The Secret of Swedenborg

Method of the divine revelation very gradual, beginning with the family, and ending with the social, unity of man ; a temporary or provisional form of it being supplied by the conventional society called the church. — The church, as a visible or ritual economy, has never had any real but only a representative worth ; and at the present time is sadly behind "the world" in spiritual intelligence. But it has had an inestimable use in keep- ing alive men's conscience of unrest towards God, and so preparing the way for his consummate achievement in our nature, which is the evolution of the SOCIAL sentiment. — Swedenborg's conception of the technical church. Has no quarrel with the persons composing it, but only with its un- righteous animus 71-79 CHAPTER XIII. The purely negative office of the church in history illustrated and argued, from reason and scripture 79-85 CHAPTER XIV.