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1:^6 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG,
XXVI.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER
FROM
DR. BEYER TO DR. OETINGER^
AT MURRHARD.
Dr. Oetinger corresponded with Dr. Beyer, to whom he stated several objections re-
specting Swedenborg’s writings ; the following letter contains these objections and their
refutation. These objections, it is evident from what Oetinger afterwards wrote in his
different works, and especially in that entitled ’*
The High Priesthood of Christ," (see
above pp. 150-151,) were to a great extent, if not entirely, removed. Dr. Beyer’s
letter is as follows
:
" I could wish that you and Swedenborg, as being two eminently learned and
honest men, entertained the same opinions ; but notwithstanding the difference
which subsists between you on theological points, your indefatigable and unal-
terable love for truth, Vviiich shines so conspicuously, gives me an assurance
that it will very shortly be removed ;
yea, that you will even accede to Swe-
denborg’s sentiments with a full assent, should you be pleased, and would your
duties permit you, to take a deeper and more general view of all his writings.
"For myself, whilst I am reading, neither his name, nor the dignity of his
person, passes before my eyes, which he indeed himself wishes to extinguish,
in order that the reader may only hold in honor the holiness of the subjects on
which he treats : and I am no longer led to inquire, by what deep attainments
in sciences and philosophy he had arrived at celebrity before the year 3745, but
my whole endeavor is, to acquire a rational judgment of his theosophical doc-
trines, according to the true Biblical theosophy. Besides, it is impossible to see
divine things, such as all those which relate to the kingdom of the Lord, heaven,
and the church, in any other than a divine, that is, heavenly light. Such things
can receive no light from the light of nature, or the sun of the natural world, or
as we may say, from the pomp of all natural sciences, which fall under the
name of philosophy, and the merely human understanding, be they as pure as
possible. Undoubtedly, what is superior can flow into what is inferior, but not
vice vcrsd ,• and the truths derived from heaven can illustrate and correct the
truths derived from the world, but not these the former. We certainly stand in
need of illumination from the Lord and Saviour through the heavens, to be ena-
bled to understand what is spiritual and celestial, which may then be confirmed
with man, through rational and natural sciences, provided we do not believe
that power and strength are derived from the latter. I also remember that Swe-
denborg nowhere depends, in his theological writings, upon the scientific phi-
losophical principles he had learned before, or argues from them ; still less does
he draw forth his arguments from mechanical philosophy ; from the motion, rest,
figure, position, or properties of matter; from natural phenomena; nor does he
defend the nature and property of spiritual things by them, forasmuch as they
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