Page:The New Church - What, How, Why .djvu/55

Rh any thing about the spiritual world, because no one has ever returned to tell us about it. The Lord has now made this statement untrue. That we might know about it, He prepared one so that he went to and came back from the spiritual world many times. For, through the providence of the Lord, he was prepared and so constituted that he lived consciously and really in the spiritual world, and could mingle with spirits and angels. From such experience and association, what he reveals as having seen was not seen in vision or dream, but actually as we see and learn the things of this world, and as angels learn the things of the spiritual world. Swedenborg by the direction of Providence wrote down for the Church on earth the things heard and seen. Not only are these rational and interesting, but they throw great light upon the Word. For that holy book is written with full implication of the spiritual world being as Swedenborg has described it. He gives us