Emanuel Swedenborg; servus domini - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... Sacred Scripture, and of correspondences, by which the plenary inspiration, divinity, and holiness of the Word are rationally established; its apparent incongruities and inconsistencies explained, and reconciled to human intelligence; its divine structure vindicated, and its authority exalted. Swedenborg taught that the Word, or most of what is popularly termed the Bible, was written, not upon the structural principle of a mere secular history or treatise, but according to a law of correspondence between the natural objects and phenomena described in the Bible, and spiritual truths in which they had their origin, and which they represent. He taught that all causes are spiritual, and that all natural phenomena are but sensual manifestations, or, as he commonly styled them, "ultimates," of some preceding spiritual cause; that a people having a perception of correspondences,--as he represents the inhabitants of the heavenly world to have, and as he avers that men on earth once had,--when they read of mountains, rivers, lambs, wolves, wars, the deluge, honey, frankincense, or any natural objects or events, perceive not so much the physical objects and external circumstances that appear to the mere outward apprehension, but the spiritual conditions, things or circumstances with which they correspond; just as when we see a pleasant smile or censorious frown, our attention is occupied with the state of feeling towards us which such smile or frown corresponds to and represents. So there are certain expressions of the face which indicate, to the most careless observer, well defined qualities of character. One, we say, is cunning, another is open and ingenuous, a third is vain, a fourth cruel, a fifth is refined and gentle, and a sixth...