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CHAPTER III.

TESTIMONY OF REV. HENRY B. BROWNING.

PERHAPS the strongest testimony which a minister can bear to the truth, value, and spiritual helpfulness of Swedenborg's writings, is his thorough study and hearty acceptance of their teachings, and his incorporation of them into all his pulpit discourses without naming Swedenborg or the New Church. This is what hundreds (and possibly thousands) of ministers in England and America are doing to-day — and have been doing for several years past. And they feel that under existing circumstances they are fully justified in so doing. They have studied these Writings, and have within themselves the testimony of the Spirit that they are what they claim to be — "from God out of heaven." They have examined them carefully and prayerfully, and in the light of Scripture and reason and human experience and all known truth; and they have found them to be in a high degree helpful to themselves, and have reason, therefore, to believe that they will be equally helpful to their people. But they know what an intense though

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