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SWEDENBORO. 



conversed, not only with his deceased aeqtudntanee, 

 but with the most distinguished men of antiquity. 

 That he might devote all his life to this spiritual 

 intercourse, and his mediatorial connexion between 

 the visible and invisible world, he resigned, in 1747, 

 his office in the mining college, which he had hi- 

 therto discharged with punctilious- exactness, and 

 refused a higher appointment that was offered him. 

 The king still paid him his full salary as a pension. 

 With no occupation but to see and converse with 

 spirits, or to record celestial revelations, he now 

 resided alternately in Sweden and England. The 

 theological works which he wrote in this period, 

 he printed at his own expense. They found mul- 

 titudes of readers; and while he was an object of 

 the deepest veneration and wonder to his followers, 

 his statements were the more mysterious to the rest 

 of the world, because he could not be suspected of 

 dishonesty, and exhibited, in other respects, no 

 mental aberration. All respected him as a man of 

 profound learning, an acute thinker, and a virtuous 

 member of society. His moderation and his inde- 

 pendent circumstances make it impossible to suppose 

 him actuated by ambitious or interested views ; his 

 unfeigned piety gave him the character of a saint, 

 who lived more in the society of angels than of men. 

 In those trances, during which, as he said, he con- 

 versed with spirits, received revelations, or had 

 views of the invisible world, he seemed like one in 

 a dream ; his features were stamped with pain and 

 rapture, according as heaven or hell was opened 

 to him. In common life, he exhibited the refine- 

 ment of polished society ; his conversation was in- 

 structive and pleasant ; his personal appearance was 

 dignified. Though he was never married, he es- 

 teemed the company of intellectual women, and 

 studiously avoided eccentricity. His pretended 

 revelations, which he published at first freely, 

 though not boastingly, but in latter years with more 

 reserve, and the mysterious doctrines contained in 

 his writings, drew upon him the ill will of the 

 clergy ; but the principal bishops favoured his writ- 

 ings, and he enjoyed the protection of king Adol- 

 phus Frederic. With uninterrupted health, he 

 attained the age of eighty-four years, and died of 

 apoplexy, at London, March 29, 1772. To the day 

 of his death he was fully persuaded of the reality of 

 his visions and divine inspirations. This faith be- 

 came, at length, a fixed principle in his mind, which 

 was every day more and more detached from sub- 

 lunary things. When this illusion had once gained 

 ascendancy over him, his own prolific mind, and the 

 writings of earlier mystical theologians, furnished 

 him with materials enough to form such a spiritual 

 world as he pleased. His descriptions of it, even in 

 the minutest points, bear the stamp of the age in 

 which he lived, and those views of the external 

 world which he had gained as a natural philosopher; 

 his spirits converse with a distinct individuality, 

 and the family likeness of his interpretations of the 

 Bible with the explanations and allegories of the ear- 

 lier mystics, is every where obvious. But what- 

 ever we may think of his revelations, his purposes 

 were praiseworthy to collect a church of religious 

 persons, and preserve them from the irreligious and 

 demoralizing systems of the age, by the diffusion of 

 his religious and edifying works. In the moral 

 parts of his writings, we meet with the purest doc- 

 trines, and with passages of peculiar religious de- 

 ration ; and, though he wrote in a bad style and in 

 careless Latin, he deserves rather to be classed 

 among the religious poets than among theologians. 



Tin- stories of his prophecies and supernatural 

 knowledge of events of actual occurrence for in- 

 stance, the information which he gave, in (uitti-n- 

 burg, of the conflagration at Stockholm, the hour 

 when it happened are curious from the amount of 

 testimony adduced in their support. The dorti in.-s 

 of the sect which bears his name, are founded MI 

 the Bible and the following books, written ]>\ 

 Swedenborg, in Latin, between the years 1747 

 and 1771 : Arcana Caelestia ; De Caelo et Inferno ; 

 De Tclluribus ; De Ultimo Judicio ; De Equo 

 Allo ; De Nova Hierosolyma et ijvs Doctrina 

 Ccelesti ; De Domino ; De Scriptura Sacra ; De 

 Vita ; De Fide ; De Divino Amore et Divina Pro 

 videntia ; De Amore Conjugiali; De Comtncrcio 

 Animce et Corporis ; Summaria Expositio Sensus 

 Prophetici ; Apocalypsis Explicata ; Apocalyptil 

 Revelata ; De Vera Theologia Christiana. Of tin- 

 Bible, they consider canonical only the Pentateuch, 

 the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the books 

 of Samuel and of Kings, the Psalms, the prophets, 

 the Gospels, and the Apocalypse. The members 

 of this sect are not distinguished by dress, or by any 

 outward sign, from the rest of the world. In Swe- 

 den, where they are estimated at 2000 persons, they 

 are obliged to keep their opinions private. In Eng- 

 land, where, since 1783, they have had chapels in 

 London and in many of the large cities, they are 

 openly tolerated, like the other dissenters ; and this 

 has contributed to increase their numbers. The 

 members are mostly people of the middle and higher 

 ranks. Charles XIII., king of Sweden, when duke 

 of Sudermania, was, for a time, attached to them. 

 In France, Germany, and Poland, the adherents of 

 this sect are few; in the East Indies, North Ame- 

 rica, and South Africa, there are many churches 

 Without acknowledging any general government, 

 the churches all administer their own alFairs. The 

 famous travellers Sparrmann and Nordenskiold are 

 among their disciples ; and the latter, with Afzelius 

 of Sweden, founded a church at Sierra Leone, in 

 Africa. For this, and other African colonies, and 

 for the abolition of the slave trade, the Swedenbor- 

 gians have done much. In the African society at 

 London, their influence is very great. They are 

 constantly labouring to diffuse their doctrines by 

 editions of the works of Swedenborg, and by several 

 periodical works in England, and one in Boston, in 

 America. 



We shall now give a short statement of the doc- 

 trines of Swedenborg, in the language of his fol- 

 lowers : The principal tenets of Swedenborg are 

 these : He teaches that there is one God, the Lord 

 Jesus Christ, in whom is a divine Trinity, which is 

 not a Trinity of persons, but is analogous to that 

 which exists in man, the image and likeness of God. 

 In man is a soul or essential principle of life, aform 

 or body, natural in this world and spiritual in the 

 spiritual world, in which the soul exists, and by 

 which it manifests itself in operation ; these three, 

 soul, form, and operation, are as the Father, Son, 

 and Holy Spirit. And as some affection is within 

 all thought, and causes it, and forms it, and as all 

 action is the effect of volition, or affection operat- 

 ing by and through thought, so the Father is the 

 divine love, the Son the divine wisdom, and the 

 Holy Spirit the divine operation. So, too, as every 

 effect must be produced by some cause, and for 

 some end, end, cause, and effect consist in all things, 

 as a Trinity. This Trinity Swedenborg does not 

 consider as arbitrary and figurative, but as most 

 real, grounded in the divine nature, and existing 



