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140 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
" Should we proceed in our inquiry, and judge of the claims of these writ-
tings to our attention by their use in illustrating the Holy Word, it will then be
found, that the most difficult passages which the Sacred Records contain, may,
upon Assessor Swedenborg’s mode of explication, be developed in a satisfactory
manner ; and that even those things hard to be understood, in the writings of Paul,
may, by this light, be easily comprehended. Let no person, therefore, hereafter
think of the author as Festus did when he addressed Paul, and said, ’ Much learn-
ing doth make thee mad’ (Acts xxvi. 24).
" But to take a nearer view of the subject, these theological writings may be
divided into three general classes : the first, comprehending every point touch-
ing the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures ; the second, everything appertaining
to the doctrines of religion; and the third, the numerous things that the author
has seen or heard, during his intercourse and experience with the spiritual
world.
1. " With regard to ilie Interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, it is immediately to
be perceived, that the obscure views of spiritual truth, pursued at a guess by
Origen, Cocceius, and many other pious divines, and ^een but by partial glimpses,
have, by Assessor Swedenborg in his Arcana Ccelestia, and the two works on
the Apocahjpse, been brought forth to the full light of day. This will manifestly
appear, whenever, with due consideration and an acquaintance with the terms
employed to elucidate his principles, we read attentively and successively the
contents prefixed to each chapter, by which means we shall acquire a connected
general idea of that book of the Word which he is proceeding to explain ; but still
stronger will be our light if we proceed to each chapter individually, and osberve
from the given signification of each word, how all the chapters are united in a
connected series in the internal sense. The explanation of words and things used
by Swedenborg is constant and invariable ; and when once apprehended, may,
according to the soundest rules of interpretation, be applied to other parts of the
Word, much in the way that we use the lexical interpretation of words to enable
us to study the works of a foreign author in their original language. How un-
expectedly will it be found upon such an investigation, that there are discovera-
ble, even in those books which are to all appearance merely historical, purely
spiritual and celestial things; that is, things in the highest degree worthy of the
wisdom of God, relating solely to himself, to heaven, and to the church !
—as,
for example, in the history of Lot and his daughters (Genesis xix. 31). And
lest any person should hastily suppose that such signification and interpretation
are merely imaginary, the author has observed with all possible care the most
universally acknowledged rule of interpretation, that the Scriptures must be inter-
preted by the Scriptures ,-
his interpretation is consequently conducted upon the
most conclusive principles. And forasmuch as the majesty and glory of the
spiritual and celestial senses are veiled in the heavenly cloud, or literal sense of
the Word, he has been truly qualified from on high to dispel the mist,—to bring
to light and fully to explain what the genuine doctrines of the church ought to
be ; for as the church is spiritual, it must derive all that makes it such from the
spirituality of the Word, so that there can be no truth of the church, unless at
the same time it be a truth of heaven ; and there can be no consociation and
conjunction with the Lord and heaven, but so far as the men of the church think
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