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Doc. 10.) 145
BISHOP JESPER SWEDBERG .
schemes of revenge against his adversaries. Gentleness was
one of the principal features of his character, even while he
was engaged in announcing most zealously the judgment of sins,
and prophesying to the people and the King the punishment
which will surely overtake ungodliness; it was épws xepauvo popos,
thundering love, which lent wings to his speech. According
to his own confession, he willingly followed good advice, and
loved those. who corrected him . He did not disdain occa
sionally a social glass with his friends, and then always drank
to the health of his adversaries. When he yielded to the
entreaties of his wife and his friends, and tore himself away
from his writing-table, he always returned to it more fatigued,
“ than if he had driven oxen before the plough .”
In speaking of Swedberg’s theological views and activity,
we cannot refrain from noticing, that his strong faith was
frequently uttered by him in such a manner, that by some it
seemed to border upon superstition. In his first year as
a student at the university, he had such a wonderful dream ,
that he did not know whether he ought not to call it a
revelation. “ No human tongue," he says concerning it, " can
pronounce, and no angel can describe, what I then saw and
heard." He relates how in 1673, on the day he preached
in Hoby Church near Lund, the third Sunday after Trinity,
there were heard towards evening in the church, which yet
had no organ, loud voices singing hymns. Everybody in
the village heard them. From that time, Swedberg says,
he felt for the worship of God and the priestly office that
profound veneration which never left him, being sure that
“God’s angels are especially present in this sacred office."
Every year after he had entered that office, he celebrated
this day as a jubilee, and called it “the great sinner’s
great festive day ;" even so late as 1727 (?) he celebrated
it by the publication of a book under that title.
profoundly convinced that he had an angelus tutelaris – a
guardian angel. The following occurrence related by him,
may interest even those who feel no interest in the subject
of guardian angels. “God preserved me during the whole of
my student life from bad company. My company and my
greatest delight were God’s holy men who wrote the Bible,
He was
10
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