15. That the science of corresponden ces, (which has been lost for some thou sands of years, but is now revived in the Theological Works of the Honourable Emanuel Swedenborg,) is the only key to the spiritual or internal sense of the holy word, every page of which is written by correspondences, that is, by such things in the natural world as correspond with and signify things in the spiritual world.
16. That all those passages in the scrip tures, generally supposed to signify the destruction of the world by fire, &c. commonly called the last judgment, must be understood according to the above science, which teaches, that by the end of the world is not meant the destruction of it, hut the destruction or end of the present Christian church, both among Ito man Catholics and Protestants of every description, and that this last judgment took place in the spiritual world in the year 1757.
17. That the second advent of the Lord, which is a coming, not in person, but in the spiritual or internal sense of his holy word, has already commenced ; that it is effected by means of his servant Emanuel Swedenborg, before whom he bath manifested himself in person, and whom he hath filled with his spirit, to teach the doctrines of the new church by the word from him ; and that this is what is meant in the Revelation by the new heaven and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem thence descending.
These doctrines, to say the least of them, are ingenious. Many persons, in deed, of great respectability, and not a few men of learning and talent, even of the present day, believe that these doc trines are something more than ingenious.
It is, hoWever, not a little extraordinary, that, although the Swedenborgians open ly deny the commonly received doctrine of a trinity of persons in the Gad-head, and believe, as they certainly do, that to assert that doctrine is nothing less than tritheism ; and when it is also considered that the system of the highly-illuminated baron has excluded that other orthodox doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice by the death of Christ, we say, under these con siderations, it is not a little to be wonder ed at, that there should be found any persons still in communion with our esta blished church, who profess themselves members of the New Jerusalem church, as revealed by Emanuel Swedenborg. But the wonder increases much, upon the consideration, that some, even of the regular clergy of the English Church, are to be found among the disciples of the honourable baron ! The present ve nerable and respectable minister of St. John's, Manchester, the Reverend Mr. Clowes, is not only an open professor of the faith of the New Church, but is also the well-known translator of all the ba ron's theological publications ! The for bearing temper of many of our present ecclesiastical governors, and the liberal spirit of the times, are circumstances not a little honourable to the national charac ter in general, and to our national clergy in particular. May this spirit and this forbearance continue to increase, until no discrepancy of mere opinion whatever, while unaccompanied by errors of con duct, or depravity of heart, shall be made the foundation of hatred, or the pretext for exclusive civil and religious privi leges !