SPIRITUAL DIARY
oF
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG ;
oR,
A BRIEF RECORD, DURING TWENTY YEARS,
OF HIS SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCE.
LATELY PUBLISHED FROM THE LATIN MANUSCRIPTS OF THE AUTHOR, BY
DR. J. F. L TAFEL, OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF TUBINGEN.
Ceanslates from the @riginal
BY J. H. SMITHSON.
VOL.
LONDON:
NEWBERY, 6, KING STREET, HOLBORN;
HODSON, CLIFFORD'S INN PASSAGE, FLEET STREET.
MANCHESTER: KENWORTHY, CATEATON STREET.
1846.Reopueh 7
Thay }
PREFACE.
Tne general reader is especially requested to peruse this
Preface as introductory to the following work.
Swedenborg himself published many works,® in which he has
interpreted the Spiritual Sense of the Divine Word, and
delivered to the world the doctrines of the New Christian
Church, understood by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation.
These are the works to which the New Church especially appeals
as the means by which it derives from the Word of God, which
is the only source of all religious and spiritual knowledge, its
doctrines and its views of heavenly and eternal things.
But besides these works, Swedenborg left many others in
manuscript, one of which, intitled the “Apocalypse Explained,”
&c. is, on account of its copious exposition of the Spiritual
Sense of the Word, probably one of the most valuable le
ever wrote; this work, although not printed by the author himself,
was evidently prepared and intended for the press, had time and
means enabled him to have presented it to the public. This
work was published in the years 1785—1788, Other works, also
written since the commencement of his especial spiritual
illumination, in 1745, were left in manuscript, and confided by
the heirs of Swedenborg, soon after his death, to the custody of
the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, {+ of which
Swedenborg himself was a distinguished and honoured member. {
* Sco at the end of this vol. the Catalogue of Swedenborg's Theological works, a8
published by the Printing Socicty, which was established in London in 1810, for that
Purpose.
+ Sce an account of these Manuscripts in the Intellectual Repository for January,
1836, p. 22.
+ Seo in the “Doguments concerning the Life and Character of E, Swedenborg,”
edited in English by the Translator of this Volume, “an Eulogium on the Life and
Labours of Swedenborg, pronounced before the Royal Academy by M. de Sandel.”
pp- 124,vi.
Of these manuscripts the Srrriruan Diary may be con-
sidered, next to the Apocalypse Explained, as the most important.
Not many years after the author's death, these two works were
brought to England, with a view to their publication. The
Apocalypse Explained, as already stated, was published; and a
proposal was also announced in 1791 to publish the Diary ;* to
this end, the work was carefully copied from the original
manuscript by M. Benedict Chastanier; but the time, it appears,
had not then arrived when it should be presented to the public.
The labours, however, of M. Chastanier were not in vain; for his
transcript, at so early a period after the author’s death, when, it
is probable, many words and phrases in the original could be
more easily deciphered than at present, has, no doubt, been a
providential means of enabling Dr. Tafel, the Latin Editor, who
had Swedenborg’s own Autograph (with the exception of the
Appendix) and this transeript before him, to superintend with
greater security and accuracy, the work through the press. A.
great portion of the original manuscripts remained in England
until 1842, partly in the possession of the London Printing
Society, and partly in the hands of the late Rev. Mr. Sibly
until that gentleman's decease, when, by his bequest, the entire
charge devolved upon that body. The Printing Society, how-
ever, having ascertained that the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Stockholm had, by right, the custody of these valuable
manuscripts, of its own accord honourably resolved to return
the whole to their possession. Respecting the transfer of
those manuscripts, an interesting correspondence accordingly
ensued between the Printing Society and Baron Berzelius,
the celebrated Swedish chemist, and a member of the said
Academy. t
‘The first part of the Diary, however, constituting, in print, the
two first volumes, had been previously returned to Sweden, and
* See the New Jerusalem Magazine for 1791, p. 304.
+ Sce a Discourse preached by tho Rev. T. C. Shave, “On the Occasion of the Re-
moval into the Spiritual World of the Rey. Manoah Sibly.”
f See Intellectual Repository for February, 1043, p. 74; and also for December of
tho same year, p. 472. See also the Reports of the London Printing Society for 1842,
1843, and 1844.