No More Learning

The Gauls gaze on them
as upon sacred images; and the hand of slaughter, which had
raged through the streets of Rome, is stayed by the sight of an
assembly of unarmed men. At length a Gaul approaches, and
with his hands gently strokes the silver beard of a senator,
who, indignant at the license, smites the barbarian with his ivory
staff; which was the signal for general vengeance. Think you
that a band of savages could have slain these senators, if the
appeal to force had not first been made by one of their own
number? This story, though recounted by Livy, and also by
Plutarch, is properly repudiated by Niebuhr as a legend; but it
is none the less interesting, as showing the law by which hostile
feelings are necessarily aroused or subdued. The heart of man
confesses that the Roman senator provoked death for himself
and his associates.
Other instances present themselves. An admired picture by
Virgil, in his melodious epic, represents a person venerable for
piety and deserts, assuaging by words alone a furious populace
which had just broken into sedition and outrage. Guizot, in his
History of French Civilization,' has preserved a similar instruct-
ive example of the effect produced by an unarmed man, in an
illiterate epoch, who, employing the word instead of the sword,
subdued an angry multitude. And surely no reader of that
noble historical romance the Promessi Sposi' can forget that
finest scene, where Fra Cristoforo, in an age of violence, after
slaying a comrade in a broil, in unarmed penitence seeks the
presence of the family and retainers of his victim, and by his
dignified gentleness awakens the admiration of those already
mad with the desire of vengeance. Another example, made
familiar by recent translations of Frithiof's Saga,' the Swedish
epic, is more emphatic. The scene is a battle. Frithiof is in
deadly combat with Atlé, when the falchion of the latter breaks.
Throwing away his own weapon, he says:
« Swordless foeman's life
Ne'er dyed this gallant blade. ”


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14228
CHARLES SUMNER
The two champions now close in mutual clutch; they hug like
bears, says the poet: ---
« 'Tis o'er: for Frithiof's matchless strength
Has felled his ponderous size;
And 'neath that knee, at giant length,
Supine the Viking lies.
But fails my sword, thou Berserk swart! )
The voice rang far and wide,
Its point should pierce thy inmost heart,
Its hilt should drink the tide. )
(Be free to lift the weaponed hand,'
Undaunted Atlé spoke:
'Hence, fearless quest thy distant brand !
Thus I abide the stroke. ) »
(
Frithiof regains his sword, intent to close the dread debate,
while his adversary awaits the stroke; but his heart responds to
the generous courage of his foe, — he cannot injure one who has
shown such confidence in him:
« This quelled his ire, this checked his arm,
Outstretched the hand of peace. ”
SOME CHANGES IN MODERN LIFE
A
USPICIOUS omens from the past and the present cheer us for
the future. The terrible wars of the French Revolution
were the violent rending of the body which preceded the
exorcism of the fiend. Since the morning stars first sang to-
gether, the world has not witnessed a peace so harmonious and
enduring as that which now blesses the Christian nations. Great
questions between them, fraught with strife, and in another age
sure heralds of war, are now determined by mediation or arbitra-
tion. Great political movements, which only a few short years
ago must have led to forcible rebellion, are now conducted by
peaceful discussion.
Literature, the press, and various societies,
all join in the holy work of inculcating good-will to man. The
spirit of humanity now pervades the best writings, whether the
elevated philosophical inquiries of the Vestiges of Creation,'
the ingenious but melancholy moralizings of the Story of a
Feather,' or the overflowing raillery of Punch. Nor can the


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CHARLES SUMNER
14229
breathing thought and burning word of poet or orator have a
higher inspiration. Genius is never so Promethean as when it
bears the heavenly fire of love to the hearths of men.
In the last age, Dr. Johnson uttered the detestable sentiment
that he liked “a good hater. ” The man of this age must say
that he likes “a good lover. ” Thus reversing the objects of re-
gard, he follows a higher wisdom and a purer religion than the
renowned moralist knew. He recognizes that peculiar Christian
sentiment, the brotherhood of mankind, destined soon to become
the decisive touchstone of all human institutions. He confesses
the power of love, destined to enter more and more into all the
concerns of life. And as love is more heavenly than hate, so
must its influence redound more to the true glory of man, and to
his acceptance with God. A Christian poet — whose few verses
bear him with unflagging wing on his immortal flight — has
joined this sentiment with prayer. Thus he speaks in words of
uncommon pathos and power:
“He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. ”
>
Surely the ancient law of hate is yielding to the law of love.
It is seen in the manifold labors of philanthropy, and in the
voyages of charity. It is seen in the institutions for the insane,
for the blind, for the deaf and dumb, for the poor, for the out-
cast,- in the generous efforts to relieve those who are in prison,
- in the public schools, opening the gates of knowledge to all
the children of the land. It is seen in the diffusive amenities of
social life, and in the increasing fellowship of nations.
It is seen
in the rising opposition to slavery and to war.
There are yet other special auguries of this great change,
auspicating, in the natural progress of man, the abandonment of
all international preparations for war. To these I allude briefly,
but with a deep conviction of their significance.
Look at the past, and observe the change in dress. Down
to a period quite recent, the sword was the indispensable com-
panion of the gentleman, wherever he appeared, whether in the
street or in society; but he would be thought a madman or a
.


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14230
CHARLES SUMNER
bully who should wear it now. At an earlier period the armor
of complete steel was the habiliment of the knight. From the
picturesque sketch by Sir Walter Scott in the Lay of the Last
Minstrel,' we may learn the barbarous constraint of this costume:
« Ten of them were sheathed in steel,
With belted sword, and spur on heel;
They quitted not the harness bright,
Neither by day, nor yet by night;
They lay down to rest
With corslet laced,
Pillowed on buckler cold and hard;
They carved at the meal
With gloves of steel,
And they drunk the red wine through the helmet barred. ”
But this is all changed now.
Observe also the change in architecture and in domestic life.
The places once chosen for castles or houses were in savage,
inaccessible retreats, where the massive structure was reared,
destined to repel attacks and to inclose its inhabitants. Even
monasteries and churches were fortified, and girdled by towers,
ramparts, and ditches; while a child was often stationed as a
watchman, to observe what passed at a distance, and announce
the approach of an enemy. The homes of peaceful citizens in
towns were castellated, often without so much as an aperture
for light near the ground, but with loop-holes through which the
shafts of the crossbow might be aimed. From a letter of Mar-
garet Paston, in the time of Henry VII. of England, I draw a
curious and authentic illustration of the armed life of that period.
Addressing in dutiful phrase her “right worshipful husband," she
asks him to procure for her some crossbows and wyndnacs”
(grappling irons) “to bind them with, and quarrels” (arrows with
a square head), also “two or three short pole-axes to keep within
doors”; and she tells her absent lord of the preparations made
apparently by a neighbor,-"great ordnance within the house;
bars to bar the door crosswise, and wickets in every quarter
of the house to shoot out at, both with bows and hand-guns. ”
Savages could hardly live in greater distrust of each other. Let
now the poet of chivalry describe another scene:
(
« Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men,
Waited the beck of the warders ten;


