Benjamin Worcester

“ Judgment of scores of generations in place of the one or two possible on earth, without limit of space or time; judgment of the inner souls and tenets of men there revealed; overthrow of spirit heavens and earth, leaving this earth of ours to bide its time; angels without number bearing the Divine light down to the overthrow of the prince of darkness and all his satellites! In truth the spirit world alone could be fit theatre for the fulfilment of the vision vouchsafed to John. ”

“ Thus it appears that Swedenborg, after as before his introduction into his spiritual office and into visible heavenly companionship, was alive to the important questions of the day to which he was called by love for his country and his duty as a member of its Diet. With spiritual eyes open to all his spiritual surroundings, his natural eyes were wide open also to all real needs of this world. He lived much alone, as his constant absorbing labors required, but he was not a recluse. He had many friends among statesmen and men of learning, with whom he enjoyed pleasant intercourse. ”

“ It is like pouring a liquor upon some exquisite wine, which throws it into a froth, sullies its purity, and clouds its translucence. It is as if the animal spirits were stirred into waves, and a tempest drove the grosser blood into insurgent motion, by which the organs of internal sensation or perception becoming swollen, the powers of thought are dulled, and the whole scene of action in their theatre changed. In those who experience these disorderly states, the rational faculty is crippled and brought to a standstill ”

“ Since we are saved of free grace without any merit of our own, what need is there of any faith but this—that God the Father sent the Son to take away the curse of the law, to impute his merit to us, and so to justify us in His sight, and absolve us from our sins by the declaration of a priest, and then give the Holy Ghost to operate all good in us? ”

“ The handmaid of the understanding is observation, the master of the house is reason—the power of collating ideas and drawing conclusions. To the handmaid the universe unfolds itself in which as in a mirror may be seen the Divine purpose, creating an infinity of organisms for mutual ever-ascending service, with man himself at the head, anointed with the high mission to aspire to the Divine image, and to accept the Divine will for his own. ”

“ The answer can hardly be other than that Swedenborg was not only a learned anatomist and a sharp-sighted observer, but also in many respects an unprejudiced, acute, and deep anatomical thinker. He towers in the history of the study of the brain as a unique, wonderful, phenomenal spirit—as an ideal seeker for truth, who advanced step by step to ever higher problems. One may more easily understand his life and labors when one places his achievements in Anatomy and Physiology in juxtaposition with those in Geology, Mechanics, Cosmogony, and Physics. ”

“ But in the succeeding centuries, as we have seen, clouds of misinterpretation, the clouds of tri-personalism, of vicarious atonement, and of salvation by faith alone, had hidden His face from men's minds. The dispersion of these clouds, the re-appearance of the face—the grace and truth—of the Son of Man, even in the letter of His written Word, was to effect the judgment on the declining age of the Church and reveal the dawning light of the new age. ”

“ Should I undertake to make known all the mistakes of which I have heard, and which I know from my own experience to have happened in England and Holland to the detriment of justice and the public good, I believe I might fill a whole book with lamentations; when, nevertheless, those governments, together with our own in Sweden, are the very best in Europe, as every inhabitant, notwithstanding all the shortcomings which happen there, is safe in his life and property, and no one is a slave, but they are all free men. ”

“ He sees little or nothing in the most studied researches of others, but everything—oh, how vain-glorious!—in his own. Nor can he return to correct conceptions until his elated thoughts have subsided to their proper level. 'There are many,' says Seneca, 'who might have attained wisdom, had they not fancied they had attained it already.' The Muses love a tranquil mind; and there is nothing but humility, contempt of self, and simple love of truth, that can prevent or remedy the evils we have described.
"But how often does a man labor in vain to divest himself of his own nature! ”

“ Then lest the knowledge of the One God and of His laws of life should be lost from the face of the earth, midway in both time and space between the erection of the pyramids and that of the Grecian temples, in the very centre of civilization, a new race was planted, in the land of Canaan—the old home perhaps of Adam and Eve—a race of Shemitic, still Noachian stock, a simple, nomadic race of unequalled persistence, fitting them to receive and preserve in integrity a new revelation of the Creator and His laws in concrete form—even graven in stone. ”

