Page:A brief discussion of some of the claims of the Hon. E. Swedenborg.pdf/23

 pronounced to be mysteries which reason must not dare to handle, or philosophy attempt to touch. Do not these facts prove, most convincingly, that there is no true intelligence upon the most important subjects of revelation in that dispensation of which they are predicable? When mystery begins, there is some reason to suspect that truth has ended: wisdom is one of of the capital attributes of a genuine church; if, then, a church professes to exist, which teaches doctrines that cannot be received among the people as principles of rational intelligence, or be regarded by them as the subjects of wisdom, the conclusion that it has come to its end, is irresistible. Doctrines which cannot be comprehended by man, cannot be of any intellectual or practical use to him.

But why are those doctrines asserted to be mysteries? Because investigation brings to light certain deformities which their espousers deem it desirable to hide. And why is reason forbidden to exercise its functions upon those important subjects? Because the conclusion to which it must necessarily arrive is unfavourable to their truth, and conducive to their rejection. It would be no difficult matter to prove that all the doctrines adverted to, are in the professing church erroneously understood, both by the efforts of reason, and from the testimony of revelation; but our purpose, on this occasion, will be answered by a reference to one, namely, that which relates to the second advent of the Lord.

That the Lord declared he would come again is a truth well known: the event is frequently treated of in the Word; but the manner in which the prediction is to be fulfilled is erroneously understood. The language in which it is most particularly described is the following:—"Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Now this language is commonly interpreted to mean that the Lord Jesus Christ will, at the end of the world, appear in person in those clouds which float in the atmosphere around us. A general objection to this view of the subject is that it is sensual in the extreme. Such an inter-