Ebenezer Swedenborg

“ From that time to the hour of his death, he was one of the greatest supporters of the doctrine of the New Church of the Lord, and declared openly, that the theological writings of Swedenborg were the most precious treasures given for the welfare of mankind. ”

“ These grand rhymes or returns in nature,- the dear, best-known face startling us at every turn, under a mask so unexpected that we think it the face of a stranger, and carrying up the semblance into divine forms,- delighted the prophetic eye of Swedenborg; and he must be reckoned a leader in that revolution, which, by giving to science an idea, has given to an aimless accumulation of experiments, guidance and form and a beating heart. ”

“ For Swedenborg was one who, though entirely open and steadfast in the maintenance of his pretensions, knew how to live with kings, nobles, clergy, and people, without being the object of persecution to any. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His name, which in past times has too often been used to point a sarcasm at whatever is visionary and transcendental, has of late years been slowly rising into estimation. Here and there, one eminent man after another has spoken some brave words in honor and [22] admiration of the great Swede. Slowly, but surely, his writings are claiming attention; his disciples, though still few, are quietly earnest and enthusiastic, and ever and anon there is seen in the newspaper or periodical, the name of Swedenborg mentioned with respect, if not with reverence. ”

“ Hartley, in 1781, when far advanced in years, thus gives his opinion of Swedenborg:—
“The great Swedenborg was a man of uncommon humility. He was of a catholic spirit, and loved all good men of every church, making at the same time all candid allowance for the innocence of involuntary error. ”

“ Friendly Swedes in London took charge of the last services, at which their pastor, Arvid Ferelius, officiated, and the body was deposited in the vault of the Swedish Ulrica-Eleonora church. In this little church which had often welcomed Swedenborg as a worshipper, his remains reposed until the building itself was no longer required in its location and was to be taken down. Then at the request of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences the Swedish Government, having obtained permission of the English Government, in April, 1908, transported these remains in a Swedish frigate to their native land. ”

“ The chief point of interest, and that to which we invite the reader's special attention, is, that more than a hundred years ago, Swedenborg was so enlightened as to foresee and foretell by what method or instrumentalities mainly the New Christianity would be propagated; and events transpiring in our own day, an ample record of which is to be found in "Independent Witnesses," are a manifest realization of the very thing he foresaw and foretold. ”

“ He is so far from desiring to make a gain of his labors, that he will not receive one farthing back of the four hundred pounds he has expended; and for that reason his works will come exceedingly cheap to the public."
In the spring of 1750 Swedenborg returned again to Stockholm, having spent the intervening time partly in London, but mostly in Holland. In Stockholm he remained, tending his garden and busily employed on the Arcana. We hear no more of him at the College of Mines, but for some time yet we have an occasional paper presented to the Diet. ”

“ Few men in those days were capable of sympathy or communion with the elevated and spiritualized mind of Swedenborg. Yet though living as it were alone, he could not have been melancholy or desolate. Under the care and guidance of the Lord, favored with the company and converse of angels, and enjoying the consciousness of fulfilling high and holy duties, he had every reason to be the cheerful and contented man that contemporary testimony represents him. ”

“ In this respect we do well to compare Swedenborg with many whom the world in its ignorance associate with him. At no period of his life was he a cold self-righteous ascetic, looking abroad upon men with a bitter and accusing scowl. At no time did he insult his Maker with upbraidings that his fate was to live in an evil world, and with a wicked generation. He received life with thankfulness, partook temperately of all its lawful pleasures, did his duty, and took care while living with the world to keep himself unspotted from its evil. ”

“ Swedenborg had to have a revelation from heaven to enable him to catch a glimpse of his malady which he ought to have known by intuition. His nature was all the time complaining, and what an expression that is when men speak of their "complaints," when by pains, which are warnings, nature is reporting her grievances at head-quarters. But the heavens were opened and Swedenborg went into ecstasy over the kindness of the angel whose message to him was a warning not to eat so much. ”

“ The history of hierarchies seems to show, that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and, at last, nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
Swedenborg, of all men in the recent ages, stands eminently for the translator of nature into thought. I do not know the man in history to whom things stood so uniformly for words. Before him the metamorphosis continually plays. Everything on which his eye rests, obeys the impulses of moral nature. The figs become grapes whilst he eats them. ”

“ He had not only spoken with Swedenborg himself, but had also visited him at his house; and he is now in the greatest astonishment respecting such a remarkable case. Swedenborg is a reasonable, polite, and open-hearted man ; he is also a man of learning ”

“ Its length alone prevents our gratifying the reader with the perusal of this beautiful tribute of filial affection. [25] Among his many virtues, it should not be accounted the least, that Swedenborg was a loving, dutiful son.
The same year he published, in a work of his father’s, a Latin version of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, which proved, in a high degree, his mastery of the Latin language.
In 1710, was finished the strictly scholastic period of Swedenborg’s life. He had now reached manhood, and must live as a man among men. ”

“ Every minister knows perfectly well, that, on account of the intense but blind prejudice against Swedenborg in nearly every Christian community, he could not announce his acceptance of this man's revealings without causing more or less disturbance in his society and denomination. ”

