So Swedenborg—though it might be shown that he has here and there said things, unimportant in themselves but not in agreement with the general tenor of his teaching—is to be regarded as none the less a divinely accredited teacher or a divinely authorized expounder of sacred mysteries, if his teaching upon all important and fundamental points be true, or such as meets the approval of heaven's own King.
But though it is, or claims to be, a New Dispensation, it is a dispensation of rational religious truth. It addresses us as rational beings, endowed with the capacity of discriminating between right and wrong—truth and falsehood. It declares that Rationality, or the ability to understand spiritual truth when presented, and to judge between it and error, is one of the noblest gifts of God. And it holds it to be every one's solemn duty to respect this gift, by faithfully exercising his own understanding upon whatever is offered him for religious truth. It teaches that no one ought to accept what his own understanding rejects, even though it should be proclaimed by a messenger from heaven, or have the unanimous vote of all Christendom in its support.
No one, therefore, is expected to receive for truth what Swedenborg has taught on any subject, unless the teaching approve itself to his rational intuitions; that is, unless he himself sees it to be true. Each one must use his own eyes, and not allow another to see for him. The great seer himself says:
