Chapter XIV

., concluding the doctrinal portion of the work, describes

the consummation of the age, the coming of the Lord, and the new heaven and the New Church. The consummation of the age is the last time or end of the Church. The present day is the last time of the Christian Church, which the Lord foretold and described in the Gospels, and in the Revelation. This last time of the Christian Church, is the very night in which the former Churches have set. After this night, morning succeeds; and the coming of the Lord is this morning. The coming of the Lord is not a coming to destroy the visible heaven and the habitable earth, and to create a new heaven and a new earth, according to the opinions which many, from not understanding the spiritual sense of the Word, have hitherto entertained. This, which is the second coming of the Lord, is for the sake of separating the evil from the good, that those who have believed and who do believe in Him, may be saved; and that there may be formed of them a new angelic heaven, and a New Church on earth; and without this coming no flesh could be saved. This second coming of the Lord is not a coming in person, but in the Word, which is from Him, and is Himself. This second coming of the Lord is effected by the instrumentality of a man, before whom He has manifested Himself in person, and whom He has filled with His spirit, to teach from Him the doctrines of the New Church by means of the Word. This is meant by the new heaven and the new earth, and the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven, spoken of in the Revelation. This New Church is the crown of all the Churches which have existed, to this time, on the earth.

On all these subjects Swedenborg discourses at length, and in a style which, for its combined simplicity and purity, we believe, is unmatched in theological literature. Wilkinson says truly of the volume, that, “viewed as a digest, it shows a presence of mind, an administration of materials, and a faculty of handling, of an extraordinary kind. There is old age in it in the sense of ripeness. If the intellectualist misses there somewhat of the range of discourse, it is compensated by a certain triteness of wisdom. As a polemic, not only against the errors of the Churches, but against the evil lives and self-excusings of Christians, the work is unrivaled. The criticisms of doctrine, with which it abounds, are masterly in the extreme; and were it compared with any similar body of theology, we feel no doubt that the palm of coherency, vigor, and comprehensiveness, would easily fall to Swedenborg, upon the verdict of judges of whatever Church.”

We have said nothing of the seventy-six memorable relations strewn through the pages of the “True Christian Religion,” because the limits to which we are confined forbid anything approaching to an adequate description of them. They are a great trouble to new readers of Swedenborg, and many who love and delight in the doctrinal teachings of the work, pass over, unread, the memorable relations, and try not to think of them. But this is only for a time. They are only strange and incomprehensible because the principles upon which they are written are not apprehended. The Indian king, who was told that in northern lands water became solid, so that his elephants might walk on it, laughed, and was an unbeliever. But, had the law or principle by which water becomes ice, been made plain to him, his laughter and his unbelief would have ceased. So it is with those who are shocked with Swedenborg’s relations of things heard and seen in the spiritual world. Let but the great law of correspondence be understood, and the most marvelous of the relations straightway attain an interest and reality, which none but those who have studied them under the bright light of correspondences can understand, or easily believe possible. A memorable relation, which was to the writer of this, at one time, a thing to cause pity for the man that wrote it, is now the pleasant and practical study of a Sunday afternoon. He knows that his experience in this respect is paralleled by that of most Newchurchmen.

Count Hopken, in a letter to General Tuxen, says, “I once represented, in rather a serious manner, to this venerable man, (Swedenborg), that I thought he would do better not to mix his beautiful writings with so many memorable relations of things heard and seen in the spiritual world, concerning the states of men after death,—of which ignorance makes a jest and derision. But he answered me, that this did not depend on him; that he was too old to sport with spiritual things, and too much concerned for his eternal happiness to give into foolish notions; assuring me, on his hopes of salvation, that no imagination produced in him his revelations, which were true, and derived from what he had heard and seen.”

“The True Christian Religion” was the last work Swedenborg published; it was a worthy conclusion of his grand labors. Among his papers, at his decease, was found an incomplete “Coronis” or Appendix to the work. This has been translated and published, and contains an elucidation of several interesting points.

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