Swedenborg tells us that "the slavery and captivity in which the man of the
Church was formerly" were removed by the Last Judgment; so that "he can
now, from restored liberty, more easily perceive interior truths if he has
a desire for them." (L.J. 74.) And again he tells us that, as a result of
the Last Judgment, the people of Christendom "would be in a more free state
of thinking on matters of faith, that is, on spiritual things which relate
to heaven, because spiritual liberty has been restored to them" (L.J. 73);
and that consequently "the state of the world and of the Church before the
Last Judgment," compared with what it was, or was to be after, "was as
evening and night compared with morning and day." (Contin. L. J.)
Now can we not all see that the very changes anticipated in the above
quotations are rapidly taking place in the Christian world all around us?
Men and women are beginning to cease to be willing to be led blindly by
clergymen and creeds, with their understandings under subjection to dogma.
Many of our clergy, we see, are not willing to be thus led. Swedenborg
tells us that in this New Dispensation men are to be led in freedom
according to reason, and that professing to believe doctrines which they
neither understand nor perceive to be true is of very little use to men.
As false doctrines are passing away, is it not of vast moment that true and
rational doctrines should take their place, that our houses and churches be
not left desolate? Somewhat extensively among the clergy, and far more
extensively among scientists and intelligent people, is the Divine origin
of the Sacred Scriptures being called in question. In the writings of
Swedenborg, as has already been stated, you will find this question clearly
and distinctly settled, for you are there shown that they are written
according to the law of correspondence between natural and spiritual
things, and therefore that they contain a connected spiritual sense which
causes them to differ from all merely human writings, and demonstrates
their Divine origin to all who are willing to examine and to see the truth.
The day is not far distant when, in the Christian Church, the Sacred
Scriptures will be reverenced as they have never been before; for the
coming of the Son of Man in the Clouds of Heaven, or in the literal sense
of the Word, is with power and great glory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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