Page:The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/438



Author:Issac Watts had said, in his treatise on the Improvement of the Mind,—

"Nor should a student in Divinity imagine that our age is arrived at a full understanding of everything which can be known by the Scriptures. Every age since the Reformation hath thrown some further light on difficult texts and paragraphs of the Bible, which have been long obscured by the early rise of Antichrist; and since there are at present many difficulties and darknesses hanging about certain truths of the Christian religion; and since several of these relate to important doctrines, such as the origin of sin, the fall of Adam, the Person of Christ, the blessed Trinity, the decrees of God, etc., which do still embarrass the minds of honest and inquiring readers, and which make work for noisy controversy,—it is certain there are several things in the Bible yet unknown, and not sufficiently explained; and it is certain there is some way to solve these difficulties, and to reconcile these seeming contradictions. And why may not a sincere searcher of truth, in the present age, by labor, diligence, study, and prayer, with the best use of his reasoning powers, find out the proper solution of these knots and perplexities, which have hitherto been unsolved, and which have afforded matter for angry quarrelling? Happy is the man who shall be favored of Heaven to give a helping hand towards the introduction of the blessed age of light and love."

In what manner Swedenborg was thus favored, the body of this book should show. But independently of his labors, and in wholly different manner, other men have been at work, and have been favored, from the time of Bengel till now.

Philip Matthias Hahn (died 1790) said, "I regard this the true spirit of Christianity,—when every word of God in the Old and in the New Testament is sweet, important, and dear; and when we find therein no favorite truths, but everything is good and agreeable to us, because it is connected with the rest."

Johann Gottfried von Herder (died 1803) said, "It is certainly a fine thread which pervades the Old and New Testaments, especially in those passages where symbol and fact, history and poetry, mingle together. Rough hands can seldom follow it, much less unravel it, without breaking or tangling it, or without