Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/21

 "The significant brevity of the first pages of the Mosaic history involves much profound truth for us in these later ages . . . did we but know how to extract the simple sense with like simplicity. ... In general the whole tenor of the Mosaic writings, like the existence of the Hebrew nation, was formed for futurity. . . . So the whole Hebrew people may in a lofty sense be called prophetic, and have been really so in their historical existence and destiny." "The Hebrew tongue was eminently adapted to the high spiritual destination of the Hebrew people, and was a fit organ of the prophetic revelation and promises imparted to that nation"

The ever deplorable conduct of the Jewish leaders in crucifying Him who came to save them ended the leadership of that church in the spiritual development of mankind. But their traditions, their Scriptures remained to become the framework of the new church of the Lord, itself the prototype of the New Jerusalem, His final tabernacle with men. And we are never to forget the maternal service of the Hebrew Church for the birth of its Lord into the world, first in the written