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72 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
already informed your majesty, and beseech you to recall it to mind, that the Lord
our Saviour manifested himself to me in a sensible personal appearance ;
that he
has commanded me to write what has been already done, and what I have still
to do ; that he was afterwards graciously pleased to endow me with the privi-
lege of conversing with angels and spirits, and to be in fellowship with them. I
have already declared this more than once to your majesty, in the presence of
all the royal family, when they were graciously pleased to invite me to their
table with five senators, and several other persons ; this was the only subject
discoursed of during the repast. Of this I also spoke afterwards to several other
senators ; and more openly to their excellencies Count de Tessin, Count Bonde,
and Count Hdpken, who are still alive, and were satisfied with the truth of it.
I have declared the same in England, Holland, Germany, Denmark, and at Paris,
to kings, princes, and other particular persons, as well as to those in this king-
dom. If the common report is beUeved, the chancellor has declared, that what
I have been reciting are untruths, although the very truth. To say that they
cannot believe and give credit to such things, therein will I excuse them, for it
is not in my power to place others in the same state in which God has placed
me, so as to be able to convince them, by their own eyes and ears, of the truth
of those deeds and things I pubhcly have made known. I have no ability to
capacitate them to converse with angels and spirits, neither to work miracles to
dispose, or force their understandings to comprehend what I say. When my
writhigs are read with attention and cool reflection (in which many things are
to be met with as hitherto unknown), it is easy enough to conclude, that 1 could
not come to such knowledge, but by a real vision, and by conversing with those
who are in the spiritual world. Asa farther proof, T besefech* their excellencies
to peruse what is contained in my treatise on Conjugial Love, page 314 to 316.
This book is in the hands of Count de Ekeblad, and Count de Bjelke. If any
doubt shall still remain, I am ready to testify with the most solemn oath that can
be offered in this matter, that I have said nothing but essential and real truth,
without any mixture of deception. This knowledge is given to me from our
Saviour, not for any particular merit of mine, but for the great concern of all
Christians’ salvation and happiness ; and as such, how can any venture to assert
it as false .’ That these things may appear such as many have had no concep-
tion of, and of consequence, that they cannot easily credit, it has nothing re-
markable in it, for scarce anything is known respecting them.
"If it is true, that the chancellor has written to the consistory at Gottenburg,
in the terms which! have related from the public rumor, it will give occasion to
conclude, that my writings contain errors, and that what I have declared to be
revealed to me are falsities, which can in nowise be proved, unless construed
into a sense I never intended. In such a case, according to the laws on that
head, I might be arrested and shut up in prison, and all this without being heard
in my own defence. This is the motive for my having recourse to your majesty
for protection ; for since the establishment of Christianity and liberty in our coun-
try, it is a thing altogether unheard of, that any person has been proceeded against
in the manner they have against me.
’’On this important affair, which concerns not only my writings but also
* At that time the king only presided in the senate, to which body at large he there-
fore addressed this letter.
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