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CHARLES SUMNER
14231
Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight,
Stood saddled in stable day and night,
Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow,
And with Jedwood axe at saddle-bow;
A hundred more fed free in stall:
Such was the custom at Branksome Hall. ”
This also is all changed now.
PERORATION OF THE ORATION ON
THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS
DELIVERED IN BOSTON JULY 4TH, 1845
T"4
WHAT future which filled the lofty visions of the sages and
bards of Greece and Rome, which was foretold by the
prophets and heralded by the evangelists,— when man, in
happy isles or in a new Paradise, shall confess the loveliness of
peace, — may be secured by your care; if not for yourselves, at
least for your children. Believe that you can do it, and you can
do it. The true golden age is before you, not behind you. If
man has been driven once from paradise, while an angel with a
flaming sword forbade his return, there is another paradise, even
on earth, which he may form for himself, by the cultivation of
knowledge, religion, and the kindly virtues of life: where the
confusion of tongues shall be dissolved in the union of hearts;
and joyous nature, borrowing prolific charms from the prevailing
harmony, shall spread her lap with unimagined bounty, and there
shall be a perpetual jocund spring, and sweet strains borne on
“the odoriferous wing of gentle gales,” through valleys of delight,
more pleasant than the vale of Tempe, richer than the garden of
the Hesperides, with no dragon to guard its golden fruit.
Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work.
The robber conquerors of the past, from their fiery sepulchres,
demand it; the precious blood of millions unjustly. shed in war,
crying from the ground, demands it; the voices of all good men
demand it; the conscience even of the soldier whispers, “Peace. ”
There are considerations, springing from our situation and con-
dition, which fervently invite us to take the lead in this work.
Here should bend the patriotic ardor of the land; the ambition
of the statesman; the efforts of the scholar; the pervasive influ-
ence of the press; the mild persuasion of the sanctuary; the
»


## p. 14232 (#426) ##########################################

14232
CHARLES SUMNER
early teachings of the school. Here, in ampler ether and diviner
air, are untried fields for exalted triumphs more truly worthy
the American name than any snatched from rivers of blood.
War is known as the last reason of kings. Let it be no reason
of our Republic. Let us renounce, and throw off forever, the
yoke of a tyranny more oppressive than any in the annals of
the world. As those standing on the mountain-tops first discern
the coming beams of morning, let us, from the vantage-ground of
liberal institutions, first recognize the ascending sun of a new
era! Lift high the gates, and let the King of Glory in,- the
King of true Glory,- of Peace. I catch the last words of music
from the lips of innocence and beauty :-
“And let the whole earth be filled with His glory! )
It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at
least one spot, the small island of Delos, dedicated to the gods,
and kept at all times sacred from war. No hostile foot ever
sought to press this kindly soil; and the citizens of all countries
here met, in common worship, beneath the ægis of inviolable
peace. So let us dedicate our beloved country; and may the
blessed consecration be felt, in all parts, everywhere throughout
its ample domain! The temple of honor shall be surrounded,
here at last, by the temple of concord, that it may never more
be entered through any portal of war; the horn of abundance
shall overflow at its gates; the angel of religion shall be the
guide over its steps of flashing adamant; while within its en-
raptured courts, purged of violence and wrong, Justice, returned
to the earth from her long exile in the skies, with mighty scales
for nations as for men, shall rear her serene and majestic front;
and by her side, greatest of all, Charity, sublime in meekness,
hoping all and enduring all, shall divinely temper every righteous
decree, and with words of infinite cheer shall inspire those good
works that cannot vanish away.
And the future chiefs of the
Republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted
by human blood, shall be “the first in peace, and the first in the
hearts of their countrymen. ”
But while seeking these blissful glories for ourselves, let us
strive to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the
truce of God to the whole world forever. Let the selfish boast
of the Spartan women become the grand chorus of mankind, that
they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's camp. Let the
>


## p. 14233 (#427) ##########################################

CHARLES SUMNER
14233
iron belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth, be
exchanged for the golden cestus of peace, clothing all with celes-
tial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent hom-
age that was bestowed, by massacring soldiers, upon the spot
occupied by the sepulchre of the Lord. Vain man! to restrain
his regard to a few feet of sacred mold! The whole earth is the
sepulchre of the Lord; nor can any righteous man profane any
part thereof.
Let us recognize this truth, and now, on this Sab-
bath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand temple of
,
universal peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament
of heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.
?
SPIRIT OF CLASSICAL AND OF MODERN LITERATURE
From the Phi Beta Kappa Oration of 1846, entitled “The Scholar, the Jurist,
the Artist, the Philanthropist
THE
VE classics possess a peculiar charm as the models - I might
almost say the masters — of composition and thought in
all ages.
In the contemplation of these august teachers of
mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the
early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished
still than all the intermediate words that have been uttered, -as
the language of childhood still haunts us, when the impressions
of later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show
with unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's childhood,
before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the affec-
tions. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness,
of elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the
frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy that we are to
seek these; not in the marvelous teachings of Socrates, as they
come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the re-
sounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alex-
ander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar,
where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at
the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark
with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful phi-
losophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial
libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No:
these must not be our masters; in none of these are we to seek


