Last Judgment (1758), Divine Love and Wisdom (1763), Di-
vine Providence (1764), Revelation Unveiled (1766), Love in
Marriage (1768), and True Christian Religion (1771).
Swedenborg’s print runs were large for the eighteenth
century. It is known that in 1758 he published five books
with print runs of one thousand each. He also distributed
them widely, sending them to church officials in several
countries, as well as offering them for sale. Still, at the time
of his death there were perhaps only a handful of individuals
who accepted his teachings in Europe. No organizations ex-
isted, established by him or others, to promote his new
Christianity. Swedenborg was one of the last authors to write
exclusively in neo-Latin; his works, therefore, required trans-
lation into the vernacular to reach the growing number of
newly literate individuals. Prior to 1800, some of his works
had been translated into German (1765), English (1770s),
French (1782), and Russian (1780s).
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW CHURCH. Despite the obsta-
cles to spreading Swedenborg’s message, his religious writ-
ings had gained a sufficient following, particularly in En-
gland, by the end of the 1770s that organized reading circles
developed among the artisans and industrial workers of Lan-
cashire just as the cotton industry was taking off. By the mid
1770s copies of the translation of Heaven and Hell by Wil-
liam Cookworthy (1705–1780) and Thomas Hartley
(1707–1784) began to circulate in the villages and hamlets
surrounding Manchester. The development of the reading
circles was due in part to the sensational claims made by Swe-
denborg in the book that he had “seen and heard” what lay
beyond death’s door. But as the sensationalism subsided,
those who remained interested in the theology were sup-
ported by the efforts of John Clowes (1743–1831), rector of
Saint John’s Anglican Church in Manchester, an early believ-
er in and translator of Swedenborg’s writings.
According to Robert Hindmarsh (1759–1835), another
early believer, Swedenborgian minister, historian, and author
of Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church in England,
America, and Other Parts (1861), these small circles in Lanca-
shire not only read and discussed what Swedenborg had writ-
ten, but they soon began to worship together based on the
new vision of Christianity found in Swedenborg’s writings.
Their focus was on worshiping the one divinely human God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is considered to be a visible God
who contains the invisible, as the physical human body con-
tains within it the invisible soul. Swedenborg, in True Chris-
tian Religion (1771), acknowledges the trinity in God. He
wrote, “These three, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit,
are three essential components of one God. They are one the
way our soul, our body, and the things we do are one.” In
initiating worship, these early believers had grasped the cen-
tral, indeed fundamental, teaching of Swedenborg’s theology
that God is one in essence and person and that the Lord Jesus
Christ is that God. In addition, Swedenborg’s teachings em-
phasize the following ideas: the reality of the spiritual world
and the rationality of its operation; the spiritual nature of the
last judgment, which Swedenborg claimed took place in
1757; the essential spiritual nature of human beings; the cor-
respondence between the spiritual world and the natural
world; human freedom in spiritual things; the marriage of
love and wisdom in the Lord and thus in all creation; the es-
sential partnership of faith and charity found in a life of use;
and the sacred nature of marriage.
John Clowes had ordered a copy of Swedenborg’s Vera
Christiana Religio (True Christian Religion) in 1773 upon
the recommendation of his solicitor. Upon receiving it, he
put it aside, only picking it up to read months later, just be-
fore he was to leave on an extended trip. He saw the words
Divinum Humanum (divine human) and closed the book.
Several days later his recollection of these words was accom-
panied by a deep sense of peace. This experience reoccurred
daily. Finally, with a sense of urgency, he broke off his jour-
ney and returned home to read the book that seemed to be
calling to him. Clowes wrote that after reading Swedenborg’s
book, all his theological questions had been answered.
Clowes immediately became actively involved in the work of
translation, as well as seeing to the publication and distribu-
tion of Swedenborg’s writings. He also assumed the role of
shepherd to the groups that began to emerge in Lancashire.
He remained active in this work until his death, although he
never separated from the Anglican Church in which he
served as a pastor. In fact, Clowes lamented the move to form
a separate “New Church” organization promoted by Robert
Hindmarsh in London.
Hindmarsh, a printer by trade and a member of John
Wesley’s Methodist movement, had frequently heard Swe-
denborg’s writings discussed in the circles in which he lived
and worked. In 1782 he was given two of Swedenborg’s writ-
ings, Heaven and Hell and The Commerce between Soul and
Body (1769). Many years later, Hindmarsh wrote that after
reading them, he was immediately convinced of their heav-
enly origins. Late in 1783 he circulated an advertisement
calling for any interested readers of Swedenborg to meet on
December 5. Four of the five men who came to the meeting
formed the nucleus of the London Theosophical Society de-
voted to the study and publication of Swedenborg’s writings.
The fifth man, James Glen (1749–1814), a plantation
owner in South America, soon left for the New World carry-
ing copies of Swedenborg’s writings with him. He stopped
in Boston and Philadelphia, giving lectures in both cities and
leaving behind books for sale. Even though he was just pass-
ing through, Glen’s efforts made a significant contribution
to the development of Swedenborgianism in the newly
formed United States.
By 1787, when the New Church (the name, from Reve-
lation 21:2, often taken by Swedenborgian churches) was for-
mally established in England, there were six groups in Lanca-
shire and the founding society in London. One of the
remarkable sociological facts of the establishment of this or-
ganization is that it was founded by individuals who had
never personally known Swedenborg. Those who developedSWEDENBORGIANISM 8901