Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/160

 were forgiven, and yet I could not control my wandering thoughts so as to restrain some expressions opposed to my better judgment: I was by permission under the influence of the Evil One. The temptation was assuaged by prayer and the Word of God: faith was there in its entirety, but confidence and love seemed to be gone."

After describing a terrible conflict that followed with a snake, changing to a dog, in a dream, he adds—

"From this may be seen the nature of the temptation and, on the other hand, the greatness of God's grace by the merit of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory forever and ever. The idea at once struck me how great the grace of the Lord is, who accounts and appropriates to us our resistance in temptation, though it is purely God's grace and is His and not our work; and He overlooks our weaknesses in it, which yet must be manifold. I thought also of the great glory our Lord dispenses after a brief period of tribulation. . . . Afterward I awoke and slept again many times and all was in answer to my thoughts, yet so that in everything there was such life and glory that I can give no description