Page:A brief discussion of some of the claims of the Hon. E. Swedenborg.pdf/8

 various times, offices of a dignified and responsible nature, enjoying the intimacy and confidence of several of the sovereigns of Sweden, with the esteem and intercourse of the great ones of his nation; a man whose reputation had extended itself to all the colleges and seminaries of learning in the civilized world; a man whose morals were the most exemplary, and whose piety was the most eminent; whose integrity was the most undeviating, and veracity unquestionable; and in whose character the most determined opposers of his theological doctrines have in vain sought for a blot.

This man, then, at the very summit of an unparalleled reputation, in the 56th year of his age, in the vigour of his intellect and the bloom of his health, all at once declines his philosophical studies and scientifical pursuits, retires from court, relinquishes the offices of the state, and serenely passes into a private condition, where, for the remaining 29 years of his life, he assiduously devoted himself to theological enquiries, employing his fortune to the publication of his writings, wherein he has made disclosures of the most extraordinary kind, and declared sentiments which amount to the pretensions we have stated: so that from a philosopher he became a theologian, in like manner as the disciples from fishermen became apostles, namely, by a call from the Lord!

Now is it probable that a man so favourably circumstanced, a man of unblemished reputation and untainted truthfulness, would have made pretensions of so uncommon a nature, and persisted in them with so much candour of expression and consistency of character, for so long a period, if they had not been true? The supposition cannot be made to agree with such facts. They who would assert his statements to be false, must necessarily regard his conduct to be wicked, and they are called upon to reconcile the idea which assumes him