Plates 21-22

I have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning, Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; tho' it is only the contents or index of already publish'd books. A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev'd himself as much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: He shews the folly of churches & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all religious, & himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net. Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one net truth, now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods. And now hear the reason. He conversed with angels who are all religious & conversed not with devils who all hate religion. For he was incapable thro' his conceited notions. Thus Swedenborg writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime but not further. Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's, and from those of Dante or Shakespeare an infinite number. But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.