The Gist of Swedenborg

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1920. Original Cloth. Very Good. 4 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches. 110 pages. Pages bright and clean and free of marking, soiling or staining. Bound in publisher's maroon cloth with original paper labels to front cover and spine. Spine label lightly worn and soiled. Very light wear to the edges of the cover. Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist and philosopher who, after a series of visions, sought to reform Christianity. Swedenborg rejected the traditional explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons in favor of a doctrine that the Divine Trinity exists in One Person, in One God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Swedenborg also rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, considering both faith and charity necessary for salvation. Toward the end of his life, small reading groups formed in England and Sweden to study his teachings and several writers were influenced by him, including William Blake (though he later renounced them), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, August Strindberg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Baudelaire, Honore Balzac, William Butler Yeats, Sheridan Le Fanu, Jorge Luis Borges and Carl Jung. The theologian Henry James, Sr., was a follower of his teachings, as were Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller.