Swedenborgianism

Swedenborgianism, religious system incorporated in the Church of the New Jerusalem, based on the beliefs of the Swedish theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). He contended that the inner meaning of the Bible is made clear through understanding that each natural object is the expression of a spiritual cause. He taught that there is one God, and that the Trinity is a division of essences, not of persons. The Father is the divine essence of love, the Son the divine Wisdom or Word to accomplish the redemption of mankind, and the Holy Spirit the divine proceeding by which life and love flow forth in act. The death and resurrection of Jesus symbolize the fate of man, who, if he has worked with the spirit of Jesus in love and obedience, will put aside his material body to pass from this probationary world to assume a spiritual body, becoming subject to a process of infinite perfectibility. The Church of the New Jerusalem held its first meeting in London (1788), although its teachings were known previously and had reached America in 1785. The formal organization was begun in America (1792), and has been strongest in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. One of its leaders was Sampson Reed, whose writings influenced Emerson, and the philosophy of Transcendentalism is indebted to Swedenborgianism for its prophetic optimism and doctrine of correspondence. The elder Henry James was also strongly impressed by these doctrines.