334. "Here is a royal gate into history, for the future to open. If we want the biography of Virgil, let Virgil tell it: no one else can satisfy either biographer or reader. Vir

But

friendly nod, but merely in passing by him: for his chief attention was fixed upon the person who was invisible to the stranger, and whom he conducted with bows through the apartment and out at the opposite door: re-gil and his memory are alive; for God is not peating at the same time, and in the most the God of the dead, but the God of the living. beautiful and fluent Latin, various obligations, There are no dead in the vulgar sense, and and begging an early repetition of the visit. there is no oblivion. There is want of spiritImmediately afterwards, on entering again, he ual sympathy in us, which kills the living, and went straight up to his later guest, and ad- obliterates their memory. The ancient men dressed him with a cordial squeeze of the are secret, for we are estranged from their hand: “Well, heartily welcome, learned Sir! love line. Antiquarianism cannot dig them excuse me for making you wait! I had, as you up, because they are not under ground. observed, a visitor." The traveller, amazed likeness of mind is an exorcism that they canand embarrassed: "Yes, I observed it." Swe- not refuse, and which properly applied, will denborg: "And can you guess whom?" "Im- refresh their oldest memories, and make them possible." "Only think, my dear Sir: Virgil! confidential. The highest who has left the And do you know: he is a fine and pleasant earth, has its dear images with him, albeit fellow. I have always had a good opinion of quiescent for the most part, but may be led the man, and he deserves it. He is as modest down, when the Lord pleases, by the stairs of as he is witty, and most agreeably entertain- the unforgettable past, and visit our abodes. ing." "I also have always imagined him to It is only to open his mind worldwards, and be so." 66 Right! and he is always like him- straight he can commune with an earthly seer self. It may, perhaps, not be unknown to - if he can find one. The love we bear to you, that in my first youth I occupied myself human story, the insatiable curiosity towards much with Roman literature, and even wrote early times, the very madness of antiquarianism, a multitude of Carmina, which I had printed demand this authentication, which it is plain, at Skara?" "I know it, and all judges highly would be simply satisfying and nothing more. esteem them." "I am glad of it; it matters It is then extraordinary that it is not common. little that the contents were respecting my 335. "The exact month of Swedenborg's first love. Many years, many other studies, next foreign travel is uncertain, but just beoccupations and thoughts, lie between that fore he undertook it, his friend Robsahm met period and the present. But the so unex- him in his carriage riding out of Stockholm, pected visit of Virgil awaked up a crowd of and asked him how he could venture upon so youthful recollections; and when I found him long a journey, being eighty years old? and so pleasant, so communicative, I resolved to whether they would ever meet again? Have avail myself of the occasion, to ask him of no anxiety on that subject, said he, for if you things concerning which no one could bet- live we shall meet again here, as I have yet ter give information. He has also promised another journey like this before me. me to come again before long. But also have it recorded that his repeated voyages let us now talk of something else! It is so to and fro had become a matter of notoriety long since I have met with any one from Fin- at Elsinore, where he frequently visited the land; and besides a young Academician! Swedish Consul, M. Rahling; and it was Come in, and sit down with me! With what during the transit we are referring to that he can I serve you? But first give me an ac- made the acquaintance of General Tuxen, at count of every thing you can, both old and the Consul's table. The General questioned new." And afterwards, thus continues the him upon the report of the Queen of Sweden's witness and deponent of this scene to one of affair, and received an account of it from his his intimate friends, from whose lips we re-own lips. He also asked him how a man ceived the account, - afterwards, during the might be certain whether he was on the road whole period of my intercourse with this sin- to salvation or not. Swedenborg told him gular old man, whom I subsequently visited that this was easy; that he need only examseveral times, I did not perceive the least that ine himself by the ten commandments; as for was extraordinary, excepting only his amazing instance, whether he loves and fears God; learning in all the branches of human sci- whether he is rejoiced at the welfare of others, ence and investigation. He never afterwards and does not envy them; whether he puts touched upon any thing supernatural or vision-aside anger and revenge for injuries, because ary.

