The reason for a compilation such as is here presented should be obvious. Swedenborg's theological writings comprise some thirty or more substantial volumes, the result of the most concentrated labor extending over a period of twenty-seven years. To study these writings in their whole extent, to see them in their minute unfoldment out of the Word of God, is a work of years. It is doubtful if there is a phase of man's religious experience for which an interpretation is not here to be found. Notwithstanding this immense sweep of doctrine there are certain vital, fundamental truths on which it all rests:--the Christ-God, Man a spiritual being, the warfare of Regeneration, Marriage, the Sacred Scriptures, the Life of Charity and Faith, the Divine Providence, Death and the Future! Life, the Church. We have endeavored to press within the small compass of this book passages which give the gist of Swedenborg's teachings on these subjects. The compilers would gladly have made room for the interpretative and philosophical teachings which contribute so much to the content and form of Swedenborg's theology; but they have confined their effort to setting forth briefly and clearly the positive spiritual teachings where these seemed most packed with religious meaning and moment.
