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 of any person, and this without the least fallacy. And whereas several say that they would believe, if any one should come to them from another life, it will now be seen whether they will be persuaded contrary to the hardness of their hearts.”—Arcana Cœlestia. Gen. xvi. Pref.

“The state of the world hereafter will be quite similar to what it has been heretofore, for the great change which has been effected in the spiritual world does not induce any change in the natural world as regards the outward form; so the affairs of states, peace, treaties, wars, with all other things which belong to societies of men, in general and in particular, will exist in the future just as they existed in the past. But as for the state of the Church, this it is which will be dissimilar hereafter; it will be similar, indeed, in the outward form, but dissimilar in the inward. To outward appearance divided Churches will exist as heretofore; their doctrines will exist as heretofore; and the same religions as now will exist among the Gentiles. But henceforth the man of the Church will be in a more free way of thinking in matters of faith, that is, in spiritual things which relate to heaven, because spiritual liberty has now been restored to him. I have had various converse with the angels concerning the state of the Church hereafter. They said that things to come they know not, for that the knowledge of things to come belongs to the Lord alone; but that they do know that the slavery and captivity in which the man of the Church was formerly, is removed, and that now, from restored liberty, he can perceive interior truths, if he wills to perceive them, and thus be made more internal if he wills it; but that still they have slender hope of the men of the Christian Church.”—Last Judgment.

If then we have arrived at the epoch when a new dispensation was to be ushered into the world, there is nothing incredible in the idea that a human instrument should be raised up and supernaturally endowed to disclose the character of that dispensation, especially by unfolding the interior sense of the Word, which must constitute the nourishment of the life of the Church of the latter day. That Emanuel Swedenborg possessed in a pre-eminent degree all the requisites to qualify such an instrument for such a work, will appear beyond question to any one who shall take sufficient interest in the subject to acquaint himself with his life and character. So far as moral and intellectual attainments are concerned, we see nothing wanting to the fullness of his accomplishments. And if the Second Coming has thus, like the first, stolen upon the world unawares, we perceive nothing unreasonable in the idea, that its appointed harbinger may have come equally incognito, and that the Elias—the John the Baptist—of the new economy, may have ushered in the footsteps of his Lord, fulfilling his ministry as a kind of “Veiled Prophet,” shrouded in an obscurity which is destined ere long to break away, and to be succeeded by a flood of light that shall illuminate the earth.