FOR EMBRACING THE DOCTRINES AND DISCLOSURES OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. "The inquiry of Truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of Truth Bacon "There are five classes of those who read my writings. The first reject them entirely, because they are in another persuasion, or because they are in no faith. The second receive them as scientifics, or as objects of mere curiosity. The third receive them intellectually, and are in some measure pleased with them, but whenever they require an application to regulate their lives, they remain where they were before. The fourth receive them in a persuasive manner, and are thereby led, in a certain degree, to amend their lives and perform uses. The fifth receive them with delight, and confirm them in their lives."-Hobart's Life of Swedenborg, p. 6. SNOWDEN & PRALL, Printers, Corner of Ann & Nassau streets, N. Y. Mrs. James Hemeley Campbell 2-16-1932 STATEMENT OF REASONS, &c. The general law which governs the propagation of truth is doubtless of universal bearing and authority. Every man is bound, by his allegiance to truth, to do what in him lies, consistently with his various relations in life, to extend and confirm its empire among men. Nor can it be doubted that the pressure of this obligation is always in proportion to his sense of the intrinsic weight and importance of the truth which he holds. At the same time he is unquestionably to be governed by a wise discretion as to the time, place, and circumstances in which he shall witness his good confession. The line of policy, aiming at this end, which might be expedient, all things considered, for one might not be expedient for another occupying a different position, and sustaining different relations. There may often be reasons operating with an individual to produce a change in his views of moral and religious truth, while yet there may not be a call upon him for an open and public avowal of those reasons. It is easy to conceive that in many cases the most effectual declaration of sentiment is made by the silent but expressive language of life-a life prompted and ruled by the convictions which may have established themselves in the mind. The case however, is palpably altered when one has previously sustained a more public relation-when he has become somewhat known as the advocate of a different and opposite class of opinions-when he has occupied, in a sphere however humble, the post of a public teacher-when he has written books that have obtained a circulation more or less extensive, and which embody sentiments that have been modified by subsequent inquiries. In a case of this kind it can scarcely be deemed an impeachment of the decorous and modest estimate which every man is reasonably expected to entertain of his own influence or standing in the community, if he presumes to satisfy the natural curiosity to become acquainted with the reasons which have led to a decided change in his views on important subjects, especially on the subject of his religious belief. The fact of such an avowed change is a virtual appeal to those who are still resting in his former opinions to institute an inquiry into their grounds, as the reasons which have weighed with him, if sound, are entitled to weigh with them also; and it may safely be presumed that a portion at least of his former readers and approvers will be willing to bestow a candid consideration upon the argu. ments he has to proffer in behalf of his course. I venture, therefore, to avail myself of the above considerations by way of 6 apology, for presenting, through the present medium, somewhat of a formal and detailed exposition of the grounds on which I have been induced, after long, diligent, and serious investigation, to profess an unhesitating adoption of the system of religious doctrine and spiritual disclosure propounded to the world by Emanuel Swedenborg. I am the more induced to this from the fact that I have been frequently solicited from different quarters, and by those who were pleased to express a deep anticipative interest in such an expose, to make the statement that I now propose. As the request is reasonable, I have determined to comply with it. It is a measure due perhaps to myself and to those who have hitherto cherished towards me a kindly personal regard, and who have been conscious of a more or less lively sympathy with the general views advanced in my different publications. From the narrow limits within which it is necessarily compressed the sketch must inevitably be imperfect, and in some cases perhaps scarcely just to particular points of doctrine or disclosure touched upon. But I may still hope to succeed in exhibiting, however briefly, a fair outline of the mental process which has resulted in my present convictions. Of the intrinsic sufficiency of the reasons cited, the reader will of course form his own judgment. In yielding my credence to Emanuel Swedenborg as a truly commissioned messenger from God to man I claim to have been governed by evidence that not only has been satisfactory to myself, but by evidence that ought to satisfy me-evidence too that will not fail to satisfy every truly candid and reflecting inquirer who will be at the pains of spreading it before him. But as I cannot transfer to another mind the influence of this evidence upon my own, so neither can I expect the above declaration to be viewed otherwise than as a simple