“ When therefore the philosopher has arrived at the end of his studies, even supposing him to have acquired so complete a knowledge of all mundane things that nothing more remains for him to learn, he must there stop; for he can never know the nature of the Infinite Being, of His Supreme Intelligence, Supreme Providence, Supreme Love, Supreme Justice, and other infinite attributes. He will therefore acknowledge that in respect to this supremely intelligent and wise Being his knowledge is nothing: he will hence most profoundly venerate Him with the utmost devotion of soul ”

“ How truly does this explain the return of the Christian mind to the simple Gospel and the right understanding thereof!
The new heaven was formed of those gathered by the judgment into the fold of the Good Shepherd. The new earth, its child in the world, is being born and nurtured. But the holy city, the new Jerusalem, what is that? A city is the abode of a community of men, with separate dwellings but with common streets in which they walk in concert, and public grounds and buildings for common interests. ”

“ Swedenborg says, "the intellect unless from what is revealed contributes nothing, but faith springing from God does the work. And so, His will being invoked, His spirit flows into the soul and changes its state, or perfects it; but the work is one of long discipline, if the soul is evil, that it may become good. . . . Hence it is plain how difficult it is to turn an evil soul into a good one, and that this is of the Divine grace alone, though there must be persevering application on the part of man." ”

“ Thus are we led by the spirit of grace; how then can sin have place in us, and what power has death over us? Do you comprehend this Gospel, thou preacher of sin and repentance?' At that instant a voice was heard from heaven, saying, 'What is the faith of an impenitent man but a dead faith? The end is come, the end is come upon you that are secure, blameless in your own eyes, justified in your own faith, ye devils.' And suddenly a deep gulf was opened in the midst of the city, which spread itself far and wide, and the houses fell one upon another and were swallowed up ”

“ But the actual confirmation of the truth proceeds from its accordance with numerous reasons, confirmed by experience by means of the sciences, and each point of which accordance receives a similar assent—the mind going onward the while with assiduous attention and pains by the analytic way, or from effects to causes. In addition to these delights there are still more universal signs, as the desire and the passion for attaining truth, and the love of the truth attained, not for the sake of our own advantage, but for that of the advantage of human society ”

“ Thus the atmosphere was cleared above and about men's souls; and from that time forward whenever the Word of God is read with simple heart, the light of heaven, which is none other than that of the Holy Spirit, flows into the mind and enables it to see with some clearness the true purport of what is read. ”

“ Such a society cannot exist without its Head or Prince; that is to say, without Him who has been man, without blame and without offence, victor over all affections of the mind, virtue itself and piety itself, and the love of God above one's self, and the love of the companion and neighbor, and thus Divinity in Himself—in whom the whole society should be represented, and through whom the members of the society might come to His will. Without such a king of souls, the society might be gathered and exist in vain. ”

“ If we wish to invite real truths, whether natural or moral or spiritual—for they all make common cause by means of correspondence and representation—into the sphere of our rational minds, it is necessary that we extinguish the impure fires of the body and thereby our own delusive lights, and submit and allow our minds unmolested by the influences of the body to be illumined with the rays of the spiritual power: then for the first time truths flow in, for they all emanate from that power as their peculiar fountain. ”

“ Through the whole heaven they know no other Father than the Lord, because they are One, as He said: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' Philip saith, 'Show us the Father.' Jesus saith to him, 'Am I so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? ”

“ This have I learned, that the only thing . . . is in all humility to thank God for His grace and to pray for it, and to recognize our own unworthiness and God's infinite grace. . . . The sum of all I found to be this, that the one thing needful is to cast one's self in all humility on our Lord's grace, to recognize one's own unworthiness, and to thank God in humility for His grace; for if there is a feeling of glorification contained in it, the tendency of which is toward our own honor—whether it is a glorification of God's grace or of anything else—such a feeling is impure. ”

