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Doc. 245.] 385
SWEDENBORG TO BEYER.
From this document we see that Swedenborg did not succeed
by means of his letter to the King (Document 245, X) in re
moving the embargo laid upon the importation and sale of
his books in Sweden ; and as he never returned to his native
country after writing the above letter, he could not carry out
his intention of lodging a complaint against the action of the
Privy Council at the Diet of 1772. The persecutions which
he experienced in Sweden, and which are described through
out the whole of Document 145, were no doubt one of the
reasons why he did not return to Sweden after publishing his
last work entitled : "The True Christian Religion ; or, Uni
versal Theology of the New Church," and why he preferred
to spend the remaining days of his earthly life in England,
where he died on March 29, 1772.
In respect to the trial, however, as it affected Drs. Beyer
and Rosén, the author of ’ Nya Kyrkan," &c., says (Part I,
p. 70) : "The wearisome trial in the end led to no other result
than that the further publication of the Minutes of the Consistory
of Gottenburg was prohibited by the government, and the whole
procedure against ’Swedenborgianism’ was finally stopped on
account of ’the doubtful (besynnerliga) means which were
resorted to in its prosecution.’ Beyer and Rosén meanwhile
retained their appointments as lectors in the Gymnasium of
Gottenburg, but they were subjected to certain limitations in
the choice of subjects on which they had formerly lectured
in other words, Dr. Beyer by a Royal Resolution was declared
to be infected with erroneous doctrinal opinions, and unfit to
instruct others in theological subjects.* The same limitations
also, it seems, were imposed upon Dr. Rosén. This gentleman,
however, did not long survive the close of the first religious
trial of the New Church, in which he took such a distinguished
part. He became ill in the middle of August 1773, and died on
the 6th of the following month. Dr. Beyer, after having passed
safely through this memorable trial, applied himself closely to
the elaboration of his Index initialis in opera Swedenborgii
theologica, which was printed in Amsterdam in 1779. After
he had finished this laborious work, and had sent the last
* See "Biografiskt Lexicon," &c., Vol. XIX, p. 247.
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