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276 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
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enabled to discourse with spirits and angels, and to see
the things of that world, which, according to the general
laws of nature, are totally concealed from mortal eyes ?
What again could be a greater miracle, than that, by
means of this same man, the internal spiritual sense of
the Holy Scriptures is now opened and made manifest,
which has been heretofore deeply hid and concealed from
the most enlightened persons of former ages ? Lastly,
what could be a greater miracle than the fulfilment hereby
of ancient prophecies, in raising up again the_taber
nacle of David which hadfallen down,’ and building up
a new spiritual temple of pure worshipers of the great
Jehovah, signified and predicted in the Revelations,
under the figure of the Bride, the Lamb’s wife?’
Yet you reject all this most extraordinary miraculous
evidence, which is enough to convince every serious and
well-disposed mind ; and in the meanwhile, what is the
evidence you require in its place ? Why, like the dis
satisfied Jews of old, a sign from heaven, a miracle of
your own choosing and not of God’s, an imaginary
testimony which, I will be bold to say, would not produce
conviction, if granted ; or, if it did produce conviction,
would not tend at all to forward your salvation, but pos
sibly would have a direct contrary tendency. For, alas !
in these days of infidelity and scepticism, how few would
have believed in the kind ofmiracles which you require,
and what endless doubts and suspicions would have been
excited respecting their authenticity and credibility ! How
many would have imputed them to an infernal, instead of
a divine agency ? How many would have made them
even a ground and reason for refusing their assent to our
author’s doctrines, urging them as marks of Antichrist,
and of the false prophet, rather than of the true, and
sheltering themselves herein under the declaration of
Christ Himself, who hath said, that false Christs and
false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and
wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect !’*
* Mark xiii. 22. See also the Revelations, chap. xiii. 14, where
the beastis described as deceiving by miracles.
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