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506 TESTIMONY OF CONTEMPORARIES. [Doc. 259.
might go near to hazard the success of their benevolent
labours. Miracles have no necessary connection with truth,
nor do they enlighten the mind with any knowledge of it ; the
reality of them may be questioned, or they may be ascribed
to other causes than the true one (for false prophets and
seducing spirits may work wonders) ; the evidence of them may
be resisted, or the force of that evidence may be overpowered
by worldly considerations and influence ; of all which we have
examples in Scripture. Now where miracles fail of their
proper effect, by not proving the means of our conviction,
they add condemnation to the sin of unbelief, and therefore
they are often witheld in mercy to the incredulous : accordingly
it is recorded of our Lord, that He did not many mighty
works in Nazareth because of their unbelief. But are there
no other ways of admitting the force even of any kind of
truths, than by miracles, and those better suited to the nature
of the human understanding, viz. by the testimony of credible
witnesses, by moral evidence and solid reasoning, and above
all, by purity of intellect in certain defæcate minds, between
which and truth there is a certain affinity or sympathy which
unites them without the intervention of argument?"
B.
FROM HIS PREFACE TO THE WORK ON "HEAVEN AND HELL."
15. "The honourable and learned author of this treatise,
Emanuel Swedenborg, was a native of Sweden,* of eminence
and distinction in his own country, having had an honourable
employment under the crown, and being a member of the
House of Nobles ; of respected estimation in the royal family
during the late reigns ; of extensive learning, as his voluminous
writings demonstrate ; and, as to private life and character,
irreproachable. Something more particular, as to his personal
character, has been spoken in the Preface to the Treatise on
the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body; and Mr. Sweden
* The first English translation of "Heaven and Hell" was published in
1778; thus six years after Swedenborg’s death.
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