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14234
CHARLES SUMNER
the way of life. For eighteen hundred years, the spirit of these
writers has been engaged in constant contest with the Sermon
on the Mount, and with those two sublime commandments on
which hang all the law and the prophets. The strife is still pend-
ing. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of such siren forms,
is not yet exorcised. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs
of active life, and haunts the meditations of age.
Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the
ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty of
form, and in freshness of illustration, are far superior in the
truth, delicacy, and elevation of their sentiments,-above all, in
the benign recognition of that peculiar Christian revelation, the
brotherhood of mankind. How vain are eloquence and poetry,
compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in one scale
that simple utterance, and in the other all the lore of antiquity,
with all its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the last
will be light and trivial in the balance. Greek poetry has been
likened to the song of the nightingale, as she sits in the rich,
symmetrical crown of the palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled
notes; but even this is less sweet and tender than those words of
charity to our neighbor," remote or near, which are inspired by
Christian love.
THE DIGNITY OF THE JURIST
the company a
I place not only in the immediate history of his country, but
in the grander history of civilization. It was a saying of his,
often uttered in the confidence of friendship, that a man may be
measured by the horizon of his mind, - whether it embraced the
village, town, country, or State in which he lived, or the whole
broad country, ay, the circumference of the world. In this spirit
he lived and wrought; elevating himself above the present both
in time and place, and always finding in jurisprudence an absorb-
ing interest. Only a few days before the illness which ended in
his death, it was suggested to him, in conversation with regard to
his intended retirement from the bench, that a wish had been
expressed by many to see him a candidate for the highest politi-
cal office of the country. He replied at once, spontaneously and


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CHARLES SUMNER
14235
without hesitation, that « The station of President of the United
States would not tempt him from his professor's chair, and the
calm pursuit of jurisprudence. ” Thus spoke the jurist. As a
lawyer, a judge, a professor, he was always a jurist. While
administering justice between parties, he sought to extract from
their cause the elements of future justice, and to advance the
science of the law. He stamped upon his judgments a value
which is not restrained to the occasions on which they were pro-
nounced. Unlike mere medals,- of curious importance to certain
private parties only,— they have the currency of the gold coin of
the republic, with the image and superscription of sovereignty,
wherever they go, even in foreign lands.
Many years before his death, his judgments in matters of
Admiralty and Prize had arrested the attention of that illustrious
judge and jurist, Lord Stowell; and Sir James Mackintosh, a
name emblazoned by literature and jurisprudence, had said of
them that they were “justly admired by all cultivators of the
law of nations. ” His words have often been cited as authority
in Westminster Hall,-a tribute to a foreign jurist almost un-
precedented, as all persons familiar with English law will recog-
nize; and the Chief Justice of England has made the remarkable
declaration, with regard to a point on which Story had differed
from the Queen's Bench, that his opinion would “at least neu-
tralize the effect of the English decision, and induce any of their
courts to consider the question as an open one. ”
ALLSTON IN ITALY
T"
URNING his back upon Paris and the greatness of the Empire,
he directed his steps to Italy, the enchanted ground of lit-
erature, of history, and of art; strown with richest memo-
rials of the past, filled with scenes memorable in the story of
the progress of man, teaching by the pages of philosophers and
historians, vocal with the melody of poets, ringing with the music
which St. Cecilia protects, glowing with the living marble and
canvas, beneath a sky of heavenly purity and brightness, with
the sunsets which Claude has painted, parted by the Apennines,
- early witnesses of the unrecorded Etruscan civilization,-sur-
rounded by the snow-capped Alps, and the blue classic waters of


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CHARLES SUMNER
14236
the Mediterranean Sea. The deluge of war which submerged
Europe had here subsided; and our artist took up his peaceful
abode in Rome, the modern home of art. Strange change of
condition! Rome, sole surviving city of antiquity, who once
disdained all that could be wrought by the cunning hand of
sculpture,-
* «Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra,
Credo equidem; vivos ducent de marmore vultus,” —
who has commanded the world by her arms, by her jurispru-
dence, by her church, - now sways it further by her arts. Pil.
grims from afar, where neither her eagles, her prætors, nor her
interdicts ever reached, become the willing subjects of this new
empire; and the Vatican stored with the precious remains of
antiquity, and the touching creations of a Christian pencil, has
succeeded to the Vatican whose thunders intermingled with the
strifes of modern Europe.
At Rome he was happy in the friendship of Coleridge, and in
long walks in his instructive company. We can well imagine
that the author of Genevieve' and the Ancient Mariner' would
find especial sympathies with Allston. We behold these two
natures, tremblingly alive to beauty of all kinds, looking together
upon those majestic ruins, upon the manifold accumulations of
art, upon the marble which almost spoke, and upon the warmer
canvas; listening together to the flow of the perpetual fountains
fed by ancient aqueducts; musing together in the Forum on the
mighty footprints of History; and entering together, with sym-
pathetic awe, that grand Christian church whose dome rises a
majestic symbol of the comprehensive Christianity which shall
embrace the whole earth. “Never judge of a work of art by its
defects,” was one of the lessons of Coleridge to his companion;
which, when extended by natural expansion to the other things
of life, is a sentiment of justice and charity, of higher value than
a statue of Praxiteles, or a picture of Raphael.
(
* «Others will mold more deftly the breathing bronze, I concede it,
Or from the block of marble the living features may summon. ”


## p. 14237 (#431) ##########################################

14237
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
(1688-1772)
BY FRANK SEWALL
He universal recognition of the epochal significance of the
latter half of the eighteenth century would seem almost to
corroborate Swedenborg's declaration that at that time there
was transpiring in the spiritual world a great general judgment
which was to mark the transition from an old to a new age. What
in the political world was effected by the French Revolution, had its
counterpart in the intellectual transforma-
tions to which the two great lights that
shone forth in the northern firmament
Emanuel Swedenborg in Stockholm, and
Immanuel Kant in Königsberg — were po-
tent contributors. Both were epoch-makers:
both, having acquired a universal survey
of the world's learning and philosophical
methods up to their time, brought the minds
of men abruptly to a chasm over which
they pointed to realms hitherto unexplored,
— the realities that transcend the bodily
senses. With Kant the transcendence was
critical, — God, the Soul, and Immortality EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
were not constitutive ” but only “regulat-
ive” elements of knowledge, incapable of demonstration or negation;
with Swedenborg the transcendence was positive — into a world of
things “heard and seen. ” Were Swedenborg merely the seer, or one
of the many who have seen visions and left an account of them,
his name, however regarded by his followers, could have no place in
a history of letters or of philosophic thought. His extraordinary expe-
rience of intromission, as he claims, into open intercourse with angels
and spirits for a period of some thirty years, cannot be said to con-
stitute a philosophical moment in itself, being unique and incapable
of classification. It is only the system of universal laws governing
the relations of the two worlds, which he claims to have brought to
light, - especially the law of Discrete Degrees and their Correspond-
ence,— that gives his writings their philosophic value, and that entitles

