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Doc. 259.] REV. T. HARTLEY’S TESTIMONY. 503
travels, he is a mere solitary, and almost inaccessible,* though
in his own country of a free and open behaviour; nor does he
persuade any to leave that established church to which they
belong.†
7. "Till very lately he has not set his name to any of his
theological works : he has nothing of the precisian in his
manner, nothing of melancholy in his temper, and nothing in
the least bordering upon the enthusiast in his conversation
or writings, in the latter of which he delivers facts in the
plain style of narrative, speaks of his converse with spirits
and angels with the same coolness that he treats of earthly
things, as being alike common to him ; he proves all points of
doctrine from Scripture testimony ; always connects charity and
good life with true faith, and is upon the whole as rational a
divine as I have ever read.
8. "If these parts of character may be allowed to gain
credit to his testimony, I think it may be pronounced concern
ing him, that he is the most extraordinary Messenger from
God to man, that has appeared on earth since the Apostolic
age, and that he may properly be called the Living Apostle
of these days.
9. "As to his writings, the subjects of them are confessedly
not only new, but greatly interesting ; such as the Spiritual
Sense of the Scriptures, many of the most difficult and hitherto
unknown passages of which he explains by the rule of Cor
respondences, shewing how things spiritual are represented or
signified by things natural. He lays open to view the errors
which have been introduced into the church, and still subsist
in it, and establishes the fundamental articles of faith on the
Divine Authority of the Sacred Writings, without quoting the
authority of any man, or offering any thing in the uncertainty
of opinion.
* Compare in this respect Cuno’s testimony, Document 256, F, 2, p. 485.
+ Swedenborg’s own words on this subject are as follows : "Before the
church is fully devastated, the interior Word is revealed, i. e. according
to the spiritual sense ; because then a New Church will be instituted into
which are invited those of the former church, and for the New Church
interior Divine Truth is revealed .... This New Church will be called the
New Jerusalem" (Apocalypse Explained, no. 948).
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