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There can be no doubt that a large portion of the prejudice against the Bible which is held by skeptical minds comes, not so much from wilful infidelity as from misunderstanding. The same may be said of the present tendency among all Christian sects to deny the plenary or verbal inspiration of that book which claims, in itself, to be the Word of God. It is not because people want to reject it so much as because they cannot discern wherein its inspiration, in many parts, consists.

The method of interpretation revealed by the Lord through Emanuel Swedenborg and set forth in the Writings of that illumined expositor, discloses the fact that it is only in its spiritual sense that the Word of the Lord can be made fully consistent, harmonious and rational, and be justified, as such, to spiritual minds.

These lectures, delivered in San Francisco, Portland, Or., and other places, to large audiences, were designed to set forth the spiritual meaning of the Mosaic account of creation, as given in the Arcana Coelestia of Swedenborg, in a form so easy to comprehend, that none might fail to understand who ​were willing to listen in an unprejudiced mood. They, of course, give the spiritual sense of a very small portion of the Scripture; but they at least suggest the reasonableness and beauty of that method of interpretation and may serve to lead the interested mind to investigate further, and nearer the fountain head, for the principles upon which it is founded.

San Francisco, March Ist, 1892.

J. D.

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