(
»
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14238
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
>
them, by the side of Kant's philosophy of criticism, to appeal to the
world as the philosophy of revelation.
Like Kant, Swedenborg's early studies and investigations had
almost universal range. The tastes of both inclined them to the clas-
sics, to invention, to the study of fire and iron, of tides and winds,
and of the starry heavens. The so-called Nebular Hypothesis, until
lately attributed to Kant as having a prior claim in its discovery to
La Place, is now at length admitted by undisputed authority to have
been anticipated by Swedenborg in his Principia nearly thirty years
before Kant. *
Unlike Kant, however, in one respect, who never traveled farther
than forty miles from Königsberg, Swedenborg was as extensive a
traveler literally as in the researches of his magnificent intellect.
France, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England were familiar from his
many journeyings. His books were published under noble patronage
in foreign cities. His Opera Philosophica et Mineralia' were recog-
nized by the scholars of Paris and St. Petersburg. There was noth-
ing of the cramped “philosoph” of the German lecture-room about
either the man or his writings; rather a princely largeness and frank-
ness, as of one whose nature vibrated in body and mind in harmony
with a large system of things. Emerson says of him, “He no doubt
led the most real life of any man then in the world. ”
The son of a pious father, Jasper Svedberg, Bishop of Skara in
West Gothland, Swedenborg was born at Stockholm on the 29th of
January, 1688. Living as a child in a sphere so devout that his par-
ents thought at times that an angel spoke through his lips," on his
graduation as Doctor of Philosophy at the university of Upsala at the
age of twenty-one he was thrown out upon a wide experience of the
world. In traveling in Europe he carried letters to distinguished men
in the chief seats of learning. He studies music; he writes and pub-
lishes Sapphic odes in Latin (Carmina Borea); and to keep in exercise
his athletic genius, he publishes a periodical devoted to mathematics
and inventions, the Dedalus Hyperboreus. The King, Charles XII. ,
attracted by his brilliancy, appoints him Extraordinary Assessor in
the College of Mines, to be an assistant to Polhem the Councilor
of Commerce, in his affairs and inventions. ” Through the intimacy
thus brought about, Swedenborg falls in love with the Councilor's
daughter, but to have his matrimonial proposals rejected. He never
marries. At the age of eighty years he publishes a book on Con-
jugial Love and its Chaste Delights,' - - a work whose insight into
the moral conditions of the world, and the provision for its elevation
through the sacred relation of marriage, has hardly a parallel in
»
* Article by Magnus Nyren of the Pulkowa Observatory, in Vierteljahr-
schrift der Astron. Gesellsch. : Leipzig, 1879.


## p. 14239 (#433) ##########################################

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14239
as
are
ethical writing. Plunged into the atmospheres of universal doubt,
and the free living, of the courts of the time, he lives to give the tes-
timony as of one of a forgotten celestial age of the world. “It came
to pass by the mercy of God the Messiah, that at the time, I have not
perceived what the acts of my life involved; but afterwards I have
been able to see clearly that the course of the Divine Providence
from very youth had governed the acts of my life, and so directed
them that at length I attained this end,—that I could through nat-
ural knowledge understand, and so by the Divine mercy of God the
Messiah serve an instrument for opening, the things which lie
inwardly concealed in the Word of God the Messiah.
So now
laid open the things which have hitherto not been disclosed. ” (Ad-
versaria. ') Thus the whole of the Wanderjahr's period is governed by
a Divine Providence looking to a special end.
After the death of King Charles XII. , whom he had assisted in an
important naval victory by a splendid feat in engineering, the Queen
elevated him to the Equestrian Order of the House of Nobles, and
changed his name from Svedberg to Swedenborg. Ere many years
should pass, both title and name were to disappear utterly from the
long series of his published works, only to reappear, at the close of
his life, in his last great treatise, the “True Christian Religion,' but
now with the changed title, — that of the true knighthood of his long
life,– Domini Jesu Christi Servus. '
His corpuscular theory of the universe as governed by the laws of
geometry and mechanics appears first in the 'Principles of Chemistry,'
published in 1721. Here we have a science of the invisibles » such
as Tyndall has since contended for, treating of bodies in their ele-
mentary forms and relations by means of geometry produced into
the realm of the intangible. In the Principia Rerum Naturalium,' -
being the first part of the great work entitled Opera Philosophica et
Mineralia,'— published in 1734, we have the theory of the origin of
the elements themselves out of «actives and finites,” and through the
« first finite » from the Infinite itself. It is an evolution of energy in
its first motions and forms. Here are discussed the ether, the laws
governing vibratory radiation, and the magnetic force, in propositions
which, in germ, anticipate the most important recent discoveries in
physical science. But the universe is not all geometry and mechan-
ism. « There is an Infinite which can by no means be geometrically
explored, because its existence is prior to geometry as being its cause. ”
It is to the nature of the Infinite, and its nexus with the finite
and the soul of man, that the author's studies are now directed. In
Dresden and Leipzig appear in 1734 the Prodromus de Infinito,'
and the treatise on the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. '
Finally the search for the soul itself is undertaken in the great series
CC


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14240
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
(
-
of works, the 'Economy of the Animal Kingdom, considered Anatomi-
cally, Physically, and Philosophically,' and the Animal Kingdom';
published each in two volumes in London, 1740, 1745. The “Regnum
Animale » means to him the soul's domain. In the human body, its
blood, its tissue, its organs and senses, he will penetrate to this inmost
secret of all,- what the soul is, and the modes of its abode in and
control over the forces of nature; since «in man the world is concen-
trated, and in him, as in a microcosm, the whole universe may be
contemplated from the beginning to the end. ”
Had Swedenborg's labors ceased at this point, his knowledge of
the soul would have remained where his illustrious predecessors in
these paths, from Plato down, had left it. But “the Divine permission
to contemplate the soul itself was, as he claims afterward to have
proved, to be enjoyed by a means far other than that of speculative
thinking. It was not by philosophic argument, but by direct vision,
that he was to prove the substantial reality of the spiritual world and
the life that man leads after the death of the body. Others had seen
visions. It was to be his mission not only to experience the phe-
.
nomena of the spiritual world, but to penetrate and define the laws
governing these, with an analysis as exact as that of Kant in his
critique of the æsthetic judgments.
Dante had constructed from classical and Scriptural traditions a
spiritual world in its three divisions, its nine heavens, and its celestial
Rose.
Swedenborg in the Divine Love and Wisdom? shows how
Divine Love, proceeding through the Divine Wisdom into Use, cre-
ates a world; how the Divine emanations proceed through successive
atmospheres, contiguous but distinct, first spiritual, then natural, even
to the lowest ultimates of matter; how the universe therefore exists
in three discrete degrees, - God, Spirit, Nature, absolutely distinct
from each other, and so escaping pantheistic fusion, but related by a
perfect correspondence like End, Cause, and Effect, and constituting
therefore a perfect one. On this Law of Correspondence between the
discrete degrees, — the natural and the spiritual, — he bases the possi-
bility of a revelation of supernatural truth in natural language; and
his interpretation of the internal sense of the Scriptures. The three
degrees which he had previously traced, in the Principia,' in the
procession from the Infinite, of “finites, actives, and elementaries,” he
sees now to govern the whole sphere of being: the constitution of the
three angelic heavens; the threefold structure of the human mind, as
will, intellect, and sense; and the evolution of the kingdoms of nature.
They have their origin in that perfect image of God - the Trinity
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — which since the Incarnation dwells
bodily in the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ, the only God. The
restoration to unity is complete. The universe of being is a trinal
-