We

So insane as he appeared to me at first, vengeance belongs to God: and so on. If he I nevertheless separated from him with the can answer this examination in the affirmative, greatest gratitude, both for his highly learned he is on the road to heaven; if his heart is conversation, and his constant and exceeding the other way, then he is on the road to hell. kindness both in word and deed—and above This led Tuxen to think of himself, as well as all, with the greatest admiration, although others, and he asked Swedenborg whether he mingled with regret, that, on a certain point, had seen King Frederic V. of Denmark, a screw in the venerable man was loose or deceased in 1766, adding that though some altogether fallen away.' human frailty attached to him, yet he had

certain hopes that he was happy. Sweden-man's, it can never become woman's; or vice borg said, Yes, I have seen him, and he is versa. The sexual distinction is founded upon well off, and not only he, but all the kings of the two radical attributes of God,-upon his the house of Oldenburg, who are all associated divine love, and his divine wisdom; whereof together. This is not the happy case with our the former is feminine, and the latter mascuSwedish kings.' Swedenborg then told him line. The union of these in Him is the dithat he had seen no one so splendidly minis- vine marriage; and the creation proceeds distered to in the world of spirits as the Empress tinctly from them, and images, or aspires to, a Elizabeth of Russia, who died in 1762. As marriage in every part. The lightning fiats Tuxen expressed astonishment at this, Swe- twine and kiss ere ever they separate. The denborg continued: 'I can also tell you the world would be, and the church is, an everreason, which few would surmise. With all lasting wedlock. Therefore there are marher faults she had a good heart, and a certain riages in heaven, and heaven itself is a marconsideration in her negligence. This induced riage. The text that 'in heaven they neither her to put off signing many papers that were marry, nor are given in marriage,' is to be from time to time presented to her, and which understood in a spiritual sense. It signifies at last so accumulated, that she could not examine them, but was obliged to sign as many as possible upon the representation of her ministers after which she would retire to her closet, fall on her knees, and beg God's forgiveness, if she, against her will, had signed any thing that was wrong.' When this conversation was ended, Swedenborg went on board his vessel, leaving a firm friend and future disciple in General Tuxen.

Conjugial Love.

that the marriage of the soul with its Lord, or what is the same thing, the entrance of man into the church, which is the bride of the Lamb, must be effected in this world, or it cannot have place afterwards. It also signifies, that angels, whether men or women, already have the marriage principle in them as a ground of their angelship, or they could not acquire it after death: hence they are virtually married, and do not marry, nor are given in marriage. It is as though it had been said, that no one goes to heaven, but 336. "It is probable that Swedenborg went those who already are in heaven; or have from Stockholm to London in the middle of heaven in them, and are heaven. But this the year, according to what he signified to Scripture by no means excludes the blessed Kant's friend. However on November 8, from that conjugial union which is their sum1768, we again meet him at Amsterdam, mary bliss, and which is the foregone concluwhither he had gone to print another impor- sion of their admission to eternal life. The tant work, The Delights of Wisdom concern- text, however, does exclude sensual and nating Conjugial Love, and the Pleasures of In-ural views of marriage, and so is suitable in sanity concerning Scortatory Love. This its form to the Jewish mind and the corporeal book he published with his name, as written nature, which otherwise would have conceived by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede.

only carnally of a celestial bond.

337. "In every new view of mankind, and 339. "We must guard, however, against in each fresh system of doctrines which pro- supposing that the spiritual is not real and fesses to apply itself to the wants of an age, bodily; for every thing inward has its last the subject of marriage can hardly fail to resort in substantive organization. The bodies have an important place; in many systems, of angels are as ours in every part, but more indeed, it furnishes the experimentum crucis, expressive, plastic, and perfect. Their conand at once decides their pretensions. It now jugial union, which is true chastity and playdevolves upon us to say a few words upon ful innocence, is bodily like our own; nay, this topic, in its connection with Swedenborg's far more intimate: its delights, immeasurably doctrines.

