“But these persons know not what they say, nor the nature of the human mind. If they are so anxious to have such an opportunity, so ready to be tested, and to show that they would have discernment enough to see genuine truth, though heard for the first time, and to acknowledge a great teacher and apostle, though yet unknown to the world—that opportunity is now before them. A Paul is again preaching to the Athenians and to the world. A great teacher is again uttering new and sublime truths. The Lord Himself has come a second time, not in Person, but in Spirit; not as the ‘Word made flesh,’ as before, but as the essential Word, by the opening of the interior truth—the _spiritual sense_—which it contains. Those who believe, that, had they been on earth, they would have acknowledged the Lord at His First Coming, or would have readily received the teachings of His Apostles, have now the opportunity of making trial of their faith; of showing whether they are able to overcome the inveteracy of custom, the natural opposition of prejudice, the fear of public opinion, the love of the world and its powers and pleasures, (all which difficulties the first Christians had to encounter,) whether, in the face of all these, they can, looking for the truth with a single eye, discern it now at its feeble dawn; and, advancing steadily and earnestly towards it, be among the first to hail the rising day.” What more can be said on the subject? The Christian has no choice but to acknowledge, or refute, Swedenborg’s claims on the ground of their own intrinsic merit.