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130 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
standing agreeable to their former quality and life, inasmuch as the actual follies
and madnesses dwell in the external natural man, and not in the internal spiritual.
*’ With regard to what passed in the earliest part of my life, about which you
wish to be informed : from my fourth to my tenth year, my thoughts were con-
stantly engrossed by reflecting upon God, on salvation, and on the spiritual
affections of man. I often revealed things in my discourse, which filled my pa-
rents with astonishment, and made them declare at times, that certainly the angels
spoke through my mouth.
" From my sixth to my twelfth year, it was my greatest delight to converse
with the clergy concerning faith ; to whom I often observed, that charity or love
was the life of faith, and that this vivifying charity or love ims no other than the
love of one’s neighbor ; that God vouchsafes this faith to every one ; but that it is
adopted by those only who practise that charity.
" I knew of no other faith or belief at that time, than that God is the Creator and
Preserver of Nature ; that he endues man with understanding, good inclina-
tions, and other gifts thence derived.
*’
I knew nothing at that time of this systematic or dogmatic kind of faith,
that God the Father imputes the righteousness or merits of his Son to whomso-
ever, and at such times, as he wills, even to the impenitent. And had I heard
of such kind of faith, it would have been then, as now, perfectly unintelligible
to me.—I remain, &c.,
" Emanuel Swedenborg.
" Stockholm, Nov. 14, 1769."
LETTER VIII.
To Dr. Beyer.
" I received yours of Dec. 2d this day, also the printed letter, which at first
caused a clamor among a great part of the clerical body ;
yet clamor does no harm,
being like the ferment in wine when fermenting, after which it is purified ; for unless
what is ivrong is brought into a state of ventilation, and is thus rejected, what is right
cannot be discerned and received. I have, indeed, been informed of the proceed-
ings of the deputies in the clerical assembly of the Diet, but I did not stir one
step to defend that cause ; knowing that the Lord Himself, our Saviour, defends
His church, particularly against those who refuse to enter through the right door
into the sheepfold, that is, into the church, and thus into heaven ; such are called
thieves and robbers. The Lord Himself declares, ’
He that entereth not by the door
into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, is a thief and a robber; I
am the door, if any man enters by me, he shall be saved, and he shall find pas-
ture ’
(John X. 1,7, 8, 9). I have moreover been told by an angel from the Lord,
that I may rest securely upon my arm in the night, by which is meant that night, in
which the world is now immersed, as to what relates to the church.
*’
I have also read the appendix to The Spy, No- 48, and in the concluding ex-
pressions I perceive the interior sense of the author, which is easily discovered.
" With respect to the two clergymen whom your deceased wife has spoken of,
she has not mentioned their names, for which reason neither can I mention
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