338. "The author affirms, upon a union of experimental with rational evidence, that sex is a permanent fact in human nature, that men are men, and women, women, in the highest heaven as here upon earth: that it is the soul which is male or female, and that sex is thence derived into the mortal body and the natural world; therefore that the difference of sexes is brighter and more exquisite in proportion as the person is high, and the sphere is pure. The distinction not only reaches to the individual, but it is atomically minute besides; every thought, affection and sense of a male is male, and of a female is feminine. The smallest drop of intellect or will is inconvertible between the sexes; if

more blessed and perceptible than on earth, commence in the spirit, and are of the spirit even in the body: its powers, springing from a divine fountain, are marred by no languor, but spire in an unconsuming flame of perennial virility. This world, however, and not the other, is the theatre of prolification; the fixed soil of nature alone produces new beings; whence angelic marriages do not engender natural but spiritual births, which are the various endowments of love and wisdom; wherefore, by this offspring or in-spring, the partners breed in themselves human fulness, which consists in desiring to grow wise on the man's part, and in loving whatever belongs to wisdom on the wife's. Thus conjugial love is a means of their eternal progression, by which

they become younger and younger, more and more deeply the sons and daughters of the Almighty, and are born again from state to state as happier children in the cycle of wedded satisfactions.

[344. In the latter part of this work, and separate from it, is a short treatise on what might be called, "The Infernal Pleasures of Insanity, concerning Scortatory Love:" for none but infernal spirits, and those whose minds are under their influence, can possibly take delight in the grossest perversions of all that is good and true. But let it never be forgotten, that what Swedenborg says on these unpleasant subjects, is by no means designed this essay, the important distinctions must be conas doctrinals for the New Church; and in reading stantly kept up, between the phrases "it is right," (fas est,) and it is allowed or permitted, (bicet ;) the former having reference to the laws of Divine Order, and the latter, to those of Divine Permission, to prevent greater evils.

dence, and placed so merely on the pedestal of religion and divine necessity, as in Swedenborg's system: with him it is the ideal of union, and every thing in the sexual commerce is tried and judged by its tendency or approxi340. "To conjugial love our author assigns mation to indissoluble marriage. Well may the highest position in the soul: in its descent the state be guarded, which is to be eternal: it is the gate by which the human race enters well may the force be subject to heavenly into existence; in its ascent and upper faculty rules, whose effects extend through all genit is the door through which the Lord enters erations in the lines of time, and upward into the mind. It is the appointed source of through the hierarchies of that past, which is all creatures, from which beneath springs gen- but the depth and height of the present. eration, and regeneration comes through it 343. "Such, at least, is the consequence of from above. The purity of the source deter- the creed, that sexual distinctions are eternal, mines the world's condition at any given period, and monogamy their divine end: it evidentinfluencing posterities organically, and the ly confers the heart of spirituality upon the mind and will in their finest springs. Nay, marriage tie, and tends to maintain it for both upon this depends the spiritual world itself; divine and human reasons. Nor are the cefor earthly marriage is the seminary of heaven, lestial reports devoid of interest in the matas adultery is the seminary of hell. Children ter; for were it not for them, the sanctity of born of parents imbued with truly conjugial marriage would fail of present experience, love, derive from those parents the conjugial and come in time into the hands of the philosprinciple of goodness and truth, which gives ophers who keep no account of their receipts. them an inclination and faculty, if sons, to perceive whatever appertains to wisdom, and if daughters, to love the things that wisdom teaches. 341. "It is plain that of an affection so exalted there are few patterns to be found on earth, and that even where it dwells, it may not be manifest; and for this reason our author was obliged to describe it from experience in heaven, where it reigns in open day as a fundamental love. Fact alone supplies description, and the facts of conjugial union were not given on this globe in that age; it was then needful to explore the heavens, in which that ancient love is stored. For this purpose, as the ages are differenced by this very affection, he prayed to the Lord to be allowed to visit them, and travelled in spirit with an angel guide to the golden, silver, copper, iron, and still later periods; that is to say, to the men and women who are still in those states. And every where he learned from the best and the eldest the tale of their faithful loves; or, as in the lower ages, observed that e decadence of their state was in proportion to their want of fealty to the primeval bond. He learned that the marriage of one man with one wife is the law of heavenly union, corresponding to the unity of God, to the singleheartedness of man, to the marriage of the good with the true, and of the Lord with the church. Polygamy, however, and varying unions, were the sign and the cause of a broken religion, and the avenues of sensuality towards hell. He brought back to this earth the documents of the other life on this point, the Reports of the great epochs, and these are given in his memorable relations, a series of narratives between the ethical chapters, which complete by experience the field which is given through doctrine in the latter.

