Plates 21-22

(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
Shakespeare 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.