Memorandum.

"Several questions have been propounded to me by your friend, to which you will please to receive the following as an answer: "1. My opinion concerning the writings of B-hme and L. . . . I have never read either; I was forbidden to read writers on dogmatic and systematic theology, before heaven was opened to me; because unfounded opinions and inventions might thereby have easily insinuated themselves, which afterwards could only have been removed with difficulty; wherefore, when heaven was opened to me, I had first to learn the Hebrew language, as well as the correspondences according to which the whole Bible is composed, which led me to read the Word of God over many times; and as God's Word is the source whence all theology must be derived, I was enabled thereby to receive instruction from the Lord, who is the Word.

"2. Query: How soon a New Church may be expected? Answer: The Lord is preparing at this time a New Heaven of those who believe in Him, acknowledge Him as the true God of heaven and earth, and look to Him in their lives, which means to shun evil and do good; for from that heaven the New Jerusalem is to come down (see Rev. 21:2). I daily see spirits and angels, from ten to twenty thousand, descending and ascending, and being set in order. By degrees, as that heaven is being formed, the New Church likewise begins and increases. The universities in Christendom are now first being instructed, whence will come new ministers; for the New Heaven has no influence over the old [clergy] who deem themselves too learned in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

"3. About the promised treatise on infinity, omnipotence, and omnipresence.** Answer: There are many things on these subjects interspersed throughout Divine Providence (n. 46-54 and 157); also in Divine Love and Wisdom, (n. 4, 17, 19, 21, 44, 69, 72, 76, 106, 156, 318), and in Apocalypse Revealed (n. 961); these subjects will be further treated of in the arcana of Conjugial Love; for to write a separate treatise on these Divine attributes, without the assistance of something to support them, would cause too great an elevation of the thoughts; wherefore these subjects have been treated in a series with other things which fall within the understanding." (Dated Stockholm, February, 1767.) "I have with pleasure perused your 'New Essays on the Gospels' (Nya Forsok ofwer Evangelierne); fine interpretations are given in respect to the First Coming of the Lord. I wish to give here the signification of a manger, of the baptism of John, and of Elias. A manger signifies instruction from the Word, because mules and horses signify the understanding of the Word (see Apocalypse Revealed, n. 298); and a manger contains their food; there being no room in the inn, signifies that there was no place of instruction in Jerusalem; wherefore it is said to the shepherds, who signify the church to come, 'This shall be the sign unto you; ye shall find the babe lying in a manger' (Luke 2:12). The baptism of John prepared the heavens, so that the Jewish people might subsist, when God Himself should come down among them. John signified all the prophecies in the Old Testament respecting the Lord and His advent; likewise Elias, because he was the chief of the prophets. "As here [in Stockholm] they now begin to think more of charity than before, asserting that faith and charity cannot be separated, therefore faith alone begins also to be called Moravian faith.

["Em. Swedenborg.] "Stockholm, February, 1767."

* Documents Concerning Swedenborg, Vol. 2, pp. 260-261. ** This work was promised by Swedenborg, in 1763, in the preface to the Doctrine Concerning the Lord.