342. "Never was monogamy so rescued from the baser justifications of worldly pru

345. In this tract the author has given a virtual shalt not commit adultery." "His object is to do "Thou commentary on the Divine Command. what no Protestant theologian has ever done, to lay open from its inmost grounds the entire morale of the seventh commandment. In accomplishing this object he has, with a masterly power of analy sis, discriminated between the different degrees of guilt which attach to the greater or less departure front of his offending hath this extent, no more.' from the strict rules of chastity. The head and Viewed in the light of Criminal Jurisprudence, it bears the same relation to the command 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' as the statute law on the different degrees of manslaughter does to the command Thou shalt not kill.' The statute laws wisely discriminate between murder and manslaughter in the first, second and third degrees, awarding a different degree of penalty to each. But who, for that reason, would think of charging the laws with laxity of morals,' or with encouraging murder?

346. "Yet the charge of encouraging vice has as little foundation in truth when applied to Swedenborg as it would have if applied to the laws. He discriminates the sins under this head into eight degrees, and teaches that the greater the departure from the right, the greater the sin and consequent penalty, and of course, the slighter the departure from strict rectitude, the less grievous the sin and consequent penalty. He shows how,

6

Christ's Power over all Flesh.

349. In this year, (1768) we have the following, concerning the Lord's power, and the bodies of angels, in a letter to Dr. Oettinger.

As to

when a man's heart appears to be fully set in him to do evil in this respect, he may be restrained from plunging into still greater evils than he is already in the practice of, and how he may be led into a state of comparatively less evil, and finally back into the paths of true virtue. In all this there is no intimation that any such practices are any "You suggest a doubt in respect to Christ's thing else than grievous sins, which are to be even having power given Him over all flesh, and yet the more strenuously striven against than other sins: angels and heavenly beings (Angeli et Calites) have which is a reason for his being more minute. His not flesh, but lucid bodies. To this be pleased constant language in regard to them is, that they to receive kindly the following reply: That by all are vile,' detestable to christians,' and 'lead to flesh, there spoken of, is meant every man, wherehell.'"]-N. Church Repository, vol. i. pp. 621, 622.* [fore in the Word mention is sometimes made of 347. "We cannot quit the Conjugial Love all flesh, which is to denote every man. without noticing to the reader the author's what concerns the bodies of the angels, they do not appear lucid, but, as it were, fleshy, for they penetration upon a subject where a studious are substantial and not material, and things subold bachelor might be expected to have no stantial are not translucent before the angels. experience. It is an instance of the sym- Every material thing, or substance, is originally pathy of genius, which can place itself in the derived from what is substantial, and every man position of its object, and look outward from cometh into this substantiality when he puts off, the hearts of alien things. Thus it was that by death, the material films or coverings, which is Swedenborg analyzed the male and the female the reason why man after death is a man, but soul, and their faculties of conjunctivity; thus purer than before, comparatively as what is substantial is purer than what is material. That the that he dived into the recesses of wedded life, Lord has power, not only over all men, but also and laid down a science and a series of its over all angels, is evident from His own words in agreements and disagreements; that he ex- Matthew: All power is given to me in heaven, and amined its love, its friendship, and its favor, in earth,' (xxviii. 18).” — Documents, pp. 152, 153. at the different periods of life; that he de

mencement of Persecution.

