Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/541

 SWEDENBORG 517 more had I been permitted. When you come into eternity, you will see all things as I have stated and described them, and we shall have much to say concerning them to each other." He then received the holy supper from Fere- lius, and presented him with a copy of his Arcana Ccelestia. A day or two afterward he peacefully breathed his last. His body was buried in a vault of the Swedish church in Prince's square, a little east of the tower. A eulogium was pronounced upon him in the Swedish house of nobles in October, 1772, by Samuel Sandels, which accords him high praise, not merely for learning and talent, but also for uprightness and fidelity in the discharge of his duties as a public functionary. Several of his acquaintances have also left written testi- mony to his virtuous character. Swedenborg's scientific works have long since ceased to be of practical value, but are still highly interest- ing as collections of facts, and as exhibiting their author's peculiar method of philosophi- zing. The system he followed was substan- tially that of Descartes, of whom he continued to the end of his life to speak with admiration, and this led him to conclusions resembling in some striking points those of Spinoza, who was likewise a Cartesian. His " Economy of the Animal Kingdom " is the best of his many productions anterior "to his theological career. In it he attempts to deduce a knowledge of the soul from an anatomical and physiologi- cal knowledge of the body, and evolves many doctrines which he afterward elaborated in his theological works. Indeed, some of his disciples hold that his seership was the natural result of his intellectual and moral develop- ment, and by no means an abnormal condition of mind. According to his own account, it came upon him gradually, and neither aston- ished nor alarmed him, although in its early stages he was subject to great mental excite- ment, the phenomena of which may have given rise to exaggerated stories of his insan- ity. The works written by him subsequent to this change in his mind are quite as system- atic and coherent as his earlier productions, and only his claim to a divine mission, and his frequent descriptions of what he saw and heard in the spiritual world, mark them as pe- culiar. They are consistent from first to last, and though they appeared at intervals during a period of 27 years, they nowhere deviate from the fundamental principles laid down at the outset. The general features of Sweden- borg's theology are presented in his treatise called the "True Christian Religion." He teaches that God is one in essence and in per- son, and has been revealed to men as the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Lord is a trinity, not of persons but of principles, and it is these prin- ciples which are spoken of in the Scriptures as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is the divine love, the Son the divine wisdom, and the Holy Ghost the divine operation or energy acting upon the universe. The Lord is infinite, eternal, self-existent, omnipresent, om- niscient, and omnipotent, and not only the creator but the sustainer of all creation, which without him would cease to exist. For the sake of redeeming mankind he assumed a nat- ural body born of the Virgin Mary, and glo- rified it or made it divine, so that it is now invisible to men, and also usually to the an- gels except as the sun of heaven. Redemp- tion consisted, not in suffering vicariously the punishment of men's sins (for that could not be done, and, if it could, would be useless), but in actual combats, by means of the as- sumed humanity, with the powers of hell, and overcoming them. This victory restored to man spiritual freedom, which had begun to be impaired by diabolic possessions as nar- rated in the Gospels, and enabled him to work out his salvation. This he does by looking to the Lord, with faith in him, by repen- tance, and above all by a life according to the commandments of the decalogue. The chief points that Swedenborg insists on in religion are faith in the Lord and the avoidance of evils as sins against him. Upon everything else, such as outward worship, prayer and meditation, and works of eleemosynary chari- ty, he lays but little stress. The essence of charity is love to the neighbor and occupa- tion in some useful employment. The "Word, he says, is the divine truth itself, written to reveal the Lord to man and to serve as a me- dium of conjunction between earth and heav- en. This Word consists of the books of Gen- esis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviti- cus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, the Psalms, the prophecies, the four Gospels, and the Apoc- alypse. The other books bound up with these in our Bibles are not the Word, although good and useful to the church. The distinction be- tween the two consists in this : that the Word contains an internal or spiritual sense, which the rest of the Bible has not. This spiritual sense is symbolical, and may be discerned by the application of the law of symbolism re- sulting from the universal correspondence of natural with spiritual things. Thus, the gar- den of Eden and all things mentioned as ex- isting in it symbolize the human soul and its affections and thoughts ; and the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the alienation of mankind. at a remote period from their original state of innocence. Hence, too, the decalogue for- bids not merely outward sins, but the inward spiritual sins corresponding to them, and the Psalms and prophecies relate not merely to David and the Jews, but to experiences of the human soul independent of dates and locali- ties. At the same time the literal sense alone can be relied on as a basis of doctrine, and Swedenborg is careful to cite it profusely in support of his teachings. The reason he gives for his mission is that the knowledge of true doctrine had been lost and the church de- stroyed by a false theology and accompanying evils of life. By the promulgation of the