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280 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
If Baron Swedenborg therefore be a heaven-taught scribe,
your own consciences will dictate to you, in a more
powerful language than that of any human words, how
you ought to hear what he teaches, and not only hear
him yourselves, but also make his doctrines known to
others, as far as ability is given. And if he be a false
teacher and deceiver, you are still equally bound to dis
cover and make known the fallacy and deceitfulness, by
which he has already begun to impose upon thousands,
that so the error may be checked.
"Many prejudices, it must be acknowledged, arising
from a variety of sources, at present stand in the way, to
oppose in your minds the testimony of the honourable
author here presented before you. But let me ask, What
teacher of truth, whether ancient or modern, religious or
philosophical, has not prejudice opposed ? The prophets
of old, you well know, were each of them, in their turn,
violently assaulted by prejudice. The God of Truth
Himself, when manifested in the flesh, did not escape
prejudice. His most venerable followers in all ages, after
the example of their Divine Master, have had to combat
with the same unreasonable adversary- prejudice. Pre
judice, too, has had the boldness to oppose the conclusions
of a sound philosophy, as well as of a sound theology ;
and you need not be informed, that had the voice of
prejudice prevailed, the brightest discoveries of the most
able philosopher that ever contemplated the works of the
God of nature, had still laid buried in obscurity.*
"But it was always deemed a characteristic of true
wisdom, to overcome prejudice. The lover of truth is
taught to believe this, and to be persuaded that truth is
not less truth because it is vilified and opposed ; neither
is error less error because it has numbers on its side, and
* It is well known howthe philosophical principles of Sir Isaac
Newton were opposed and controverted in his own country, at their
first publication; nor was the prejudice against them removed until
they had received the sanction of approbation from the learned in
other parts of Europe, and were sent back again into England,
embellished and enforced by the annotations of the French com
mentators.
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