light of heaven; in short, to reveal in His Word the transparent stones, the gates, the wall, and the streets of His Holy City,—His tabernacle ready to descend to us out of heaven.
No demonstration of the need of such a revelation, of its coincidence with prophecy, of fit attendant circumstances, avails for its establishment. We ask with reason. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? The only thing to do is to come and see. To the disciples of John the Baptist, who are many in these days, and who come to learn whether this is what was to come, the only answer can be, See whether, being blind, you will now receive sight; being lame you will walk; being deaf you will hear; being dead you will be raised up; being poor you will have the Gospel preached to you. If such are the works of the revelation of Divine and heavenly truth in the Sacred Scriptures, by the hand of Swedenborg, blessed are they who are not offended therein. At the same time, admitting the possibility of such revelation, it is most natural and proper to inquire as to its medium; what fitness he had for such a mission, and in what manner he performed it. It is these inquiries that we are to find answered in the following pages, bearing in mind, however, that it is a suitable man of the age that we are to look to see; not an imaginary one of the future, nor a traditional one of the past. When the Lord has new things to say to men, He says them through one whose ideas and language are those of the men to whom He would speak.[1]
- ↑ "Great transitions commonly find their beginnings in a single soul. Their source is apparently insignificant, and generally undetected, until the stream of history has revealed its power."—Rev. George Matheson: Growth of the Spirit of Christianity, vol, i. p. 330.
