68

TEMPLE BAR AND EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

THE SEER.

EARL GRANVILLE the other day at Dover repeated what he considered an excellent piece of advice-" That a gentleman should never treat of a subject about which he knew next to nothing." On reading the fifteen pages of the "article" on Swedenborg in the January number of the respectable periodical named above, we could not but acknowledge the value of the axiom to which we have just adverted.

The author of the article skimmed over Mr. White's two volumes, or at least volume one, a work he highly extols, and proceeded to cull enough to make a sketch that would pass with those who knew no more about it than the author himself knew. But for any reliable information, for any edifying instruction as to one feature of the sublime system of Swedenborg, the reader will peruse this article in vain.

A considerable portion of the article, following Mr. White in this also, is taken up about Swedenborg's father, and then he makes a remark which will enable our readers to form an idea of the value of his judgment on the subjects he undertakes to discuss: "As Bishop Svedberg's doctrines form the basis of all his son afterwards wrote on religious belief, that he became later in life intellectually convinced of their truth" (p. 32).

Here is a writer who composes fifteen pages about Swedenborg, without giving us one doctrinal statement of the sublime system of the New Church published by Swedenborg, unless the foolish remark that "his work on the Apocalypse is chiefly devoted to a refutation of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone," said to be that "of St. Paul," can be considered such; but we are told that his father's doctrines, which were those of the Old Church, were the basis of what his son afterwards wrote, and were accepted by him, Swedenborg, as intellectually true.

We might really stop here, for our readers will be satisfied that a writer who does not know the difference between the doctrines of the Old Church, which were those of Swedenborg's father, and the doctrines of the New Church, which were those of Swedenborg himself, can have nothing on that subject worth any one's attention; but

scandals die hard, and we have a few of the old-refuted stories

furnished again from Mr. White by this writer, our brief observations may help some fresh mind to see how baseless they are.

The story of Swedenborg's mad behaviour in the streets of London in 1743 has been so often examined in this periodical, that we might imagine that it would be by this time estimated at its true value; but untruths are difficult to extirpate. So we find the writer in Temple Bar saying "While in London in 1743 or 1744 he (Swedenborg) was seized with a kind of fit or frenzy, threw off his clothes," etc. It is much to be regretted that the Rev. John Wesley, so often the subject of wild scandals himself, whose own wife, for twenty years, spread about accusations which had no foundation but her own disorderly and jealous mind, should have lent himself to publish what were probably only the gloomy hallucinations of Mathesius, then sickening towards lunacy.

The tale was published for the first time in the Arminian Magazine for 1781, nearly forty years after the occurrence is alleged to have

taken place.

Swedenborg was not in London or in England in 1743, and the suggestion that it might be in 1744 is simply due to the ingenuity of Mr. White.

For 1743 there are two or three evidences, although WE NOW KNOW THAT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE; but for 1744 there is absolutely no evidence at all.

Brockmer, in whose house Swedenborg subsequently lived, is given by Mathesius as the author of the story, but Brockmer denied to Mr. Hindmarsh and others that it ever took place, or that he had ever said a word to Mr. Wesley on the subject.

We have elsewhere shown (vol. 1874, p. 421), that the imprint in Swedenborg's letter to Mr. Hartley of 1743, as the date of the opening of his spiritual sight, instead of the true time, 1745, was probably the basis of the tale; the gloomy, sickening mind of Mathesius, so soon afterwards himself a lunatic, will account for the rest, combined with the fact known to Brockmer that he was permitted by the Lord for wise purposes to see the inner world, and converse with its inhabitants.

But the circumstances of the story itself could not have occurred. Swedenborg was quietly writing on the Continent in 1743 and 1744 the work on the "Animal Kingdom," one of the most systematic, calm, and sober of his works.

Surely in due time this poor really unauthenticated story will be

suffered to lie quiet as a part of the strange lumber of bad old times, when men were unscrupulously inventing and using all manner of falsehoods to discredit those whom they disliked. The writer in Temple Bar not only fails to give any clear information of Swedenborg's views and position, but his want of acquaintance with the subject appears in his continual misstatement of details. Robsahm appears as Robsohn. Earth in the Universe, and Conjugal Love, could only have come from one little familiar with the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. His account of the "Arcana," with the substitution of the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ on the title-page, shows the author's unacquaintance with the volumes of that work, for neither the author's name nor the title are to be found there.

His declaration that Swedenborg wrote the "Arcana" under "heavenly dictation," and he wrote on and on just the "ideas and fancies that came into his head, and that he never revised or condensed what flowed from his "spiritual pen," are just so many unfounded state

ments.

Swedenborg wrote from reflection, not from dictation, revised where necessary, and had fair copies written for the press.

