A Biographical Sketch of Emanuel Swedenborg

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER. 1II. Biblical LiteraturePrinciples of InterpretationDawn of a New EraWilliam LawSwedenborg the InterpreterThe Adversaria and the Arcana CcelestiaGeneral Programme of the latterThe Last JudgmentThe New Jerusalem and its Heavenly DoctrineThe Inhabitants of other EarthsAccount of Heaveii and Hell from things heard and seenThe Four Leading DoctrinesAngelic Wisdom Concerning Divine Love and Wisdom, and concerning Divine ProvidenceTreatise on Conjugial LoveThe Apocalypse RevealedThe True Christian ReligionSummary of Swedenborg's Personal History from 1745 to his death in 1772Catalogue of his Theological and Biblical WorksThe New Church. The Statement of Swedenborg, that the inventions of writing and printing, and with these may be included all the arts connected with the cultivation of letters, have been developed for the sake of the Word, receives ample support from the mass of literature which has accumulated round the Bible; a mere catalogue of the works devoted to the illustration of which would fill a large volume. Among these the Commentaries of the Jews themselves are the most ancient, but they fall immeasurably short of the works of Christians, both as regards their number and the labour bestowed upon them. To pass over the remains of the primitive fathers, and escape the ' dark ages ' by which they were succeeded, - we find the monks of the Roman Catholic Church busily employed as Commentators on the Sacred text. It is a mere prejudice and sign of ignorance on the part of Protestants to imagine that the Reformation alone recognised the value of the Word, though it is quite true that its light was witheld from the laity by the Catholic priests. A work by Lauretus may be mentioned as an example of the most enlightened application to the s..