like the Jews, as the final end. They are, moreover, inflexible in their obedience to the truth, when known, and in numerous other points are an estimable people.

It is probable that Swedenborg returned home towards the end of 1764; for in the first half of the next year, we find him in Stockholm. Soon, however, he set out upon new travels, and in 1765, while at Gottenburg, waiting for a vessel for England, he accidentally (as men say) met with Dr Beyer, Professor of Greek, and a member of the Consistory of Gottenburg. Having heard that Swedenborg was mad, he was surprised to hear him talk sensibly, and manifest no symptom of his suspected infirmity. He therefore invited Swedenborg to dine with him the following day, in company with Dr Rosen. After dinner, Dr Beyer expressed a desire to hear from himself a full account of his doctrines; upon which Swedenborg, animated by the request, spoke so clearly, and in so wonderful a manner, that the Doctor and his friend were quite astonished. They gave him no interruption; but when he ceased, Dr Beyer requested Swedenborg to meet him the next day at Mr Wenngren's, and to bring with him a paper, containing the substance of his conversation, in order that he might consider it more attentively. Swedenborg came the day following, according to promise, and, taking the paper out of his pocket, in the presence of the other two gentlemen, he trembled, and appeared much affected, the tears flowing down his cheeks. Presenting the paper to Dr Beyer, Sir," said he, "from this day the Lord has introduced you into the society of angels, and you are now surrounded by them." They were all greatly affected. He then took his leave, and the next day embarked for England.

Dr Beyer sent immediately for Swedenborg's writings, and soon became deeply engrossed in their study. In order to arrange their subjects more distinctly in his mind, he set about compiling an Index to them, which, as he prepared, he sent, sheet by sheet, to Amsterdam to be printed. He was thirteen years in compiling the work, and on the day he sent off the last sheet corrected, he sickened, took to his bed, and in a few days departed to the spiritual world.

The result of Dr Beyer's study of Swedenborg's writings, was a firm belief in their doctrines, aud an open and enlightened advocacy of them, declaring in the public Consistory his full assent to them. As might naturally be expected, he suffered much obloquy and persecution for this upright adherence to the truth; but he was consoled in having the firm friendship of Swedenborg, and in being favoured with receiving from him many letters, sympathizing with him in his trials, and answering many of his questions on doctrinal and psychological

matters.

Swedenborg did not make a long stay in England, but after a few weeks, or perhaps months, proceeded to Holland, spending the winter

of 1765-66 at Amsterdam. There, in the spring of 1766 he republished (it is supposed by the solicitation of friends,) his youthful work New Method of Finding the Longitudes." "This method,"

on a

as he informed the Swedish Archbishop, Menander, of calculating the ephemerides by pairs of stars, several persons in foreign countries were then employing, who had experienced great advantage by the observations made according to it for a series of years."

From the time of the completion of the Arcana Cœlestia, in 1756, Swedenborg had been gradually composing an extensive work on the Apocalypse. The exposition was continued as far as the tenth verse of the nineteenth chapter, filling four large quarto volumes. He then set the work aside, thinking, probably, that it was too voluminous and elaborate; and commenced anew, but on a considerably reduced scale. The former Exposition, a clearly written manuscript, ready for the printer, after sustaining a narrow escape from burning, (the house of a gentleman who had it for perusal having caught fire,) was published in the original Latin, in four quarto volumes, in 1790, eighteen years after the author's death. It was translated into English and printed in six octavos, under the title of the Apocalypse Explained, in 1815. It is a most valuable work, and one that could not well be spared from the Swedenborg Library. Within its pages are several distinct treatises on very important subjects, which, if extracted, would form complete and excellent books of themselves. The exposition of the spiritual sense of the text is very copiously illustrated by parallel passages from other parts of the Word, and thus it must ever be a most useful work to the New Church preacher, as affording him a ready key to the internal sense of the Scriptures.

The shorter exposition Swedenborg himself published at Amsterdam, in 1766, under the title of the Apocalypse Revealed. As was his custom, he distributed copies of the work widely, sending it to the universities and superior clergy, and to many eminent persons in England, Holland, Germany, France, and Sweden.

We will now make a few notes on some of the most remarkable features of Swedenborg's exposition of that strange and mysterious book the Apocalypse.

CHAPTER 20.

The Apocalypse Revealed.

And

Wise

Everyone who is acquainted with theological literature, knows that innumerable volumes of speculation have been written in attempted explanation of the Apocalypse. He is aware that expositors have differed about it from the earliest times; that Protestants have found Catholicism the subject of all its denunciations, and that Catholics have discovered that Paganism and Protestant heresy were in reality the matters alluded to; that sceptics have proved that it refers to none of these creeds, but is a worthless astrological treatise; and that many good Christians, vexed and wearied with this endless contest of opinion, have wished the book expunged from the canon of Scripture, as altogether incomprehensible, and a mere breeder of strife. still the controversy goes on. The press swarms with volumes and pamphlets, all professing to have found the key to the mystery, informing the world of the future destiny of Europe, of the result of its wars and battles, the precise month of the fall of the Papacy, and the time of the descent of the New Jerusalem, the Second Advent, and the restoration of the Jews to Canaan, and, so far as the political arrangement of the kingdoms of the earth is concerned, almost superseding the necessity of newspapers to the credulous believer. men generally now turn a deaf ear to these soothsayings, convinced by loug and repeated experience of their utter futility, and thinking shrewdly enough that had the Divine Providence intended that man should know the future, the foreknowledge would have been communicated intelligibly and not through the medium of mysteries interpreted by men more conspicuous for temerity than for any endowment of wisdom or common sense above their fellows. "It is a part of this prophecy," as Sir Isaac Newton remarks,—and the same principle is applicable to all prophecies,- -"that it should not be understood before the last age of the world; and therefore it makes for the credit of the prophecy that it is not yet [about 1710] understood. The folly of interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness, they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this, and other prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that, after that they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by the events; and his own Providence, not the interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things, predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence. For, as the few and obscure prophecies concerning Christ's first coming, were for setting up the Christian religion, which all

