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520 TESTIMONY OF CONTEMPORARIES. [Doc. 259.
guishing in such doubtful cases, where any were liable to be
deceived by wizards, and such as had familiar spirits (viii, 20),
To the Law and the Testimony : If they speak not ac
cording to this Word, it is because there is no light in
them.’ Our application of this rule is to bring every doctrine
to the test of the Gospel of Christ, and whatever agrees
not with this Divine standard is to be rejected as false;
for ’He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’
"36. To this test, viz. the authority of the Sacred Scriptures,
we offer the writings of the inspired Swedenborg, for examina
tion and decision in every point of doctrine, and may challenge
the most able opposer to shew wherein he has falsified, or
even misapplied any part of them in what he has advanced ;
nay, I think it may be affirmed with truth, that no one ever
more highly exalted their honour and dignity, or exhibited
more demonstrative proofs of a clear and comprehensive under
standing of them; and even where he enters upon the alle
gorical interpretation of the Scriptures of the Old Testament ( for
these things,’ according to Paul (Gal. iv, 24), ‘ are an allegory’),
he executes this part of his office with so much religious reverence
for the letter, that they who have not as yet attained to the
spiritual sense of them, (if they are serious and unprejudiced,)
will be so far from having any reason to be offended, that
they will rejoice to find that those portions of Scripture,
which at first sight seem to contain so little of Divine instruc
tion, are significant of the most important truths, even ’the
wisdom of God in a mystery.’ Thus the pious mystical, and
the pious literal Christian may unite in the spirit of love,
and have, as different parts of the same temple, their respective
degrees of sanctity.
37. "It is particularly observable, that no writer, the know
ledge of whom has come down to us, has opened the relation
which things bear to each other in the natural and spiritual
worlds, in the way of correspondence, in any degree equal to
what our learned author has given us on this subject, shewing
how the invisible things of God in the latter may be clearly
seen and understood by the things that do appear in this
visible creation. His exposition of Genesis and Exodus, entitled
Arcana Coelestia, in eight volumes, quarto, abound with instances
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