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MEMORIAL OF THE HONORABLE EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 175
but whoever lives as a good and loyal citizen, enjoys here every immunity and
privilege due to his character, and he is perfectly free.
" VL Lastly, Gentlemen, I have the honor to entreat you to consider that what
I have said should be placed as a counterpoise in the opposite scale of the bal-
ance, if it should happen that the other scale, in which all the defects of our
government, and all the allegations which may have been raised agoinst its form
and constitution are placed, should be found too preponderant. For justice is
like a balance, of which indeed that instrument is the emblem ; in this balance
good and evil are weighed, and if we act with impartiality in respect to our
government, the result will prove that the good which proceeds from its con-
stitution is, in every respect, paramount.
" Nevertheless, since your honorable assembly commences this day its labors,
I sincerely wish, that it will thoroughly examine, according to justice, all the
abuses which may have arisen since the last Diet that it will redress and cor-
rect those that have arisen through error, and that it .will rigorously extir-
pate those which have been caused by departing from justice, and by pervert-
ing the spirit of the laws. But I especially desire that the Diet will exercise a
particular care in preventing and obviating those symptoms of discontent, which
restless and turbulent minds would excite against the established form of our
government, as well in the provinces as in the Estates of the Realm, now assem-
bled. These useful precautions. Gentlemen, will prevent you from falling ir\
Charybdis, whilst endeavoring to avoid Scylla.
"Presented to the Diet held at Stockholm, January, 1761, by
*’
Emanuel Swedenborg,
" Member of the Senatorial Order of
the Kingdom."
In the third part of Dr. Tafel’s Documents concerning the Life of Swedenborg, we
find another memorial presented to the Diet of Sweden bearing date the same year (] 761)
with the preceding. Whether there is some mistake in regard to the true date of the
one or the other, or whether both were actually presented on different occasions during
the same year, ^ve are unable to determine. But as the ensuing document is of equal
intrinsic interest with the other, we have seen fit to insert it, together with the annexed
Memorial respecting Finance, in which Swedenborg strongly insists upon the superior
advantages of a metallic currency over that of paper.
—
B.
MEMORIAL OF THE HONORABLE EMANUEL SWEDENBORG,
Presented to the Diet of Sweden, in the year 1761.
( Translated from the " Documents concerning the Life of Sivedenborg" Published
by Dr. Tafel, Part 3, p. 64.)
General Views respecting the Maintenance of the State and the
Preservation of its Freedom.
" There are two principal points, to which it behoves the very laudable the
States of the empire to devote their particular attention, and to watch over as
anxiously as each would guard his own life and welfare. The first is the pre-
servation of our excellent constitution, and through it of our invaluable freedom
;
he other is the maintenance of our alliances with foreign powers, and espe-
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