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Doc. 256.] 475
CUNO’S LETTER TO SWEDENBORG.
fanatics of this sort. But where is that specific difference,
which distinguishes you from them? * I have never doubted
your honesty and sincerity. But your spirits appear too
suspicious to me, and the wisdom which you attribute to them
sometimes verges into insanity, e. g. when they desire that you
should assert from their mouth, that in the whole of heaven
there is not a single angel who was created such in the
beginning.
"I am afraid that such nefarious spirits sometimes were
not sufficiently explored by you, and that they have imposed
upon you. For ’Satan himself,’ according to the weighty
testimony of Paul (2 Cor. xi, 14) ’is transformed into an angel
of light’.
"If I have succeeded in expressing to you my first doubts, and
have pointed out to you where your system requires additional
proofs, I am satisfied. You yourself can, if you choose, discover
other reasons by which you may remove the remaining doubts
in incredulous readers. You will please look upon this letter
as a mere precursor. The remainder of what I have to say
cannot be treated lightly and cursorily. Farewell.
[JOHN CHRISTIAN CUNO.]
"Amsterdam, March 8, 1769."
"Just as my letter is written here, I sent it to him sealed,
and waited a few days to see whether he would answer me.
As he did not do so, I went to see him. I found him quite
cold; nay, to say the truth, he appeared to me even a little
angry. Nothing seemed to surprise him more than that I had
suspected his honest angels, and regarded him as simple enough
to be their dupe. He told me dryly, ’If you are not willing
to believe me, you have expended far too much trouble in
studying my writings so attentively as you have.’ When he
said these words it seemed to me, as if the smiling and in
nocent expression, which I was accustomed to see in his face,
had totally vanished. As I was thus deprived of all hope
* See Swedenborg’s statement to Count Bonde in Document 217, p. 232.
All objections brought forward here by Cuno are abundantly answered
by the Rev. Thomas Hartley in Document 258, the careful perusal of which
we recommend to the reader, especially of nos. 14, 16, and 24.
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