_Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Swedenborg_ (3 vols.) 1875-1877, R.L. Tafel, is the main collection of biographical material; _The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg_, 1883, Benjamin Worcester, and _Emanuel Swedenborg, His Life, Teachings and Influence_, 1907, George Trobridge, are two of the better known biographies. THE GIST OF SWEDENBORG "At this day nothing but the self-evidenced reason of love will re-establish the Church."--_Canons_, Prologue. GOD THE LORD "Believe in God: believe also in Me." _John_, XIV, 1 "My Lord, and my God!" _John_, XX, 28 ONE AND INFINITE God is One, and Infinite. The true quality of the Infinite does not appear; for the human mind, however highly analytical and exalted, is itself finite, and the finiteness in it cannot be laid aside. It is not fitted, therefore, to see the Infinity of God, and thus God, as He is in Himself, but can see God from behind in shadow; as it is said of Moses, when he asked to see God, that he was placed in a cleft of the rock, and saw His hinder side. It is enough to acknowledge God from things finite, that is, created, in which He is infinitely. --_True Christian Religion, n._ 28 "INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT" We read in the Word that Jehovah God dwells in light inaccessible. Who, then, could approach Him, unless He had come to dwell in accessible light, that is, unless He had descended and assumed a Humanity and in it had become the Light of the world? Who cannot see that to approach Jehovah the Father in His light is as impossible as to take the wings of the morning and to fly with them to the sun? --_True Christian Religion, n._ 176 THE CHRIST-GOD We ought to have faith in God the Saviour, Jesus Christ, because that is faith in the visible God in Whom is the Invisible; and faith in the visible God, Who is at once Man and God, enters into man. For while faith is spiritual in essence it is natural in form, for everything spiritual, in order to be anything with a man, is received by him in what is natural. --_True Christian Religion, n._ 339 Man's conjunction with the Lord is not with His supreme Divine Being itself, but with His Divine Humanity, and by this with the supreme Divine Being; for man can have no idea whatever of the supreme Divine Being of the Lord, utterly transcending his thought as it does; but of His Divine Human Being he can have an idea. Hence the Gospel according to John says that no one has at any time seen God except the only-begotten Son, and that there is no approach to the Father save by Him. For the same reason He is called a Mediator. --_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 4211 GOD-MAN