Swedenborgians

“ If I were a preacher of any denomination, I would have Swedenborg’s works by me. They should be the fruitful source of many an argument to illustrate or arouse; but if in the future the pulpit is to maintain its place and power, the Swedenborgians, unless they turn over a new leaf, must retire into the background. Look at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, for instance, on a Sunday night; you will not find thirty people there; yet it stands in the midst of a teeming population, where the devil preaches to a crowded congregation every day and every hour. ”

“ A few days after, a party of Swedenborgians visited the vault. "Various relics" (says White: "Life of Swedenborg," 2nd ed., 1868, p. 675) "were carried off: Dr. Spurgin told me he possessed the cartilage of an ear. Exposed to the air, the flesh quickly fell to dust, and a skeleton was all that remained for subsequent visitors.... At a funeral in 1817, Granholm, an officer in the Swedish Navy, seeing the lid of Swedenborg's coffin loose, abstracted the skull, and hawked it about amongst London Swedenborgians, but none would buy. ”

“ Again, the Swedenborgians claim for their system an active philanthropy superior to that of any other sect. If heaven and hell are in us—if, as we develop the good we arrive at heaven, or as we develop the bad we sink into a deeper hell—no sects have greater provocatives to a godly life, and we might expect in their preaching a glowing sympathy with human right and popular progress, which assuredly in their pulpits in England finds but little utterance. Swedenborg teaches, in the strongest manner, that no p. 268man can lead a spiritual life apart from civil and moral life. ”

“ In France there were early Swedenborgians of rank and learning, and much translation was accomplished before 1800. About 1838 J. F. E. Le Boys de Guays began his masterly translation of all Swedenborg’s theological works and instituted public New Church worship, which was carried on at his house for thirty years. Sunday worship is now held in the New Church Temple on the Rue Thouin. In Italy (Rome) , Holland (The Hague) , Belgium (Antwerp and Bruges) , there are small societies, and nearly every European country has some known adherents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Swedenborgianism, as professed by Swedenborg's followers, is based on the belief of Swedenborg's claims to have witnessed the last judgment, or the second advent of the Lord, with the inauguration of the New Church, through the new system of doctrine promulgated by him and derived from the Scriptures, into the true sense of which he was the first to be introduced. ”

“ The Swedenborgian Society of which I was a member while on earth, continues to exist as a body in the spirit world, though Swedenborg, the great seer and founder of that sect, is not a leader among them. He has his country seat in Swedenborgia, a beautiful and intellectual settlement named after him, where he retires within himself, and directs his great mind in developing his science of correspondences, which he proposes to arrange so systematically that it will become a part of the teachings of earth’s children. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
In the middle of the seventeenth century was living an honest, God-fearing, and prosperous miner named Daniel Isaksson, with his wife Anna, daughter of a Swedish pastor, on his homestead called Sweden, a hundred and twenty miles northwest from Stockholm. Grateful for the large family Heaven sent them, Daniel would often say at dinner, "Thank you, my children, for this meal, for I have dined with you and not you with me: God has given me food for your sakes." His second son Jesper, born in 1653, took the name Swedberg from the homestead. ”

“ Beautiful the calm faith of Swedenborg, turning its hopeful eye away from such childish sackcloth mummery; anchoring where no wave of earthly trouble rolls; gliding through the accustomed life-paths, not lonely, not hopeless; feeling still the warm life-clasp, hearing still the loved voices, breaking the bread, or blessing the meat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In conclusion, there are in Sweden hosts of able authors in whose hands all sciences, history, philology, antiquities, theology, every branch of natural and moral philosophy and miscellaneous literature have been elaborated with a talent and industry of which any nation might be proud. Among the names of a world-wide fame are those, of Swedenborg (1688-1772) , not more remarkable for his peculiar religious ideas than for his profound and varied acquirements in science ”

“ Heaven and Hell began to trickle into Sweden about 1760, and if it had only been presented by its author as symbolic of spiritual truths it would have charmed the readers by its imaginative insight, poetic fables, shrewd psychology, and lofty ethics, as indeed it did charm a man like Höpken, who thought that Swedenborg's works "sparkled with genius." ”

