Page:The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/27

 The thought is new; but what more reasonable? Clearly, the judgment should not be on a single generation of men. The whole idea and description forbid. But it has been assumed that all these generations which had gone would return to the earth to be judged. What more unreasonable? This could be only by the assumption again of earthly bodies, and the day for such a supposition is gone by. We do not hesitate to say that such a spiritual fulfilment as Swedenborg describes is the only one that in this age can be accepted. There will remain then the question of time. What time more probable, when we take into view the nearness and the connection of the one world with the other, than the time when the old life of the Church came to its end, there was a pause, and then new life with astonishing power began to spring forth? In short, what time more probable than when Bengel felt it must come, and would now believe it did come? Is any time conceivable in the future more probable? It will not do to fall back on the old idea of "the end of the world." No one of common-sense now believes that this world will come to an end within practically conceivable time. Every one knows that the Greek words mean "the consummation of the age." (Matt. xxiv. 3; xxviii. 30.) Need we look for a more thorough consummation of a Christian age than was that of the last century?

One question remains: how does Swedenborg profess to know this? He says that he was permitted to witness it, the eyes of his spirit being opened for the purpose. But is that possible? All things are possible to Him who openeth the eyes of the blind. But for what purpose did the Lord grant so great a privilege to one man? Through him to tell it all to us,—all about heaven and hell that in this new age we need to know; and most of all to unfold to us in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself, as seen in His own light,—the