Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/791

Rh him, which was to make of the scientific inquirer the supernaturalist prophet. Neither by geometrical, nor physical, nor metaphysical principles had he succeeded in reaching and grasping the infinite and the spiritual, or in elucidating their relation to man and man's organism, though he had caught glimpses of facts and methods which he thought only required confirmation and development. Late in life he wrote to Oetinger that “he was introduced by the Lord first into the natural sciences, and thus prepared, and, indeed, from the year 1710 to 1744, when heaven was opened to him.” This latter great event is described by him as “the opening of his spiritual sight,” “the manifestation of the Lord to him in person,” “his introduction into the spiritual world.” Before his illumination he had been instructed by dreams, and enjoyed extraordinary visions, and heard mysterious conversations. According to his own account, the Lord filled him with His spirit to teach the doctrines of the New Church by the word from Himself; He commissioned him to do this work, opened the sight of his spirit, and so let him into the spiritual world, permitting him to see the heavens and the hells, and to converse with angels and spirits for years; but he never received anything relating to the doctrines of the church from any angel but from the Lord alone while he was reading the word (True Christian Religion, No. 779). He elsewhere speaks of his office as principally an opening of the spiritual sense of the word. His friend Robsahm reports, from Swedenborg's own account to him, the circumstances of the first extraordinary revelation of the Lord, when He appeared to him and said, “I am God the Lord, the Creator and Redeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to unfold the spiritual sense of the Holy Scripture. I will Myself dictate to thee what thou shalt write.” From that time he gave up all worldly learning, and laboured solely to expound spiritual things. But it was some time before he became quite at home in the spiritual world. In the year 1747 he resigned his post of assessor of the college of mines that he might devote himself to his higher vocation, requesting only to be allowed to receive as a pension the half of his salary. He took up afresh his study of Hebrew, and began his voluminous works on the interpretation of the Scriptures. The principal of these is the Arcana Cœlestia in eight quarto volumes, which he printed in London between 1749 and 1756, professing to have derived the whole of it by direct illumination from the Almighty Himself, and not from any spirit or angel. His later work De Cœlo et de Inferno (London, 1758) consists of extracts and portions of the Arcana. His MS. work Apocalypsis Explicata, expounding the doctrines of the New Church, was prepared in 1757-59. In 1763 appeared his Sapientia Angelica de Divino Amore et de Divina Sapientia, containing the most philosophical brief account of the principles of the New Church. The long list of his subsequent writings will be found in the works mentioned below. His life from 1747 was spent alternately in Sweden, Holland, and London, in the composition of his works and their publication, till his death, which took place in London, March 29, 1772.