## p. 14241 (#435) ##########################################

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14241
-
One. Science, philosophy, and theology are no more in conflict, but
harmonious stages in the unity of knowledge.
It was in the year 1743, while engaged on the concluding treatises
of the Animal Kingdom, and on the mystic prose poem (On the
Worship and Love of God: on Creation: The First Begotten, and
Paradise,' that Sweden borg became subject to a deep religious expe-
rience, and to frequent realizations of the actuality and immediate
objective presence of another world. In the Spiritual Diary' he has
kept a purely private record of these extraordinary experiences. He
describes with prosaic exactness the places visited in the spiritual
realms, the characters met, and the conversations held, and the pecul-
iar temptations to which his own soul was subjected by the infesta-
tions of evil spirits. All this was incident, he solemnly declares, to
his “being called by the Lord to a new office,” — that of revealing
to mankind the reality of the spiritual world, and of vindicating the
holiness and divine authority of the Scriptures by proving that they
possess throughout, beneath the literal, a distinct but correspondent
spiritual meaning. At length, after six years, with the first volume of
the Arcana Coelestia,' written in the full and perfect light of the
new revelation, Swedenborg begins that unparalleled series of works,
in which he claims to have set forth for the enlightenment of all
mankind, truths revealed to him not by any spirit or any angel,
but by the Lord alone while reading the Word. ” The Arcana'
itself is a work in twelve volumes, in which is set forth the spiritual
sense of the books of Genesis and Exodus. Here, a century before
the development of the higher criticism,” Swedenborg clearly
points out the distinction between the Eloistic and Jehovistic texts,
and declares the first chapters of Genesis to be the allegoric frag-
ments of a more ancient Word. Interspersed between the chapters
of the Arcana' are treatises on various phenomena of the spiritual
world, and statements of heavenly doctrine. ” Seven years were
consumed in the publication of this stupendous work. Then appear
at short intervals, through a period of fifteen years, the following
treatises:- In 1758 (Heaven and Hell”; also "The Intermediate World,
or World of Spirits: A Relation of Things Heard and Seen. ' (The
Last Judgment and the Destruction of Babylon, showing that all the
predictions in Revelation are now being fulfilled: being a revelation
of things heard and seen. ' On the Earths in the Solar System, and
on the Earths in the Starry Heavens: with an account of their
Inhabitants, and also of the Angels and Spirits there. In 1763, (On
the Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and Wisdom. ' (The
Four Doctrines: The Lord: the Sacred Scriptures: Faith: and Life. '
In 1764: Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence. In
1766: “The Apocalypse Revealed, in which are disclosed the Arcana
XXIV-891


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
therein foretold. In 1768 : Conjugial Love and its Chaste Delights:
also Adulterous Love and its Insane Pleasures. ' In 1769: A Brief
Exposition of the Doctrines of the New Church, signified by the New
Jerusalem in Revelations. Also the Intercourse between the Soul and
the Body. Lastly in 1771, in the author's eighty-third year, appears
the great synthesis of the doctrine: “The True Christian Religion:
containing the Universal Theology of the New Church: by Emanuel
Swedenborg: Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the preface the
following is set forth as a «universal of the Faith of the New
Heaven and the New Church”: “That the Lord from eternity who is
Jehovah came into the world that he might subdue the hells and
glorify his humanity; that without him no flesh could have been
saved, and that all will be saved who believe in him. ”
The hasty charge of madness, or even of honest delusion, must
at least give pause before this array of works, in which a perfectly
consistent system of interpretation appears from first to last, and in
which the principia of the spiritual world are laid down with all the
logical thoroughness of those of the natural. We have not here the
trance-vision of the Oriental and mediæval mystic. The man who
was daily in “intercourse with angels,” who was writing the heav-
enly secrets of the Divine Word, and claimed to be witnessing with
his inner vision the awful scenes of a Last Judgment in the world
of spirits, preparatory to the introduction of a new age of the world,
- so far from being a dazed and dreamy recluse, was at this very
period of his life the warm personal and political friend of the then
Prime Minister of Sweden, Count Andrew von Höpken, and according
to this gentleman's testimony in his letter to General Tuxen, was
taking a most active and responsible part in the deliberations of the
Swedish Diet. Neither was there anything whimsical or eccentric
in his manner. Besides the above testimony regarding his public life
in Sweden, those who knew him in his old age in London, where
he spent his last years, describe him as a genial old gentleman,
the favorite of little children, and beloved by the plain people with
whom he lodged. His dress when visiting was a suit of black velvet,
with long ruffles, a curious-hilted sword and gold-headed cane. He
was affable and engaging in conversation; adapting himself easily to
others, never urging his own views except when asked, and able at a
word to silence any mere curious or impertinent inquiry. His solemn
assurance before the chaplain of the Swedish Embassy, when receiv-
ing from him the sacrament on his death-bed, that all that he had
written regarding his experiences in the other world was true, leaves
no doubt of his absolute sincerity, and completes the testimony of
his long and honorable life. He died in his eighty-fifth year, on the
day which he had himself foretold in a letter to Wesley, who had


