cording to Baron Swedenborg, involves in it
whatsoever relates to the Divine love, and whatsoever has a tendency to
excite that love in the will and affections of the devout reader. The
spiritual sense, again, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine
wisdom, and whatsoever is communicative of that wisdom to the devout
reader's understanding and thought. And lastly, the natural or literal
sense involves in it whatsoever relates to the expressions of the Divine
love and wisdom, and is best adapted to convey those heavenly principles
to the reader's mind, and to impress them on his life." According to
this method, then, the Swedenborgian has a fulness and a liberty which,
in the pulpit, should give him a power of amplification denied to those
whose Biblical exegesis is of a more old-fashioned character. If, for
instance, as Swedenborg says, the history of the Creation in Genesis
means the rise of the most ancient church--if by Noah is meant the
ancient church in general--if Shem typifies true internal worship, Ham
corrupt internal worship, Japheth true external worship, and Canaan
corrupt external worship--it seems to such as the writer the
Swedenborgian preacher may do what he likes, and in his flights of
rhetoric may leave his brethren of other denominations far behind. Take,
for instance, the plague of frogs. An ordinary preacher could make but
little of it; but a Swedenborgian will tell you that frogs mean false
doctrines, and then what room you have for expansion! Again, if I take
the word Egypt in the Old Testament to mean the "natural principle," how
much more can I say than he who means by Egypt--Egypt and nothing else!
At the same time this very liberty seems to hamper and confine the
Swedenborgians. There is something narrow and pedantic about their
preaching. As Swedenborg studied the Bible and read no other book, so
they seem to confine themselves exclusively to Swedenborg; and as they
have none of them his genius, or his fulness, or his power, the result is
something very far-fetched and tame and second-hand. You feel that in
accordance with their own system of interpretation they might do much
more than they actually do. "It is unquestionably true," however (writes
Mr. George Bush, late Professor of Hebrew in the University of New York),
"that the piety inculcated by the doctrines of the New Church is of a
more genial and cheerful stamp than that which is usually found under the
auspices of th