New Jerusalem, from above, whereby Jesus Christ will bless the earth, under the administration of the Spirit of peace and love, and, by which, as he proves from Scripture, is to be understood the second coming of our Lord: not for the destruction of the earth and visible heavens, but for the renovation of the Gospel Spirit in the Church, now so sadly corrupted and fallen, as to render such a new dispensation necessary to the existence of a true. Christian Church on earth. On this important subject I shall offer something, under the following articles.