Page:A brief discussion of some of the claims of the Hon. E. Swedenborg.pdf/31

 the phenomena adverted to: they are effects commensurate with such a design, and they have come into existence since the period when Swedenborg announced the Lord's second advent to have been begun. Thus he has formally stated a circumstance, which, if true, must have been succeeded by such important facts as those adverted to. As, then, these facts have actually transpired, they certainly afford strong external proofs of the reality of his profession.

But, as it has been said, the internal and most certain evidence of it lies in the profound truth and incontrovertible character of the doctrines he has proclaimed. Upon these doctrines, as being the principles of heaven, because derived from and confirmed by the Holy Scriptures, we permit our minds to rest, as upon a rock of intellectual certainty; and we feel an internal assurance that a faithful discharge of the duties which they inculcate must conduce to eternal felicity.

These doctrines teach us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the exclusive God of heaven and earth, that being the name of Jehovah in His Divine humanity: and they rationally explain to us the nature of the Trinity existing in His glorious Person; illustrating it by means of the soul, body, and proceeding operations in man. They teach us that, as the Redeemer. He assumed a humanity in the world, as the only orderly medium of liberating man from the infernal bondage he had brought upon himself by an evil course, and thereby restored him to a condition of spiritual freedom. They prove to us that the Holy Scriptures have a celestial and spiritual sense, besides the literal: and that they are written according to a peculiar science, which treats of and explains the correspondence subsisting between spiritual causes and natural effects. They instruct us that a saving faith consists in shunning evils as sins against God, and living a life regulated by His holy commandments.

Such are some of the leading and practical features contained in the writings of the celebrated Swedenborg, a few of whose claims to be considered as the messenger of a new and improved dispensation of religion we have been enabled only briefly to detail, and but imperfectly to defend.

In conclusion, and to prevent misapprehension of the general object of this discourse, let it be carefully borne in mind that we believe the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ is to consist in the revelation of the genuine doctrines con-