Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/199

 To all this was added the ineffable grace of being able to see and converse with the angels of heaven, who perceive in the Scriptures all the inner meaning applicable to their own capacity and needs. Nevertheless in his unfolding of the Word for the use of men he was not, he says, permitted to take anything from any angel, but solely from the Word itself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With all this guidance and never without, Swedenborg used scientific method in his studies, everything he wrote having passed through the alembic of his rational thought, to the end that it might be accepted by the rational thought of men. Thus throughout his explications of the Word he is continually drawing and demonstrating the internal meaning by citation of divers other passages in which the expression in question has the meaning he now assigns to it. This was the purpose of his indexes. And further, as he goes on, he continually refers back to previous numbers in which the same subject has been treated. By these constant citations and references it is that his volumes of explications become so bulky, the Arcana unfolded in Genesis and Exodus making in English twenty volumes.