of natural truths. The reason that you are now become an investigator of spiritual truths, is, that these are founded on the former.' To this he added, being a man of reason, that 'the Lord alone knows who is the proper person to apprehend and teach or communicate the truths which should be revealed for his New Church.'"—Ibid. 20.
Swedenborg further claims that this new revelation made through him as a chosen medium, is in fulfillment of the prediction made by the Lord himself, concerning his second coming, which was to be in the clouds of heaven. This coming, he says, is not to be external and natural, cognizable by the eye of sense; but internal and spiritual, cognizable by the understanding and the heart. It is to be a coming of the Word of God, that is, of the deeper meanings of the Word—a coming of its spiritual or heavenly sense to the minds and hearts of men, and exerting upon them a new and renovating power. And the clouds in or upon which it is said He would come, are the clouds of Scripture—the obscurities, more or less dense, of the literal sense, in or upon which the spiritual and true sense comes as the sun's light through a cloud. To cite again his own language:
"It is the prevailing opinion at this day [1770] in every church, that the Lord, when He comes to the last judgment, will appear in the clouds of heaven with angels and the sound of trumpets; that He will gather together all who are then dwelling on the earth, as well
