I remember no such passage as this in Swedenborg's works. Indeed it is
virtually contradicted by their whole tenor. Swedenborg asserts himself
to relate 'visa et audita',--his own experience, as a traveller and
visitor of the spiritual world,--not the words of another as a mere
'amanuensis'. But altogether this Gulielmus must be a silly Billy.
Ib. p. 321.
The Apostolic canon in such cases is, 'Believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits whether they be of God'. (1 John iv. 1.) And the
touchstone to which they are to be brought is pointed out by the
Prophet: 'To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according
to this word, it is because there is no truth in them.' (Is. viii.
20.) But instead of this canon you offer another * * *. It is simply
this: Whoever professes to be the bearer of divine communications, is
insane. To bring Swedenborg within the operation of this rule, you
quote, as if from his own works, a passage which is nowhere to be
found in them, but which you seem to have taken from some biographical
dictionary or cyclopaedia; few or none of which give anything like a
fair account of the matter.
Aye! my memory did not fail me, I find. As to insanity in the sense
intended by Gulielmus, namely, as 'mania',--I should as little think of
charging Swedenborg with it, as of calling a friend mad who laboured
under an 'acyanoblepsia'.
Ib. p. 323.
Did you never read of one who says, in words very like your version of
the Baron's reverie: 'It came to pass, that, as I took my journey, and
was come nigh unto Damascus, about noon, suddenly there shone from
heaven a great light round about me: and I fell on the ground, and
heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?'
In the short space of four years the newspapers contained three several
cases, two of which I cut out, and still have among my ocean of papers,
and which, as stated, were as nearly parallel, in external
accompaniments, to St.
Pages:
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398