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14243
desired to visit him, — Sunday; the 29th of March, 1772. “He was as
much pleased,” relates an attendant, “as if he were about to have a
holiday or were going to a merry-making. " His remains were buried
with the ceremonials of the Lutheran Church, in the Swedish Ulrica
Eleonora Chapel, Ratcliffe Highway, London, E. , where they still lie,
marked by a suitable memorial slab. In the House of Nobles on
October 7th a eulogy was pronounced upon him in the name of the
Royal Academy of Stockholm, by M. Sandel, Councilor of the Board
of Mines. Eighty years after, a silver medal was struck in his honor
by the Academy,
uauh Swall
BIBLIOGRAPHY. — The bibliography of Swedenborg's writings em-
braces some fifteen hundred editions of entire sets or of single works,
in the author's original Latin, and in translations into English, Ger-
man, French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Dutch,
Polish, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and Hindu. The London Sweden-
borg Society, established in 1810, is the chief source of publication in
England; the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society,
in America. The publication in a photo-lithographic edition of all the
MSS. of Swedenborg preserved in the library of the Royal Academy
of Stockholm, both of the published and of the unpublished works, is
in progress. Thirteen volumes in folio size have already appeared.
BIOGRAPHY. —The fullest and most authentic account of Sweden-
borg's life, character, and writings is to be had in Documents Con-
cerning Swedenborg': collected, translated, and annotated by R. L.
Tafel, A. M. , Ph. D. ; three volumes; London Swedenborg Society, I
Bloomsbury Street. See also Life and Mission of Emanuel Sweden-
borg,' by Benjamin Worcester, Boston; Life) by J. J. Garth Wilkin-
son, London; and many others.
THE CONTIGUITY AND HARMONY OF THE WORLD
From Principia Rerum Naturalium)
A
s NATURE operates in the world in a mechanical manner, and
the phenomena which she exhibits to our senses are subject
to their proper laws and rules, it follows that nature can-
not thus operate except by means of contiguity and connection.
Thus the mechanism of the world consists in contiguity, without


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14244
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
which neither the world nor its mechanism could exist. Conti-
guity is necessary to the production of every operation. Without
a perpetual connection between the ends and the means, the
existence of elementary nature, and of the vegetable and animal
natures thence originating, would be impossible. The connection
between ends and means forms the very life and essence of
nature. For nothing can originate from itself; it must originate
from some other thing: hence there must be a certain contiguity
and connection in the existence of natural things; that is, all
things, in regard to their existence, must follow each other in
successive order. Thus all things in the world owe their exist-
.
ence to their mutual dependence on each other; there being a
connection, by mediums, from ultimate to ultimate, whence all
things have respect to their first source from which they derive
their existence. Hence it is manifest that there is a continual
connection of the whole body with its minutest parts. If the
connection with any part were broken, that part would no longer
partake of the life of the rest of the body, but would die, having
lost its contiguity. If a connecting part, mediating between the
grosser and more subtile motions and affections of the body,
were to be broken, a resemblance of death would be superin-
duced upon the part. Hence also the poets have compared the
life and fates of man to a continuous thread woven by the
Parcæ; and feigned that if this thread were anywhere severed,
his life would also be cut off, and all the series of his desti-
nies.
But to return to our elementary world. If we admit a conti-
guity, we immediately have a cause for every contingent occur-
rence: but if there be no contiguity, no contingent circumstance
can occur in the world; because there is no cause for its occur-
ring either in one manner or in another. The cause and reason
of all effects and phenomena is to be found in contiguity and
connection. If this contiguum of nature were to begin to be
diminished and rarefied, the world, as to the phenomena existing
in it, and every part, would pant as it were for breath, and be re-
duced to its last extremity. Thus all things depend upon some-
thing contiguous to them: as the body depends on life, hearing
on the air, sight on the ether. The equilibrium of all things in
the elements depends also on contiguity. That there is a conti-
guity and connection in the elements, appears also in men and
animals, who are composed, and in a manner formed, according


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14245
to that contiguity and connection. Thus we find hearing de-
lighted by harmonious sounds, and the concordant vibrations of
musical strings. Musical harmony has itself also its own rules,
its own proper geometry; but this we have no need to learn in
order to perceive the harmony,- we have it in the ear itself
and the organs of hearing, which are in harmonious coherence.
By harmonious and accordant sounds we are exhilarated, affected,
dissolved away; but discordant sounds give us pain. The eye
also is capable of feeling whether anything be harmoniously
proportioned or not; and if it be, and its mechanism be well
arranged, the soul is immediately delighted through the eye. As
too there is a like connection and harmony between the eye and
the mind, therefore whatever is harmonious immediately extends,
with uninterrupted course, to the mind, which it exhilarates and
expands; while all things that are deformed, and not in agree-
ment with analogy, occasion it a certain degree of violence. We
have still more striking tokens of harmony in the other senses,
as in the smell and the taste; so that by the senses alone we can
discover whether the parts of a substance be angular or round,
or what is their form and figure. The mechanism therefore of
some things is natural to our senses.
INDIVIDUALITY ETERNAL
From "The Soul)
T".
He end of creation, or the end on account of which the world
was created, could be no other than the first and the last,
or the most universal of all ends, and that which is perpet-
ually reigning in the created universe, which is the complex of
means conspiring to that end. No other end of creation can be
given than that there may exist a universal society of souls, or
a heaven,- that is, the kingdom of God. That this was the
end of creation may be proved by innumerable arguments: for it
would be absurd to say that the world was created on account
of the earth and terrestrial societies, and this miserable and per-
ishable life; since all things on earth are for the sake of man,
and all things in man for the sake of his soul, and the soul can-
not be for no end. If then it exists for any end, it must be for
a society in which God is present; for his providence regards


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
souls, which are spiritual, and his works are adapted to men and
their consociation.
In order that a celestial society, or society of souls, may exist,
it is necessary that there be a most perfect form of government,
namely, souls distinct among themselves, and every possible vari-
ety, which may be called harmonies between the souls; and so
from such harmony there will arise a consensus and accord which
shall produce that entire effect and end which is always foreseen
and provided.
That this end may be obtained, it is necessary that man shall
be allowed a free will. The cause of variety of subjects arises
solely from free exercise and liberty of the will. Without this
there would be no intellect, no morality, no vice, no crime, no
guilt, no affection of the mind or change of state. This is the
reason why God has wished to preserve the free human will
strong and inviolate, even for the doing of evil deeds; so that
we would seem to be almost willing to deny a Divine providence
for the same reason that we would affirm it. But the liberty
allowed to human minds is not absolute but limited.
THE PERFECT MAN THE TRUE PHILOSOPHER
From Principia Rerum Naturalium)
B
Y A true philosopher we understand a man who is enabled
to arrive at the real causes, and the knowledge of those
things in the mechanical world which are invisible and
remote from the senses; and who is afterwards capable of
reasoning a priori, or from first principles or causes, concerning
the world and its phenomena, both in chemistry, physics, metal-
lurgy, and other sciences or subjects which are under the empire
of mechanical principles; and who can thus, as from a central
point, take a survey of the whole mundane system, and of its
mechanical and philosophical laws. To begin then with man in
his state of integrity and complete perfection. In such a man
we may conceive to have existed such a complete contiguity
throughout the parts of his system, that every motion proceed-
ing with a free course from his grosser parts or principles, could
arrive, through an uninterrupted connection, at his most subtle
substance or active principle; there being nothing in the way


