Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/38

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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

of great assistance in the support of Bishop Swedberg's family and in his numerous publications.

Jesper and Sara's first child was a son who died in his twelfth year. Asked by his father what he should do in heaven, he answered, "I shall pray for my father and brothers and sisters." The second child was Anna, to whom and to her husband Ericus Benzelius—in 1742 made Archbishop of Sweden—Emanuel was always tenderly attached. He was the next child, born January 29, 1688, while his father was serving as royal chaplain at Stockholm. Of the name given him his father wrote in his autobiography, "I am fully convinced that children ought to be given such names as will awaken in them and call to their minds the fear of God and everything that is orderly and righteous. . . . The name of my son Emanuel signifies God-with-us—that he may always remember God's presence, and that intimate, holy, and mysterious conjunction with our good and gracious God into which we are brought by faith, by which we are conjoined with Him and are in Him. And blessed be the Lord's name! God has to this hour been with him.

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