*On September 8th last I arrived here in Stockholm. The voyage from England took 8 days. There was a raging storm with favourable winds which sped the ship onwards so swiftly. Later I received your letter of September 17. I am pleased to know of your well being and that of my other acquaintances in Goteborg, to all of whom I send my most dutiful greeting.

I wish every blessing on the intended Sermon Library [Praediko Bibliotheket], and send herewith my subscription to it. I venture to assume that you will use every caution in this matter, since the time has not yet come when the essentials of the New Church can be received. The clergy who have confirmed themselves in their dogmas at the universities will be convinced only with difficulty, for all confirmations in theological matters are as if glued fast in the brain, and are budged only with difficulty; and so long as they remain there is no room for real truths. Moreover, the New Heaven of Christians from which the New Jerusalem is to descend from the Lord, Rev. xxi 1-2, is not yet fully established.

Here in Stockholm it is now generally held that faith and charity should go together, and that the one cannot exist without the other, for the reason that good works are the fruits of faith and show themselves in the state of justification. Yet few of the Lutherans think beyond this, although the learned have not yet found any connection between faith and good works, therefore making good works to be only moral and civil matters, thus good, but contributing nothing to salvation - and much else of this kind. They are right too, for from that faith can come no other works. It is otherwise with faith in Jesus Christ.

As regards the Divine Human of the Lord it is in no way opposed to the Formula Concordiae, where it is taught that in Christ God is Man and Man is God, and where Paul's saying is confirmed that in Christ dwells all Divinity bodily, etc.

As to Boehme's writings I can pass no judgment, since I have never read them.

I remain etc. Em. Swedenborg

Stockholm 25 September 1766

* On 17 September 1766 Beyer wrote to Swedenborg informing him of plans concerning the publication of sermons by himself, Johan Rosen, and others, and inclosing a circular calling for subscriptions. Beyer also asked Swedenborg whether the doctrine of the Lord's Human conflicted with what is stated in the Formula Concordiae, and whether he had anything to say about the writings of Jacob Boehme (1575-1625), the German mystic whose influence lived on among Pietists.