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14247
which could cause the least obstruction. Such a man may be
compared to the world itself, in which all things are contiguous,
from the sun to the bottom of our atmosphere: thus the solar
rays proceed with an uninterrupted course, and almost instanta-
neously, by means of the contiguity of the more subtle or grosser
elements through which they pass, through the ether into the air,
till they arrive at the eye, and operate upon it by virtue of such
connection as if they were present; for contiguity makes the
appearance of presence When therefore the most subtle active
principle, by the providence of God, clothed itself with a body,
and added by degrees parts upon parts, all the motions in the
most subtle elements which were present would necessarily move
or affect that most yielding and tender substance, and would
gradually impress themselves and their own mechanism upon it.
In a word, during the growth of the tender parts possessing
motion and life, every motion that was perpetually present must
necessarily have left vestiges of itself, and must consequently
have naturally formed its own mechanism, so as afterwards to be
received still more interiorly, but in the same manner as in the
yet tender substances. The man thus formed - in whom all the
parts conspired to receive the motions of all the elements, and to
convey them successively, when received through a contiguous
medium, to the most subtle active principle — must be deemed
the most perfect and the first of all men, being one in whom the
connection of ends and means is continuous and unbroken. Such
a most perfect material and acting being would in a short time
acquire, by the aid of the senses alone, all the philosophy and
experimental science natural to him; for whatever could present
itself to his senses would immediately flow by connection and
contiguity to his most subtle and active first principle. As there-
fore the whole was constructed according to the motion of the
elements, and those motions were capable of arriving without
interruption, through a medium so contiguous and tense, at the
most subtle active principle, — what conclusion can we draw but
that such a man must have enjoyed the most complete, perfect,
and distinct faculty of reasoning; that all the mundane system
or motions of the elements must have been familiar to him after
a little contemplation and custom; that every relation of their
motions, being impressed upon all his organs as it were naturally
and from his tender infancy, would be felt with perfect regularity


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
from his external parts or senses to his soul; and that the soul,
being furnished with such a body, would naturally be so well
acquainted with geometry, mechanics, and the mundane system,
as to be able to instruct herself without a master, from the
simple contemplation of the phenomena of nature and the objects
of sense ? Such a man would be capable of taking his station as
it were in the centre; and surveying from thence the whole
circumference of his system at a glance, he would be able to
make himself acquainted with things present, past, and future,
from a knowledge of their causes, and of their contingents given
or supposed.
ON THE INTERNAL SENSE OF THE WORD
From "The Doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures)
>
I"
T is on every one's lips that the Word is from God, is Divinely
inspired, and consequently holy; but still it has not hitherto
been known where, in the Word, the Divine is. For in the
letter the Word appears like an ordinary writing, in a foreign
style, neither sublime nor lucid, as the writings of the present
age apparently are. Owing to this, a person who worships nature
instead of God, or more than God, and who therefore thinks
from himself and his proprium, and not from heaven and from
the Lord, may easily fall into error respecting the Word, and
into contempt for it, saying within himself when he is reading
it, “What is this? What is that ? Is this Divine? Can God
who has infinite wisdom speak so? Where is its holiness ? and
whence, unless from some religious system and persuasion from
it ? »
But he who thinks in this manner does not consider that
Jehovah himself, who is the God of heaven and earth, spake the
Word through Moses and the prophets, and that it must there.
fore be the Divine Truth itself; for that which Jehovah himself
speaks can be nothing else. Nor does he consider that the Lord,
who is the same as Jehovah, spake the Word written by the
Evangelists, many things from his own mouth, and the rest from
the breath of his mouth, which is the Holy Spirit. It is for this
reason that he says that in his words there is life, and that he
himself is the Light which enlightens, and is the Truth.


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
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But still the natural man cannot from these considerations
be persuaded that the Word is the Divine Truth itself, in which
are Divine Wisdom and Divine Life; for he looks at it from its
style, in which he does not see those things. Yet the style of
the Word is the Divine style itself, with which no other can
be compared, however sublime and excellent it may seem; for
any other is like thick darkness, in comparison with light. The
style of the Word is such that holiness is in every sentence, and
in every word; yes, in some places in the very letters: hence the
Word conjoins man with the Lord, and opens heaven. There are
two things which proceed from the Lord, - Divine Love and
Divine Wisdom; or, which is the same, Divine Good and Divine
Truth. The Word in its essence is both of these; and because
it conjoins man with the Lord and opens heaven, as was said,
therefore the Word fills the man who reads it from the Lord
and not from himself alone, with the good of love and truths of
wisdom; his will with the good of love, and his understanding
with truths of wisdom. Hence man has life through the Word.
Lest therefore man should be in doubt whether the Word is
such, its internal sense has been revealed to me by the Lord,
which in its essence is spiritual, and is within the external sense
which is natural as the soul is in the body. That sense is the
spirit which gives life to the letter; it can therefore bear witness
to the Divinity and sanctity of the Word, and can convince even
the natural man, if he is willing to be convinced.
The Divine, proceeding from the Lord to its lowest extreme,
descends by three degrees, and is named Celestial, Spiritual, and
Natural. The Divine which descends from the Lord to human
beings descends through these three degrees; and when it has
descended, it contains those three degrees in itself. Such is the
case with everything Divine; therefore when it is in its lowest
degree, it is in its fullness. Such is the Word: in its lowest sense
it is natural, in its interior sense it is spiritual, and in the inmost
it is celestial; and in every sense it is Divine. That the Word is
such, is not apparent in the sense of its letter, which is nat-
ural, for the reason that man in the world has heretofore known
nothing concerning the heavens, and so has not known what the
spiritual is, nor what the celestial; and consequently he has not
known the difference between them and the natural.
Nor can the difference of these degrees from one another
be known without a knowledge of correspondence: for the three


