Page:Swedenborgs Maximus Homo.pdf/36

 of Swedenborg, proving the New Jerusalem to be a truly catholic church.

Any one who has carefully observed the tendencies of religious thought and the movements of religious bodies during the last half century—the growth of heavenly charity, religious toleration, freedom of inquiry, and something like true catholicity—cannot fail to see that there has been and continues to be a steady approximation by nearly all the churches toward the teaching involved in the heavenly doctrine of the Grand Man. As the churches receive more and more of the Divine Humanity, and thus become internally more and more human, they come into friendlier and more helpful relations,—assume a more truly human form or attitude toward each other. And as the doctrines and spirit of the New Jerusalem descend with ever-increasing fullness into the churches, making them more human in spirit, the time will surely come when the church on earth will be, in the aggregate, like the church in heaven in the human form. But we need not expect that time to come, until the Lord's will is done on the earth as it is done in the heavens.

Let no one imagine from what we have said that we are opposed to, or deprecate the existence of, a separate church organization based upon the new doctrines revealed from heaven. On the contrary, we recognize the propriety, necessity, and