amount of unpublished rationalism may be gathered from the writings
of Emanuel Swedenborg, himself something of a freethinker in his
very supernaturalism. His frequent subacid allusions to those who
"regarded Nature instead of the divine," and "thought from science,"
[1525] tell not merely of much passive opposition to his own prophetic
claims (which he avenged by much serene malediction and the allotment
of bad quarters in the next world), but of reasoned rejection of all
Scriptural claims. Thus in his Sapientia Angelica de Divina Providentia
[1526] (1764) he sets himself [1527] to deal with a number of the
ways in which "the merely natural man confirms himself in favour of
Nature against God" and "comes to the conclusion that religion in
itself is nothing, but yet that it is necessary because it serves as
a restraint." Among the sources of unbelief specified are ethical
revolt alike against the Biblical narratives and against the lack
of moral government in the world; the recognition of the success of
other religions than the Christian, and of the many heresies within
that; and dissatisfaction with the Christian dogmas. As Swedenborg
sojourned much in other countries, he may be describing men other
than his countrymen; but it is very unlikely that the larger part of
his intercourse with his fellows counted for nothing in this account
of contemporary rationalism.
With his odd mixture of scripturalism and innovating dogmatism,
Swedenborg disposes of difficulties about Genesis by reducing Adam
and Eve to an allegory of the "Most Ancient Church," tranquilly
dismissing the orthodox belief by asking, "For who can suppose that
the creation of the world could have been as there described?" [1528]
His own scientific training, which had enabled him to make his notable
anticipation of the nebular theory, [1529] made it also easy for him
to reduce to allegory the text of what he nevertheless insisted on
treating as a divine revelation; and his moral sense, active where
he felt no perverting resentment of contradiction by reasoners,
[1530] made him reject the orthodox doctrine of salvation by faith,
even as he did the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. On these points
he seems to have had a lead from his father, Bishop Jasper Svedberg,
[1531] as he had in his overwhelming physiological bias to subjective
vision-making. But a message which finally amounted to the oracular
propounding of a new and bewildering supernaturalism, to be taken on
authority like the old, could make for freethought only by rousing
rational reaction. It was Swedenborg's destiny to establish, in virtue
of his great power of orderly dogmatism, a new supernaturalist and
scripturalist sect, while his scientific conceptions were left for
other men to develop. In his own country, in his own day, he had
little success qua prophet, though always esteemed for his character
and his high secular competence; and he finally figured rather as a
heresiarch than otherwise. [1532]