church, and its impurities will be dignified by the title of its mysteries. Whatsoever may be its perversities, it will never as a church acknowledge them; it will be too blind to see them, and we cannot expect that it will pronounce its own condemnation. What, then, is to be done in such a case? How is the church, when it has come to an end, to be informed of the fact? and by what means is a system of pure and spiritual theology to be made known among mankind? Doubtless by no other than that of the Lord himself raising up some human instrument properly qualified for the purpose!
Now this instrument Swedenborg alleges himself to have been; and, consequently, one of the legitimate evidences of his pretensions lies in the proof that the professing church has now actually come to its end: the other will depend upon the proof that the doctrines which he has announced are those of the Word of God, genuinely understood. We say that the legitimate evidence of his pretension consists in the proof of these facts: for if the professing church has not come to its end by the corruption of its doctrines, then there has not arrived the necessity for that illumination which he claims. But if it was consummated, as he asserts, then it is manifest that it did not contain within it the means of true spiritual information concerning the Lord's church and kingdom: hence arose the necessity for the raising up of someone, duly qualified by means of an intercourse with the spiritual world, for the purpose of explaining the true nature of the Word. Again, if the doctrines by which such explanations are accompanied, are not true, then the allegation of having derived them by revelation from the Lord must be false. But if they are true, and such as the professing church had not the means of communicating, then the fact of the divine origination which may be claimed for them becomes exceedingly strong.
Now we believe that the professing church has actually come to its end,[1] and that the doctrines announced by Swedenborg to aid in the formation of a New Church are divinely
- ↑ For proofs of this the intelligent reader is referred to a large and elaborate work, entitled "Illustrations of the End of the Church," by the Rev. Augustus Clissold. M. A., formerly of Ex. Coll. Oxon, just published, price 12s., in which will also be found a collection of Swedenborg's evidences of the same truth.
