His writings are so very obscure, that it is difficult to state what are the opinions contained in them; he taught, however, that by the New Jerusalem which came down from heaven, was intended a new church as to doctrine, and that he was the person to whom this doctrine was revealed, and who was appointed to make it known to the world. Swedenborg made no attempt to found a sect; but after his death, his followers, in 1788, formed themselves into a society under the denomination of “The New Jerusalem Church.” They have several places of meeting, both in London and Manchester, and send delegates to a “General Conference,” under whose direction a liturgy has been prepared, from which I shall make a few extracts to shew the peculiar doctrines of this sect. The following are some of the questions asked of the candidate for ordination, which is performed by imposition of hands, of course of a minister of their own communion. “_Min._ Dost thou believe that Jehovah God is One both in Essence and in Person; in whom, nevertheless, is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and that these are, his Essential Divinity, his Divine Humanity, and his Divine Proceeding, which are the three Essentials of One God, answering to the soul, the body, and the operative energy, in man, and that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is that God? Dost thou believe that by his temptations, the last of which was the passion of the cross, the Lord united, in his Humanity, Divine Truth to Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom to Divine Love, and so returned into his Divinity in which he was from eternity, together with, and in, his Glorified Humanity? Dost thou believe that the sacred Scripture, or Word of God, is Divine Truth itself, and that it contains a spiritual and celestial sense, heretofore unknown, whence it is divinely inspired and holy in every syllable; as well as a literal sense, which is the basis and support of its spiritual and celestial sense? Dost thou believe that the books which have the internal sense and are truly the Word of God are,—the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the prophets, including the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the four Gospels, and the Revelation?” {79} It is further stated in their eleventh article of faith, “That immediately after death, which is only a putting off of the material body, never to be resumed, man rises again in a spiritual or substantial body, in which he continues to live to eternity.”