The author grants that there are many sensible and good things in Swedenborg's works, but he is evidently so very superficial in his knowledge, that we are hardly able to admit that he absolutely knows that much. Who, for instance, that is cognizant of the copious descriptions of the world of the blessed given by Swedenborg, where there is variety in grandeur, and loveliness infinitely more glorious and more varied than all the magnificence of earth, full as it is of beauty, a world made perfect, inhabited by adoring and just men made perfect, could say of it as this writer does, that it is "an insipid, dreamy heaven" (p. 33).

Take as one instance out of hundreds (H. and H., No. 489): "Those who have loved Divine truths and the Word from interior affection, or from an affection for truth itself, in the other world dwell in the light, in elevated situations, which appear like mountains where they are continually surrounded by the light of heaven: they do not know what darkness is, such as prevails at night in the world; and they live in the temperature of spring. When they look around they behold fields and crops of corn, together with vineyards. In their houses all the objects shine as with precious stones. To look through the windows is like looking through pure pieces of crystal. These are the delightful things presented to their sight; but these same

things are interiorly delightful in consequence of their correspondence with heavenly Divine things; for the truths derived from the Word which they have loved correspond to crops of corn, vineyards, precious stones, windows, and crystals. Those who have immediately applied the doctrinal truths of the Church drawn from the Word to life, dwell in the inmost heaven, where they are in the enjoyment, beyond others, of the delights of wisdom. These, in all the objects around them, behold things Divine: they do indeed see the objects, but the Divine things corresponding to them flow immediately into their minds, filling them with a beatitude which runs through all their sensations. From this cause all the objects before their eyes, as it were, laugh, sport, and are alive."

If this be insipid, what shall we say of the common, and only idea out of the New Church, that heaven is a region of everlasting singing and prayer? Insipidity is surely the last thing that can be truly said of Swedenborg's description of heaven. It is the perfection of all that is magnificent, wise, beautiful, and good, in endless variety, inhabited by heavenly beings in everlasting progress, and in peace and joy unspeakable.

But, strange as is the writer's account of heaven, so extravagant is his reference to Swedenborg's description of the abode of the evil, that it can only excite the observation, "He evidently knows nothing about it."

He says: "Anything that approaches sublimity of scenery in his description of the unseen world is always the abode of devils" (p. 33). Let any one read the chapter in H. and H. "On the appearance, situation, and plurality of the hells," Nos. 582 to 588, and he will see how totally devoid of warrant the above description is. Hell is shown to be what the law of correspondence would require it to be, the abode of gloom, ugliness, and filth: the wretched inhabitants live in misery, loathsomeness, and rags. Take as a specimen: "Most of the hells are threefold. In the upper parts they appear within quite dark, because those dwell there who are immersed in the falsities of evil : but the lower parts appear as if on fire, because they are inhabited by those who are immersed in evils themselves; for darkness corresponds to the falsities of evil, and fire to evils themselves; and in the deeper hells reside those who have acted from evil, but more internally; in the less deep, those who have so acted more externally, and those who do this act from the falsities of evil. In some hells are seen what appear like the ruins of houses and cities produced by fires, in which

the infernal spirits dwell, and in which they conceal themselves.

In

the milder hells are seen what appear like rude cottages, in some places arranged contiguously, in the manner of a city, with lanes and streets, and within these houses are infernal spirits who are engaged in continual altercations, displays of enmity, beatings, and efforts to tear each other to pieces, while in the streets and lanes are committed robberies and depredations."

Surely this is not what the writer would call "sublime scenery," but it is true scenery. Thus are those scenes which are known as "hells upon earth." It is like all Swedenborg's descriptions both of the heavenly and the infernal worlds, the result of law. Inner beauty reveals itself in outward beauty, and sin clothes itself in impurity and ugliness.

We do not stay to dwell on this writer's reference to Swedenborg's allusions to Paul in his early diary, as we have on a former occasion (October 1, 1874) shown that the probability is that it is one of the cases to which Swedenborg elsewhere refers when he says he had conversed with spirits who had pretended to be apostles, and whom he afterwards discovered were not. These cases of personation are now well known to those who practise the dangerous and forbidden arts of spiritism, but were first explained by Swedenborg. As to the real eternal condition of any one, the Lord's law is the only proper rule for any Christian-"Judge not, and ye shall not be judged."

And now, in conclusion, we shall just glance at the statement very confidently made by the writer in Temple Bar as to the progress of the New Jerusalem Church. He declares: "His (Swedenborg's) followers, insignificant in number, and who call themselves The New Jerusalem Church, vainly endeavour to spread his doctrine. With all their efforts they meet with no success. Invariable failure attends its propaganda; planting and watering are lost as in a desert."

What this writer's opportunity of forming an opinion may be, of course, we do not know; but we do know that where there was one receiver of Swedenborg's teachings at the commencement of the present century, there are at least a thousand now. Nearly a hundred Societies exist in Great Britain and other European countries, and many more in America. Few districts in England exist which do not contain one or more families to whom the truths of the New Church are dear, and these modify the opinions around them. But the measure of the influence of the New Jerusalem Church must not be confined to her visible Societies. The Broad Church in the Church of England is