Emanuel Swedenborg

“ 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 ”

“ If, especially, he has vexed and worn himself in reading the profitless controversies and lucubrations of learned divines on the Trinity, his fretted and heated mind will experience a spiritual relief similar to the natural one which results when patience has become exhausted in vain endeavors to unfasten a lock, and a skilled mechanic draws near, takes the work out of our hands, and with dexterity and ease accomplishes the task in a moment. Swedenborg lays his hand on the tangled mass of mysticism and perverted Scripture, and straightway the Gordian knot is untied. ”

“ It is but just here to say that Swedenborg does not profess to give all the internal meaning of which the Word is the repository. So far from it, he represents the Word to be infinite; to contain even profounder depths of wisdom than can be expressed in the language of men; adapted, by successive unfoldings, to the angels of all the heavens,—to the highest state of intelligence that finite minds can ever, to all eternity, attain; and extending upwards even to God Himself, as the rays of light extend to the sun. ”

“ He would be like one with his hands hanging limp, his mouth open, his eyes shut, holding his breath in expectation of influx. He would divest himself of the human which he has from the perception and sensation that he thinks, wills, speaks and acts as it were of himself. At the same time he would divest himself of the two faculties, liberty and rationality, distinguishing him from the beasts. Above in this treatise and in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom it was shown that without this appearance a man would not have the power to receive or reciprocate nor have immortality then. ”

“ Emanuel Swedenborg was, prior to and independently of his marked spiritual illumination late in life, one of the most erudite [Pg 476] and illustrious scientists of the last century, and, being a truthful, conscientious, devout man, trained to accuracy of observation and statement, he was admirably fitted for a reporter to the external world, of facts which came under his observation as an observer in spirit realms; and we take from his works the following short extracts, which have some bearing upon the topic just presented.
“Man loses nothing by death, but is still a man in all respects.... ”

“ In the world you were only a canon; and because you were infected with the phantasy that you also had the keys of heaven, and thence the power of binding and loosing, you have inflamed your spirit to such a degree of madness, that you now believe yourself to be very God." Upon this he swore with indignation that it was so, and said, "The Lord has not any power in heaven, because he has transferred it all to us. We have only to give the word of command, and heaven and hell reverently obey us. If we send any one to hell, the devils immediately receive him ”

“ From every human life, cast into the pool of time, waves circle out, big or little, even after that life has disappeared from time. No one knows how far they reach. The life of Emanuel Swedenborg continued to touch many lives, even after his body, that "outworn garment," had been laid in a triple coffin in the Swedish church in London.
One day the wigmaker and barber Shearsmith was visited by a stranger who begged to see Swedenborg's rooms and asked to be shown where Swedenborg used to stand. ”

“ Now he meant to go through all the organs of the body and to take up again, with fuller knowledge, the question of body-soul relationships. This was to be his final map of the soul's kingdom. In seventeen parts.
No wonder that Eric Benzelius wrote to his son Charles, who was in Stockholm: "Visit your uncle Emanuel Swedenborg as often as possible, but at such hours as he may himself appoint; for he is not always at leisure, and is most economical with his time." 5
It would indeed hardly seem as if Swedenborg had any time to ponder on flashes of vision or strange dreams. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But at the very threshold their eyes began to be darkened by the inflowing of the light of heaven, and their understanding to be disturbed, and at length they began to gasp as if at the point of death; and as soon as they felt the heat of heaven, which is heavenly love, they began to be inwardly tormented. They were therefore cast down, and afterwards were taught that knowledges do not make an angel, but the life itself, which is gained by means of knowledges, for knowledges regarded in themselves are outside of heaven; but life acquired by means of knowledges is within heaven. ”

“ I have frequently been permitted to see that each society of heaven reflects a single man, and is in the likeness of a man. There was a society into which several had insinuated themselves who knew how to counterfeit angels of light. These were hypocrites. When these were being separated from the angels I saw that the entire society appeared at first like a single indistinct body, then by degrees in a human form, but still indistinctly, and at last clearly as a man. Those that were in that man and made up the man were such as were in the good of that society ”

“ Emanuel Swedenborg, founder of the New-Jerusalem church, died in London, aged 84. His father was a Swedish Lutheran bishop, and the son received a scientific education, and became eminent as a mathematical and philosophical writer, was ennobled, and shared the favor of the king. From the pursuit of philosophy he subsequently turned his attention to heavenly things, and became equally celebrated for his mystical reveries. His followers have multiplied in Europe and America since his death. ”