“ Possibly Swedenborg paid the penalty of introverted faculties. Success, or a fortunate genius, seems to depend on a happy adjustment of heart and brain; on a due proportion, hard to hit, of moral and mental power, which perhaps obeys the law of those chemical ratios which make a proportion in volumes necessary to combination, as when gases will combine in certain fixed rates, but not at any rate. It is hard to carry a full cup ”

“ But if he has done this, if the spiritual sense illumines his pages, a further gift from the wisdom of the Divine Mind to man, to be seen by the pure in heart, and to be understood by the earnest, patient, candid, and humble seeker after Divine truth, then is Swedenborg the highest earthly authority on spiritual subjects. ”

“ Over and above the merit of his particular discoveries, is the capital merit of his self-equality. A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero; and, in Swedenborg, those who are best acquainted with modern books will most admire the merit of mass. ”

“ Swedenborg is retrospective, nor can we divest him of his mattock and shroud. Some minds are for ever restrained from descending into nature; others are for ever prevented from ascending out of it. With a force of many men, he could never break the umbilical cord which held him to nature, and he did not rise to the platform of pure genius.
It is remarkable that this man, who, by his perception of symbols, saw the poetic construction of things and the primary relation of mind to matter, remained entirely devoid of the whole apparatus of poetic expression, which that perception creates. ”

“ And here we have Emanuel Swedenborg of such birthright, with devotion of his life to the advancement of mankind, led through severest mathematical, mechanical, and philosophical reasoning—without as yet any consciousness of special guidance or purpose—to absolute demonstration in his own mind of the necessity and the existence of the Divine Son of Man, to be sought and found by us in the Holy Scriptures. ”

“ And it will, I feel sure, be the best missionary that can be employed."
"I have read your "cloud of Independent Witnesses' with intense interest. It seems to be unique in its nature and use; and if it could have a wide circulation, it would do more than any other book to allay prejudice and stimulate a desire, especially among 'evangelicals,' to study the writings of Swedenborg for themselves. I am surprised at the large number of ministers in the old churches who are reading and teaching the heavenly doctrines. Their testimony has no uncertain sound. ”

“ There are two circumstances in the doctrine and writings of Swedenborg. The first is his 'memorable relations.' Of these I cannot judge, not having had any spiritual intercourse myself, by which to judge of his assertions either approvingly or disapprovingly; but they cannot appear more extraordinary than the Apocalypse of John, and other similar relations in the Bible. The second is his tenets of doctrine. Of these I can judge: they are excellent, irrefutable, and the best that ever were taught, promoting the happiest social life. I know that Swedenborg wrote his memorabilia bonâ fide. ”

“ Shall we say, that the economical mother disburses so much earth and so much fire, by weight and meter, to make a man, and will not add a pennyweight, though a nation is perishing for a leader? Therefore the men of God purchased their science by folly or pain. If you will have pure carbon, carbuncle, or diamond, to make the brain transparent, the trunk and organs shall be so much the grosser: instead of porcelain they are potter's earth, clay, or mud.
In modern times no such remarkable example of this introverted mind has occurred as in Emanuel Swedenborg, born in Stockholm, in 1688. ”

“ We are aware that Swedenborg's claim to have so long enjoyed open intercourse with spirits and angels, and to have been divinely commissioned to reveal what he did concerning the other world, is discredited by many honest and intelligent people. ”

“ SWEDENBORGIANS denote that particular denomination of Christians who admit the testimony of Baron Swedenborg, and receive the doctrines taught in the theological writings of that author. Emanuel Swedenborg was the son of a bishop of West Gothnia, in the kingdom of Sweden, whose name was Swedberg, a man of considerable learning and celebrity in his time. The son was born at Stockholm, January 29, 1688. He enjoyed early the advantages of a liberal education, and being naturally endowed with uncommon talents for the acquirement of learning, his progress in the sciences was rapid and extensive ”

“ We may reasonably conclude that there are hundreds of thousands in the various Christian organizations, and doubtless many outside of all organizations, whose souls are open to the influx of the new light and life, and who are therefore in interior and blissful conjunction with the Lord, and in association with the New Heaven of angels. And if this conclusion is well founded, then the New Church of which Swedenborg speaks cannot be a visible body distinguished by its doctrines, but is wider and more comprehensive than any existing organization—as wide, indeed, as the Lord's kingdom on earth. ”

“ We have seen that at his home in Stockholm—a simple one-story house in his loved garden— Swedenborg was cared for in later life by his gardener and wife. Of these good friends this pleasant story is told by one who paid them a visit after their employer's decease. As they themselves told him—
"One day the old man and the old woman, the modest gardener-folks [who had been disturbed by meddling neighbors] dressed in their holiday suits, entered Swedenborg's silent study, the room with the brown panel-paintings, the gable windows, and a view out on the lilac bushes. ”

“ In the spring of 1769, Swedenborg published at Amsterdam, A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church, “in which work,” he says, writing to Dr. Beyer, “are fully shown the errors of the existing doctrines of justification by faith alone, and of the imputation of the righteousness or merits of Jesus Christ.” He sent the little book to all the clergy throughout Holland, and to the most eminent in Germany; but, on second thought, sent only one copy to Sweden, to Dr. Beyer, requesting him to keep it to himself, for true divinity in Sweden was in a wintry state. ”