“ In this hurried paper I have neither space nor leisure to attempt an analysis of the great doctrines which underlie the "revelations" of Swedenborg. His remarkably suggestive books are becoming familiar to the reading and reflecting portion of the community. They are not unworthy of study; but, in the language of another, I would say, "Emulate Swedenborg in his exemplary life, his learning, his virtues, his independent thought, his desire for wisdom, his love of the good and true; aim to be his equal, his superior, in these things; but call no man your master." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Period of “Liberty,” viz., of an Aristocratic Republic, was the golden era of Swedish science, the latter for the first time becoming of universal fame and of universal importance. The scientists of this period belong to the fathers of modern research, basing their conclusions upon personal observation, in strong contrast to their fathers and precursors of the chauvinistic barocco period.
Emanuel Swedenborg, the most remarkable man whom Sweden has ever brought forth, was born in Stockholm, June 29, 1688. ”

“ When Swedenborg says that heaven is in the human form, he uses the word form in the sense in which we use it when speaking of civil, social, or ecclesiastical affairs. We speak of a form of government; but when such expression is used, no one thinks of any external or visible shape, but of the nature and adjustment of the various parts composing the government, and by means of which it is administered. A person who reads and understands the constitution or organic law of the State, sees therein its form of government. We speak, also, of the form of society in a particular age or nation ”

“ We have followed Swedenborg in his search for the life and soul of the universe through the geometry and physics of the inanimate world, then through the living organism of the human body, the soul's home and body-servant, and lastly in the soul's reception of life from the Creator, in its duty to this Source of its life, and in its dependence on God-man, the Son of God, as the means of conjunction with the Divine Itself. ”

“ When he mounts into the heaven, I do not hear its language. A man should not tell me that he has walked among the angels; his proof is that his eloquence makes me one. Shall the archangels be less majestic and sweet than the figures that have actually walked the earth? These angels that Swedenborg paints give us no very high idea of their discipline and culture: they are all country parsons: their heaven is a fete champetre, an evangelical picnic, or French distribution of prizes to virtuous peasants. ”

“ During his youth, Swedenborg had witnessed the misfortunes into which an unlimited monarchy had precipitated his country,—the misery and distress of eighteen years of war, with its dearly-bought victories and its bloody defeats, its decimated armies, followed by a bankrupt treasury, pestilence and famine,—and though always a favorite of the king, he never relaxed his efforts, from the day he was clothed with the responsibilities of a legislator, to bring the power and prerogatives of the crown under the supervision and control of the people, or their representatives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Swedenborg’s ‘Christian Religion’ is a system of theology, calm and orderly throughout, illustrated with plates—the Memorable Relations. I interpret these marvellous narratives much as Swedenborg does the Mosaic record. I do not question their historic truth, for Swedenborg. Such things he saw and heard; for to such a mind all abstraction takes substantial form. His mental transitions are journeys. Every proposition has its appropriate scenery; every group of verities incorporates itself in a drama, and becomes a speech and action. ”

“ The system opens a boundless range of doctrinal and ethical truths, and our object will be answered if we can succeed in attracting attention to the works in which it is embodied. We are well aware of the prejudices which array themselves against the candid investigation of the claims of this system. The very name of Swedenborg, the distinguished medium through whom these precious revelations of doctrine and life have been made to the world, has the effect with multitudes of minds, to transform the whole at once into an incoherent medley of visions and vagaries. ”

“ Swedenborg's ideas are worth all others on the great subject, yet he, even must be read in Latin or German, to be correctly understood. The English is the tongue of commerce—has too much ring of the dollar in it—to be used to express spiritual things. I shall try to convey my experiences so as to be understood; yet how can I hope to be?—how make the fact known, that one human soul is actually larger, deeper, greater, than this whole material globe?—that it has a sun, within the cerebrum ”

“ The men of this succeeding age, called by Swedenborg the Ancient Church, though no longer to be led by the angels of infancy who do always behold the face of the Father in heaven, were yet willing to be instructed of heaven through their wise men learned in ancient traditions. With growing power of thought and imagination their successive generations developed language, song, and art—notably that of building—during thousands or myriads of years, over all central and southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. ”

“ More than any other form of religious thought, Swedenborgianism is a leaven 'hid in three measures of meal.' To a careless reader of ecclesiastical statistics, the Swedenborgian Church would seem to be one of the least of the great household of faith. ”

“ The best government, and that which is most wisely arranged, is our own government in Sweden; inasmuch as all things are connected here as in a chain, and are joined together for the purpose of administering justice from the highest leader to the lowest citizen."
Swedenborg spoke from much experience, having been in friendly relations with several kings and queens, an officer of the government thirty years in the College of Mines, and being in the Diet of the party which curtailed the royal power, retaining the supreme control in the Houses of the Diet themselves. ”