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Doc. 245.] 361
ROSEN TO A SENATOR.
although they come from above ; that salvation actually takes
place by a removal of evil and falsity from the heart, through
the implantation of truth and charity by the Lord, and so
forth. I know that much may be added here, and also many
objections brought forward; but I hasten to that matter which
concerns me more particularly.
"Gracious Sir, it is by no means unusual for a philo
logist to agree with Grotius, Mosheim, and Michaëlis, and
to understand certain passages in Scripture differently from
the old Reformers.
"It is perhaps not appropriate to declare what genuine
Lutherans think. I, nevertheless, ventured to do so in support
of Section I, chap. i, Misdemeanours B.’ [of the Swedish
Code of laws] ; where most undoubtedly a distinction is made
between errors and the views respecting which Lutheran
teachers are found to differ.
"As regards myself, I have not discovered a new religion,
nor have I propagated any other than the evangelical religion,
so far as it harmonizes with our symbolical [dogmatic ] books.
I have admitted that Swedenborgianism diminishes our vene
ration for these books ; and when I observed this I became
much troubled in my mind about it, and the result of my
investigations was that I halted in my resolution. Yet the
teachers of our dogmas, far from putting their own declara
tions on a par with Scripture (how strange, if the Lutheran
colony in Sweden should attribute to the Augsburg prin
ciples a greater weight than is done both in the fatherland
of protestantism and by the originators of the law! To do
so would be a sign of a fanatical and almost frantic zeal,
and not of veneration for the Word, and gratitude to
wards its Giver), ascribe the power of judging to the Word
alone; and as all human statutes in the Swedish laws are
framed in accordance with Scripture, and are not placed
above it ; nay, as the free Houses of the Swedish Diet in
1766,* in describing the limits of the freedom of writing and
"The force of this argument is derived from the intention of the
statute. The preamble states, that the freedom of writing is intended to
benefit the cultivation of the sciences without any exception. The free
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