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
degrees are wholly distinct from each other, just as the end, the
cause, and the effect are; or as the prior, the posterior, and the
postreme: but they make a one by correspondence; for the nat-
ural corresponds to the spiritual, and also to the celestial. What
correspondence is, may be seen in the work on “Heaven and
Hell, where the Correspondence of all things in Heaven with all
things of Man' is treated of (n. 87-102), and the Correspondence
of Heaven with all things of the Earth' (n. 103-115). It will
also be seen from examples to be adduced below, from the Word.
Whereas the Word interiorly is spiritual and celestial, it is
therefore written by mere correspondences; and that which is
written by mere correspondences, in its ultimate sense is written
in such a style as is found in the Prophets and in its Gospels.
And although this sense appears common, still it stores up within
itself Divine Wisdom and all Angelic Wisdom.
HOW BY THE WORD, HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE BROUGHT
INTO ASSOCIATION
From the (Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem)
T*
HE Word, forasmuch as it is a revelation from the Divine, is
Divine in all and every particular part; for what is from
the Divine cannot be otherwise. What is from the Divine
descends through the heavens even to man; wherefore in the
heavens it is accommodated to the wisdom of the angels who are
there, and on earth it is accommodated to the apprehension of the
men who are there. Wherefore in the Word there is an internal
sense which is spiritual for the angels, and an external sense
which is natural for men; hence it is that the conjunction of
heaven with man is effected by means of the Word. .
This may be illustrated by the following experience.
There
were African spirits with me, from Abyssinia. Their ears were
once opened to hear the singing in some temple in the world,
from a Psalm of David; by which they were affected with such
enjoyment that they too sang with those whom they heard. But
soon the ears were closed, so that they no longer heard anything
from them. But they were then affected with enjoyment still
greater, because it was spiritual; and they were at the same
time filled with intelligence, because that Psalm treated of the


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14251
Lord and of redemption. The cause of the increasing enjoyment
was, that communication was given them with the society in
heaven which was in conjunction with those who were singing
that Psalm in the world. From this experience and much beside,
it was made manifest that by the Word, communication is given
with the universal heaven. For this reason, by the Divine Provi-
dence of the Lord, there is a universal commerce of the king-
doms of Europe (and chiefly of those where the Word is read)
with the nations out of the church.
Comparison may be made with the heat and light from the
sun of the world, which give vegetation to trees and shrubs, even
to those which are out of its direct rays and in the shade, pro-
vided the sun has risen and shown itself in the world. So with
the light and heat of heaven, from the Lord as the Sun there;
which light is Divine truth, from which is all the intelligence
and wisdom of angels and of men. It is therefore said concern-
ing the Word, “that it was with God and was God; that it en-
lighteneth every man that cometh into the world” (John i. 1, 9);
«and that the light also shineth in darkness” (verse 5).
From this it may be evident that the Word which is in the
church of the Reformed, enlightens all nations and peoples by
spiritual communication; also that it is provided by the Lord
that there should always be on the earth a church where the
Word is read, and by it the Lord is known. Wherefore, when
the Word was almost rejected by the Papists, from the Lord's
Divine Providence the Reformation took place, whereby the Word
was again received; and also that the Word is held holy by a
noble nation among the Papists.
(
THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
From the Divine Providence)
H*
ENCE it is of the Divine Providence that every man
can be
saved; and they are saved who acknowledge God and live
well. That every man can be saved is manifest from what
has been demonstrated above. Some are of the opinion that
the Lord's church is only in the Christian world, because the
Lord is known there only, and the Word is only there. But still
there are many who believe that the church of God is general,


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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
14252
or extended and scattered throughout the whole world, therefore
among those also who are ignorant of the Lord and have not
the Word; saying that this is not their fault, and that they have
not the means of overcoming their ignorance, and that it is con-
trary to God's love and mercy that some should be born for hell,
when yet they are men equally with others. Now as Christians
(if not all of them, still many) have the belief that the church is
general, which is also called a communion, it follows that there
are most general principles of the church which enter into all
religions, and make that communion. That these most general
principles are the acknowledgment of God and the good of life,
will be seen in the following order: 1. The acknowledgment of
God makes conjunction of God with man and of man with God;
and the denial of God makes disjunction. 2. Every one acknowl-
edges God and is conjoined with him according to the good of
his life. 3. Good of life, or to live well, is to shun evils because
they are against religion, thus against God. 4. These are the
general principles of all religions, by which every one can be
saved.
THE ETHICS OF SWEDENBORG
(1) THE SPIRITUAL LIFE: HOW IT IS ACQUIRED
From Apocalypse Explained
>
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PIRITUAL life is acquired solely by a life according to the com-
mandments in the Word. These commandments are given
in a summary in the Decalogue; namely, Thou shalt not
commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not kill, Thou
shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet the goods of
others. These commandments are the commandments that are to
be done; for when a man does these his works are good and his
life is spiritual, and for the reason that so far as a man shuns
evils and hates them, so far he wills and loves goods.
For there are two opposite spheres that surround man, one
from hell, the other from heaven: from hell a sphere of evil and
of falsity therefrom, from heaven a sphere of good and of truth
therefrom; and these spheres do [not immediately] affect the
body, but they affect the minds of men; for they are spiritual
spheres, and thus are affections that belong to the love. In the


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midst of these man is set; therefore so far as he approaches the
one, so far he withdraws from the other. This is why so far as
a man shuns evil and hates it, so far he wills and loves good and
the truths therefrom; for no one can at the same time serve two
masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he
will cleave to the one and despise the other (Matt. vi. 24).
But let it be noted that man must do these commandments
from religion, because they are commanded by the Lord; and if
he does this from any other consideration whatever,- for in-
stance, from regard merely to the civil law or the moral law,-
he remains natural, and does not become spiritual. For when a
man acts from religion, he acknowledges in heart that there is
a God, a heaven and a hell, and a life after death. But when
he acts from regard merely to the civil and moral law, he may
act in the same way, and yet in heart may deny that there is
a God, a heaven and a hell, and a life after death. And if he
shuns evil and does good, it is merely in the external form, and
not in the internal; thus while he is outwardly in respect to the
life of the body like a Christian, inwardly in respect to the life
of his spirit he is like a devil. All this makes clear that a man
can become spiritual, or receive spiritual life, in no other way
than by a life according to religion from the Lord.
Many, I know, think in their heart that no one can of himself
shun the evils enumerated in the Decalogue, because man is born
in sins and has therefore no power of himself to shun them.
But let such know that any one who thinks in his heart that
there is a God, that the Lord is the God of heaven and earth,
that the Word is from him and is therefore holy, that there is a
heaven and a hell, and that there is a life after death, has the
ability to shun these evils. But he who despises these truths and
casts them out of his mind, and still more he who denies them,
is not able. For how can one who never thinks about God think
that anything is a sin against God? And how can one who never
thinks about heaven, hell, and the life after death, shun evils as
sins ? Such a man does not know what sin is.