“ Afterwards he spoke of his twofold state, the external and the internal, more rationally than any other person; but on a sudden when he saw the angels attendant on me, his face and voice were inflamed, and he became black, even as to the belt round his head, and he sunk down into hell through the opening from which he arose. The bystanders, from what they had seen, came to this conclusion, that a man is such as his love, and not such as his understanding is; since the love easily draws over the understanding to its side, and enslaves it. ”

“ After this, the angel informed him concerning the ground and origin of the changes of the state of his sights; saying, "I perceive that in the world, from which you are come, you have been two-fold, in internals having been quite a different man from what you were in externals; in externals you have been a civil, moral, and rational man; whereas in internals, you have been neither civil, moral, nor rational, because a libertine and an adulterer: and such men, when they are allowed to ascend into heaven, and are there kept in their externals, can see the heavenly things contained therein ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is an axiom in history that "a religion that does not propagate itself and its sacred books is either dying or dead." If the converse of this be true, that the religion that does propagate itself and its sacred books is alive and flourishing, there is no branch of the Christian Church that exhibits more vitality than that with which the name of Swedenborg has been associated.
It is more than a century since this illustrious Swede commenced the publication of his theological writings. They were all written in the Latin tongue ”

“ It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within him. For it is in accordance with the heaven that is within him that each angel receives the heaven that is outside of him. This makes clear how greatly misled is he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, without regard to what one's interior life may be, thus that heaven is granted to each one by mercy apart from means; [2] when, in fact, unless heaven is within one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and be received. ”

“ I have often been shown that no one in hell thinks from himself but through others around him, and these do not, but through others still. Thoughts and affections make their way from one society to another, but no one is aware that they do not originate with himself. Some who believed that they thought and willed of themselves were dispatched to another society and held there, and communication was cut off with the societies around to which their thoughts usually extended. Then they were told to think differently from the spirits of this society, and compel themselves to think to the contrary ”

“ But if his rational is only natural and not spiritual, his freedom is only external and not internal. He does not love these goods inwardly at all, but only outwardly for reputation's sake, as we said. The good deeds he does are therefore not in themselves good. He can also say that they should be done for the sake of the general welfare, but he speaks out of no love for that welfare, but from love of his own standing or gain. His freedom therefore derives nothing from love of the public good, nor does his reason, which complies with his love. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those that have not acted in secret ways, but have been willing to have all that they have thought made known so far as civil life would permit, because their thoughts have all been in accord with what is honest and just from the Divine-these in heaven have faces full of light; and in that light every least affection and thought is seen in the face as in its form, and in their speech and actions they are like images of their affections. Such, therefore, are more loved than others. While they are speaking the face becomes a little obscured ”

“ The Seventh Company, which, from its superior light, was invisible to the rest, came from the east of heaven, and consisted of angels of the same society as the angel that had sounded the trumpet. When these heard in their heaven, that not a single person throughout the Christian world was acquainted with the true nature of heavenly joy and eternal happiness, they said one to another, "Surely this cannot be true; it is impossible that such thick darkness and stupidity should prevail amongst Christians: let us even go down and hear whether it be true ”

“ In cases like the above it may be said that the clairvoyant faculty is constitutional and already fully developed, waiting only the circumstances which shall serve to bring it into active play, Emanuel Swedenborg, if we remember rightly, was 54 years of age before he awoke to the consciousness of his spiritual vision.
The medium employed for inducing the clairvoyant state cannot be definitely prescribed. It must remain a matter of experiment for each investigator. ”

“ If a man accustoms himself so to think, and from so doing establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually conjoined to heaven; and so far as he is conjoined to heaven the higher regions of his mind are opened; and so far as these are opened he sees whatever is dishonest and unjust, and so far as he sees these evils they can be dispersed, for no evil can be dispersed until it is seen. Into this state man is able to enter because of his freedom, for is not any one able from his freedom to so think? ”

“ Certain spirits were seen by me in the western quarter towards the south, who said that they had been in positions of great dignity in the world, and that they deserved to be more highly esteemed than others and to rule over others. Their interior character was explored by angels, and it was found that in their offices in the world they had not looked to uses but to themselves, and thus that they had set themselves before uses. But as they were very eager and importunate to be set over others they were allowed to associate with those who were consulting about matters of great importance ”