expression of opinion, which may be true or not in any particular case. One thing however is certain--it is impossible for a fair verdict to be passed upon the issue of my examination by any one who has not himself gone over the ground which it covers and thus put himself in possession of the requisite data for forming a judgment. A conclusion cannot be pronounced false or fallacious but upon a full knowledge of all the just grounds upon which it is affirmed to be sound and true. In the prosecution of my purpose an alternative course presents itself. I might either proceed to exhibit a compend of the reasons which have weighed with me, in my change of sentiment, in the form in which they now stand before my mind, arranged in systematic order, and as in my judgment best calculated to produce effect upon an inquiring spirit, independent of the process through which my own mind passed in reaching its conclusions—or I may follow more strictly the course of experience, from the first dawn of interest in Swedenborg's writings through the various alternations of doubt and assent, up to the point at which doubt disappeared and assent became firm and triumphant. The latter method is doubtless preferable, notwithstanding the unavoidable air of egoism which it involves, as most persons may be presumed to feel a deeper interest in what they might perhaps be disposed to term the natural history of a conversion, even if they should regard it as a sample of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm." Whether the present be a case of this kind, they will be better qualified to judge when the record is spread before them. In the retrospect of the last five or six years of my moral and intellectual life, I am compelled to fix upon the date when I was first led to question the received doctrine of the Resurrection as the point from which my progress really began to tend towards the New Church, although then profoundly ignorant of the fact. I had previously acquired no precise knowledge of Swedenborg's system, nor formed any intelligent estimate of his character. With the mass of the Christian world I had contented myself with the vague impression of his having been a man of respectable talents and attainments, but who had unhappily fallen into a kind of monomania, which made him the victim of strange delusions and dreams-the honest but real dupe of the wildest phantasies in respect to the state of man after death, and the constituent nature of Heaven and Hell. As to anything like a consistent or rational philosophy of man's nature or the constitution of the universe, I should as soon have looked for it in the Koran of Mahomet or the Vedas of the Hindoos, or what I then deemed the senseless ravings of Jacob Behmen. Having never read his works, but in fragmentary extracts, I was unprepared to recognize in him anything beyond the character of a well meaning mystic, who had given forth to the world a strange medley of hallucinations that could never be supposed to meet with acceptance except in minds which had received some touch of a similar mania, and which had lost, if they ever possessed, the power of accurately discriminating between visions and verities. Such was my general estimate of the man up to the time when I had become settled in the belief that the current dogma of the resurrection of the material body was a gratuitous hypothesis equally unsupported by a sound interpretation of Scripture, or by the fair inductions of reason. I had already begun to announce my conclusions on this head in a course of public Lectures delivered in this city and elsewhere, maintaining that the true resurrection took place at death, when at the close of one of these Lectures, in an eastern city, a lady incidentally remarked to me that the views I had advanced bore a striking analogy with those of Swedenborg on the same theme, and intimating her impression that I must have been conversant with his works. The supposition was unfounded, but my curiosity was excited, and I determined, at the first favorable opportunity, to acquaint myself with the system and thus supply a conscious desideratum in my knowledge. Not many months elapsed before a copy of Noble's Appeal in behalf of the views of the New Church fell into my hands, by the perusal of which I was very deeply impressed. I was compelled to form an entirely new estimate of the man and of the system. I not only saw my own general views of the nature of the resurrection abundantly confirmed and illustrated, and planted upon the basis of a philosophy and psychology, which I still deem impregnable, but an exhibition also of the doctrine of the Lord's Second Advent which came home to my convictions with a peculiar power of demonstration. I was struck too in the perusal of this work, with the Scriptural character of the evidence adduced in support of the doctrines. I had previously no adequate conception of the amount of testimony from this source going to sustain the leading positions of the New Church scheme, and to this hour I do not scruple to regard Noble's Appeal as an unanswerable defence of the system. Hitherto, however, I had read nothing of Swedenborg's own writings, excepting occasional detached paragraphs. The "Heaven and Hell" shortly afterwards fell under my perusal. I read it with profound interest, but still with great abatements from a full conviction of its truth. I was rather disposed, on the whole, |