nations have since corrupted; so the many and clear prophecies concerning the things to be done at Christ's second coming, are not only for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and re-establishment of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein dwells righteousness. The event will prove the Apocalypse; and this prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old prophets; and all together will make known the true religion, and establish it.”

With no claim to superior understanding or acuteness did Swedenborg present his exposition of this mysterious book to the world. He humbly declares that the mysteries of the Apocalypse are totally beyond the power of human intellect to unravel, and that whatever of truth is to be found in his work, owed its existence to the immediate illustration of his mind by the Lord. We shall presently show what powerful reason there was for this protestation on his part.

The Apocalypse, we are taught, is a portion of the Divine Word. It was dictated directly by the Lord,—John, in Patmos, being simply

an amanuensis.

The Apocalypse is a prophetic book, descriptive of the decline and consummation of the Christian Church, and the establishment of the new and spiritual dispensation signified by "the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven." Being a prophetic book, it would have been at variance with the laws of the Divine Providence for man to have understood its prophecies until after the events it described were past; for, as we have seen, a knowledge of the future would take from man all freedom of action, all inclination to labour, and the whole hope and pleasure of life. Therefore it was that the Apocalypse

remained a sealed book until the Christian Church had reached its consummation, and the Last Judgment was effected, in 1757, when the Lord graciously opened the eyes of Swedenborg and manifested to him, in clear light, the deep mysteries of this prophecy.

Wilkinson, in his admirable Biography, well says, "A volume, unless it were a reprint, would not give an analysis of the Apocalypse Revealed. When we say that the commentary takes the text word by word, and translates it into spirit, we still convey but a slender idea of what is done. Our own first impressions on reading the work will not soon be forgotten. Following the writer through the long breaths and flights of this vast empyrean, we were momently in anxious fear that to sustain a context of such was impossible. Each fresh chapter seemed like a space that mortal wing must not attempt; and yet the fear was groundless, for our guide sailed onward with a tranquil motion as if he knew the stars. History and common sense, panting and grasping science, philosophy in its better part, above all, the confidence in a Divine support and a supernal mission, appeared to be covertly and unexpectedly present, to annihilate difficulties, and pave the skyey way of this humble voyager. Aud when we had again

alighted from that perusal which strained every faculty to the utmost, it was as though we had been there before, so entire was the impression of self-evidence that was left upon the mind. Genesis and the Revelation were closely at one in this marvellous Apocalypse-thenceforth the most open of the Bible pages: the two ends of the Scripture called to each other; an arch of Divine light spanned the river of the Word, and the original Eden blossomed anew in the midst of the street of the holy city."

The Rev. O. P. Hiller, in his Memoir of Swedenborg, writes, "In the Apocalypse Revealed, the mysterious book is taken up and examined chapter by chapter, verse by verse, word by word, in the same manner as was done with the books of Genesis and Exodus in the Arcana Cœlestia; and the interior meaning, the spiritual sense, of every part, set forth in such a manner as to present a clear, connected, and rational meaning throughout the whole book, from the first chapter to the last. And what is especially to be remarked, the spiritual sense of this book, the last of the New Testament, is shown to be founded on the same principles, and discovered by the same rules of interpretation, as the spiritual sense of the books of Genesis and Exodus, the first of the Old Testament, written, as they were, by other hands, and more than 1500 years before; a strong proof, certainly, that however varied the human instruments, there was One Divine Author of the whole. Thus, with any particular word, for instance, occurring in the book of Genesis, and declared to have a certain spiritual signification,-when that word occurs in the book of Revelation, it is shown to have the same signification; and this holds good in all cases. And, moreover, while all these various significations, taken together, make in the Book of Genesis a complete spiritual sense, so in the Book of Revelation they make their own complete spiritual sense. Now it will be readily seen, that such a coincidence would be altogether unaccountable, nay, impossible, unless there really existed such a spiritual sense in the Word of God: and it is, indeed, this uniform spiritual sense, full of high and heavenly truth, that raises the holy volume infinitely above all other works of history or morals; and the existence of such a sense is the strongest proof of the Divine character of those writings which we call the Sacred Scriptures. And truly, had Swedenborg done only this, he would have deserved the gratitude of all who seriously revere the Word of God, for thus bringing a new and most powerful argument from internal evidence, in favour of the Inspiration and Divinity of the Sacred Volume."

Well, then, might Swedenborg disclaim the authorship of the ideas in the Apocalypse Revealed, and ask, "what man can draw such things from himself?" Those who tell us that Swedenborg was self-deceived, must either know very little of what they speak about, or must be quite as ignorant of the capacity of the human mind and its powers