Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/127

These are very different from the real truths which underlie such appearances, and which require for their discernment the faithful exercise of our best faculties. The most unreasonable and absurd doctrines find some support from the letter of Scripture interpreted without the light of reason, or in the way the natural man is ever inclined to interpret it. All the numerous errors and corruptions which have crept into the church, have sprung from a too literal interpretation of Scripture, or from neglecting to exercise the reason and understanding, and so failing to discover its spirit, or the deeper meaning which lies wrapped up in the letter. Accordingly Swedenborg—after telling us that there is a correspondence between natural and spiritual things like that between body and soul, and that the Sacred Scripture contains a spiritual as well as a natural sense throughout, which cannot be discerned without the exercise of the rational understanding—says:

"Now since the Word [or Sacred Scripture] is of such a nature, the appearances of truth, which are truths clothed, may be taken for naked truths; and such appearances when confirmed, become falsities. Yet this is done by those who believe themselves to be superior to others in wisdom, when yet they are not wise; for wisdom consists in seeing whether a thing be true before it is confirmed, but not in confirming whatever one pleases. . . . The former is the case with those who love