The Gist of Swedenborg is a controversial text by the great Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg that deals with the subject of the New Jerusalem Church. This religious and philosophical classic contains the following forward: "Swedenborg's theological writings comprise some thirty or more substantial volumes, the result of the most concentrated labor extending over a period of twenty-seven years. To study these writings in their whole extent, to see them in their minute unfoldment out of the Word of God, is a work of years. It is doubtful if there is a phase of man's religious experience for which an interpretation is not here to be found. Notwithstanding this immense sweep of doctrine there are certain vital, fundamental truths on which it all rests:-the Christ-God, Man a spiritual being, the warfare of Regeneration, Marriage, the Sacred Scriptures, the Life of Charity and Faith, the Divine Providence, Death and the Future Life, the Church. We have endeavored to press within the small compass of this book passages which give the gist of Swedenborg's teachings on these subjects."