“ The last end, which also is the first, is that our minds, at length become forms of intelligence and innocence, may constitute a spiritual heaven, a kingdom of God, or a holy society, in which the end of creation may be regarded by God, and by which God may be regarded as the end of ends. From infinite wisdom, added to equal power, and this to equal providence, such perpetual end flows constantly from the first end to the last, and from the last to the first, through the intermediate ends, that declare the glory of the Divinity. ”

“ It lies in this, that man can acknowledge and does acknowledge God; that he can believe and does believe that God is infinite; that though he is ignorant of the nature of the Deity, yet he can acknowledge and does acknowledge His existence, and this without the shadow of doubt. And especially does it consist in this further privilege, that by this undoubting faith he is sensible in love, or delight resulting from love, of a peculiar connection with the Infinite. ”

“ Doubtless in this claim for reward in His kingdom the Lord saw the tares sown with the wheat and foresaw the sad end of this first age of His Church. None knew so well as He the slow and painful steps by which man must be led out of the natural self-seeking life of this world into the spiritual self-devoting life of the Father's kingdom. ”

“ And again, "If we carefully attend to profound thoughts, we shall find that when we draw breath, a host of ideas rush from beneath as through an open door into the sphere of thought, whereas when we hold the breath, and slowly let it out, we deeply keep the while in the tenor of our thought, and communicate as it were with the higher faculty of the soul—as I have observed in my own person times without number. ”

“ Here we have a ready basis for Swedenborg's later understanding that God is in the Sun of heaven, and that through this Sun He sends life and force into the sun of this world, for the support of material existence. ”

“ How often, when ignorant or unmindful of the love that creeps upon him, will he betray a partiality to himself and the offspring of his own genius! If an author therefore desires that his studies should give birth to anything of sterling value, let him be advised, when he has committed to paper what he considers to be of particular merit and is fond of frequently perusing, to lay it aside for a while, and after the lapse of months to return to it as to something he had forgotten, and as the production not of himself but of some other writer. ”

“ In the part of The Animal Kingdom treating of the soul, he says—
"To change the disposition is to change the very nature. To change a good disposition into an evil one is comparatively easy; but to change an evil one into a good is more difficult. This can in no way be effected except by means of the rational mind and its understanding, whether the understanding be our own, or derived from faith, or persuaded by authority. Nor is the nature changed unless we become averse to evils and abhor them, and never lead our mind back into the former state ”

“ They look on no one with a scornful brow or supercilious air, nor arrogate any praise to themselves. They ascribe all to the Deity, and regard Him as the source from which all true wisdom descends. In the promotion of His glory they place the end and object of their own."
Remarking now how sensual and worldly cares impair this noble faculty, he says, "Nothing super-induces more darkness on the human mind than the interference of its own fancied providence in matters that properly belong to the Divine providence." ”

“ This Divine Human presence manifesting itself by the Holy Spirit, calling all things to our remembrance whatsoever He has said unto us in all the Scriptures, the Church has been slow to apprehend. Only in love can it be apprehended. An age must pass of faulty apprehension in which the love of the many will wax cold. ”

“ There is not a single thought which is not very much alloyed with uncleanness and impurity. It is therefore best that man should every hour and every moment acknowledge that he is deserving of the punishment of hell, but that God's grace and mercy which are in Jesus Christ overlook it. I have indeed observed that our whole will into which we are born, and which is ruled by the body and introduces thought, is opposed to the Spirit which does this; wherefore there is a continual strife, and we can by no manner of means unite ourselves with the Spirit, which by grace is with us ”

“ Not long after, in refutation of some charges against the Government, Swedenborg addressed the Diet in these terms:—
"Every human being is inclined by nature, and nothing is easier and pleasanter for him to do than to find faults in others, and to pass an unfavorable judgment upon them, inasmuch as all of us are by nature inclined to see the mote in our brother's eye and not to see the beam in our own eyes; moreover we are apt to strain out a gnat and to swallow a camel. All proud and evil-disposed men place their prudence in finding fault with and blaming others ”