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.