VI. Of Salvatiox, according to Swedenborg.

" The tliird csseutial of the love of God, ivhicli is to make them happy from itself^ is acknowledged from eternal life, which is blessedness, happiness, and felici- ty without end, which God gives to those who receive his love ill themselves ; for God, as he is Love itself, is also blessedness itself; for every Love breathes forth from itself a delight, and the Divine Love breathes forth blessedness itself, happiness and felicity to eter- nity. Thus God makes angels happy from himself, and also men after death, which is eflfected by conjunc- tion with them." True Chrn. Relig. p. 38.
And again, at page 2G2, same work, is tlie following :
" If therefore man becomes rational-spiritual, and at the same time moral-spiritual, he is conjoined to God^ and by conjunction has salvation and eternal life."
Of Salvation, according to Spinoza.
" Our intellectual love of God is the same love with which God loves himself; not, as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be explained (or represented) by the essence of the human mind, regarded under the form of eternity ; or in other words, the intellectual love of the mind for God, is a part of the infinite love with which God loves himself Hence it follows that, in so far as God loves himself, he loves men or mankind, and consequently, that the love of God for men, and
Ch. xil] a heemetic philosopher. 289
the intellectual love of the mind for God, are one and the same thing." [ This is the Conjunction of Sweden- borg.] " We see clearly now wherein consists our salvation or happiness (bliss or blessedness), or in other words, our liberty (or freedom), to wit, in a con- stant and eternal love for God, or, in the love of God for men, (God's love of us ;) and the sacred scriptures have not without reason given to this love the name of glory." Ethics, part 5, prop. 36.
The brevity of these last extracts miist pre- sent the doctrine of salvation in some degree obscurely, there being, especially in the Ethics, very many propositions necessary to its full ex- position; but a similitude will hardly fail to be seen in the above extracts.
Here are certainly shown very remarkable points of contact between these men, on the most essential doctrines, of God, of Knowledge, and of Salvation, sufficient to excite curiosity at least, if not astonishment, considering the fate, thus far, of the two men : and as these are all impor- tant doctrines, necessarily having an influence over those who hold them, it might be expected that a likeness should also ap>pear in other portions of the works of these men. I am now to show that this is the case in some remarkable particulars ; in doing which there will be some further con- firmations of what has already been adduced, 13 ^
290 SWEDENBORG, [Ch. XII.