scribed to the life, but in formal propositions, Doctrines of the New Church, and 'Comthe jealousies of the state, its burning fire against those that infest wedded love, and its 350. "Swedenborg remained in Amsterhorrid fear for the loss of that love; and dam during the winter of 1768-69, and early finally thus that he depicted the love of chil- in the spring of the latter year published his dren, the spiritual offspring of conjugial love, Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New in its successive derivations; and childless Church, in which work,' as he says, 'are himself, appreciated the circulation of inno- fully shown the errors of the existing doc cence and peace, that the hearts of the young trines of justification by faith alone, and of the establish in the home. Much, however, that imputation of the righteousness or merits of he has said belongs to his peculiar seership: Jesus Christ,' which doctrines, he expected, much of the psychology is of more than earth- might probably be extirpated by this book. ly fineness; the distinctions are those of spir- He circulated it freely throughout Holland itual light, and the delicacy of the affections and Germany; but, on second thoughts, sent is that of spiritual heat; which is not sur- only one copy to Sweden, to Dr. Beyer, reprising, for the wives of heaven had been questing him to keep it to himself. For communicative to our author."-Wilkinson's true divinity in Sweden was in a wintry Biography, pp. 158-171. state; and in general, towards the North 348. For a full representation of the sub- Pole there is a greater length of spiritual ject of Conjugial Love, as indeed all other night than in the southern parts; and those spiritual and theological subjects which the who stand in that darkness may be supposed author has treated of, the reader is referred to kick and stumble more than others against to the "COMPENDIUM" of his writings. And every thing in the New Church which is the we may say here, once for all, that as this Sum- produce of an unprejudiced reason and undermary of his Life is designed both for a Prefix standing; yet we are to admit some excep to that work, and also to be published sepa- tions to this observation in the ecclesiastical rately, it may account both for the brevity order.' of this analysis of his writings, and for what 351. "Swedenborg's anticipations with reof unnecessary fulness also there may appear gard to his native country were not falsified in some of the notices of his theological works. by the event, for already on the 22d of March, Also, for some repetition of occurrences which 1769, Dr. Ekebom, dean of the theological are inserted both in the Life and in the COM- faculty of Gottenburg, had delivered to the PENDIUM. The object here is a double one Consistory there a deposition of objections -to serve as a fitting Prefix to the COMPEN- against Swedenborg's theological writings, DIUM, and to be published separately also. laden with untruth, and full of personal re*On the subject of Marriage and its opposites, see Noble's Approaches. The dean branded his doctrine peal, Sec. 6, Part 4, N. C. Repository, Vol. 1, pp. 621-2, and Aas in the highest degree heretical, and on Layinan's Reply to Dr. Pond, Chap. x. p. 154. These momentous questions must be understood. points the most tender to every Christian,

