Page:Right and Wrong Unveilings of the Spiritual World.djvu/11



The purpose of this little book may be briefly told.

The first chapter, furnishing its title, is primarily intended to remove any existing impression in the reader's mind that Swedenborg's unveilings of the unseen world are in some way related to what is known as Spiritualism, or, more properly speaking, Spiritism. Swedenborg speaks as a Revelator, a man of God, or, in his own words, as "the Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ." He comes, not to add to or detract from, the Bible messages of the past, but to open up the deeper meaning of those revelations for a new and rational or manhood age of human development.

Every prophet of God in the past has had a more or less clear vision of realities beyond this world. This is the first great fact of prophecy. Another great fact is that God speaks, not man, nor spirit, nor angel. The third great fact is that God reveals, whenever he speaks, a message for daily and higher life, not chiefly to satisfy curiosity, or overcome scepticism by sensuous proof of another world, or even to comfort us in our affliction; much less to minister to our bodily health, or lead us to greater financial