Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/20

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG these attributes were personified and imaged, till in its downfall the images themselves were worshipped and idolatry was becoming universal. Then lest the knowledge of the One God and of His laws of life should be lost from the face of the earth, midway in both time and space between the erection of the pyramids and that of the Grecian temples, in the very centre of civilization, a new race was planted, in the land of Canaan—the old home perhaps of Adam and Eve—a race of Shemitic, still Noachian stock, a simple, nomadic race of unequalled persistence, fitting them to receive and preserve in integrity a new revelation of the Creator and His laws in concrete form—even graven in stone. These laws accompanied by many ritual statutes, with remains of the earlier Scriptural records, with the true yet symbolic history of this people, with their songs of prayer and praise, with prophecy from beginning to end of the coming of the Messiah who should bring dire judgment on their nation for their sins while bringing eternal salvation to those who would accept His redemption—all this was the spiritual legacy of this Noachian age to the ages to come. Says Schlegel—