Socinian; yet stated further, that he did the Soul and the Body, which he designed not know Assessor Swedenborg's religious to give to the world in the French capisystem, and should take no pains to come at tal. He had spoken well in his theological the knowledge of it.' As for Swedenborg's works of the noble French nation,' had chief works, he 'did not possess them, and taken care to communicate his works to public had neither read nor seen them.' 'Is not bodies and select individuals in France, where this,' says Swedenborg in reply, 'to be blind also they had been in considerable request, in the forehead, and to have eyes behind, and now he desired to issue something from and even those covered with a film? To the French press. It is probable that had his see and decide upon writings in such a man- present plan succeeded, he intended also to ner, can any secular or ecclesiastical judge publish in Paris that great summary of his regard otherwise than as criminal?' .For doctrines which he was then about to write, the rest our author's reply consisted in a cita- and which was his last performance. tion of some of the leading doctrines in his 353. "Arrived in Paris he submitted his works, those particularly on the divine trinity, tract to M. Chevreuil, Censor Royal and Docthe holiness of Scripture, the unity of charity tor of the Sorbonne, who after having read it, and faith, and the direction of faith towards informed him that a tacit permission to publish one person, namely, our Savior Jesus Christ; would be granted him, on condition, as was and he denied that his doctrine was heretical customary in such cases,' that the title should according to judgments pronounced by the say, 'printed at London,' or 'at Amsterchief ecclesiastical bodies in Sweden. Re-dam.' Swedenborg would not consent to this, specting the other point,' says our author, and the work therefore was not printed at 'namely, the charging those doctrines with Paris. Hereupon a calumnious letter was Socinianism, the same is a horrid blasphemy circulated in Gottenburg, which alleged that and untruth; forasmuch as Socinianism signifies he had been ordered to quit Paris, which he a negation of the divinity of our Lord Jesus denied as a direct falsehood,' and appealed Christ, when, in fact, His divinity, in this for the truth of the case to M. Creutz, the doctrine of the New Church is principally Swedish ambassador to France. confirmed and proved, and that the Savior 354. "Rumor has been busy with him upon has so fully completed the reconciliation and this journey. The French Biographie Uniredemption of man, that without his coming verselle connects him with an artist named no man could have been saved, see Apoc. Rev. Elie, who it is alleged supplied him with 67, and in many other places; in consequence money, and furthered his presumed designs. whereof, I consider the word Socinian to be a Indeed he has been accused of a league with scoffing and a diabolical reviling. This, with the illuminés, and with a certain politico-theothe rest of the Doctor's "Reflections," may be logical free masonry, centuries old but always considered in the same sense as "the flood invisible, which was to overturn society, and which the dragon cast out of his mouth after foster revolutions all over the world. We the woman, that he might cause her to be can only say, that our researches have not swallowed up by the flood, during the time elicited these particulars, and that every authat she was yet in the wilderness" (Apoc. thentic document shows that Swedenborg stood xii. 15). And it may come to pass that the always upon his own basis, accepted money from same which is mentioned in verse 17, may no one, and was just what he appeared · a likewise take place: "And the dragon was theological missionary, and nothing more. wroth with the woman, and went to make war Still as there is generally a grain of truth in with the remnant of her seed, who kept the even the most preposterous lies, we shall be commandments of God, and have the testi- glad to look out in this direction for biographmony of Jesus Christ." The tenor of Scrip-ical materials. Whatever else they be, they ture, the Apostolic Creed, and whatever was shall at least be welcome. not self-contradictory in the orthodoxy of the churches, he claimed to have upon his own side. He requested of Dr. Beyer that his reply might be communicated to the bishop and the Consistory, and intended afterwards to publish both sides, and possibly to found an action at law upon the proceedings, unless the dean should retract his scandal.

355. "In the autumn of this year (1769), Swedenborg had left Paris, and was in London, where he published his little brochure on The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. It was during this sojourn of two or three months that the most intimate of his English friends, Dr. Hartley, Rector of Winwick, in Northamptonshire, drew from him a short ac352. "At the end of May or the beginning count of himself, as a means of refuting any of June, Swedenborg left Amsterdam, en route calumnies that might be promulgated after his for Paris, with a design,' as he said, which departure. Dr. Hartley had thought that beforehand must not be made public.' It ap- Swedenborg was hardly safe in his own country, bears from this that he anticipated some diffi- and that possibly he was pressed for money. culty with regard to the object of his mission. In course of this mild and modest document, This was no other than the publication of an- Swedenborg set him right on these topics. other little work, viz., The Intercourse between 'I live,' says he, on terms of familiarity