[plates 21-22]
i have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of
themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence
sprouting from systematic reasoning, swedenborg boasts that what he writes
is new; tho' it is only the contents or index of already publish'd books.
a man carried a monkey about for a shew,& because he was a little wiser
than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev'd himself as much wiser than seven
men. it is so with swedenborg: he shews the folly of churches & exposes
hypocrites, till he imagines that all religious,& himself the single one
on earth that ever broke a net. now hear a plain fact: swedenborg has not
written one net truth, now hear another: he has written all the old
falsehoods. and now hear the reason. he conversed with angels who are all
religious & conversed not with devils who all hate religion. for he was
incapable thro' his conceited notions. thus swedenborg writings are a
recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more
sublime but not further. have now another plain fact. any man of
mechanical talents may, from the writings of paracelus or jacob behmen,
produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with swedenborg's, and from
those of dante or shakespear an infinite number. but when he has done
this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only
holds a candle in sunshine.