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146 [Doc. 10.
SWEDENBORG’S ANCESTRY,
1
and the many other men who have made themselves well
esteemed in God’s Church, and whose names are far spread in
the learned world. God’s angel stood by me and said: What
do you read ? I answered: I read the Bible, Scriver (whose
“ Treasure of the soul” he esteemed above all the gold and silver
in the whole world), Lütkeman , John Arndt, Kortholt, Gross
gebaur, J. Schmidt, and others. The angel said further :
Do you understand what you read in the Bible ? I answered :
How can I understand, when there is no one to explain it to
me ? The angel then said : Procure for yourself Geier, J. and
S. Schmidt, Dieterich, Tarnow, Gerhardi, and Crell’s Biblical
Concordance. I said : A part of these books I have; the rest
I will provide myself with. The angel further said : Blessed is
he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy,
and keep these things which are written therein (Rev. i, 3). If
ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them (John xiii,
17). I sobbed :
0, grant us, God, by thine not known,
To live and act thus ev’ry hour;
Thy spirit help us, prone to sin,
To do as God Himself desires !
And thus he departed from me after he had blessed me, and
I had thanked him most humbly.” The following conversation
which he had with Dr. Edzardi at Hamburg is also charac
teristic of him . Swedberg asked him , in what language we
should speak upon meeting in God’s kingdom . Edzardi did not
answer . Swedberg continued: “I think it will be in the angels’
language. As angels talk Swedish in conversing with
Swedes, as they speak German with the Germans, English
with the English, and so forth, I shall some day talk with
Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob in Swedish, and they will answer
me in the same tongue; or else they will talk with me in
Hebrew, and I shall understand them in that language." By
these examples, which might easily be increased, it is easy to
see how the presentiments of Swedberg’s faith contributed to
Swedenborg’s experience ; but it is very easy also to see how
far the apple fell from the original tree. *
* It appears from this expression that Swedberg’s biographer was pot
an admirer of the bishop’s son, Emanuel Swedenborg.
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