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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

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True Christian Religion #389

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389. The fifth experience.

I once saw a document sent down from heaven to a community in the world of spirits, where there were two leading churchmen together with a retinue of canons and presbyters. The document contained an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as God of heaven and earth, as He taught (Matthew 28:18), and to abandon as erroneous the doctrine that faith justifies without the deeds prescribed by the law. Many people read and copied out that document, and its contents were considered and talked over judiciously by many of them. But after receiving it, they said to one another: 'Let us hear the opinion of our leaders.'

So they listened to them, but they spoke against it and rejected it. However, the leaders of that community were hard of heart as the result of the falsities they had absorbed in their former world. After a short consultation, therefore, they sent the document back to heaven where it came from. When this was done, after some muttering most of the laymen abandoned their former acceptance, and then the light of their judgment in spiritual matters, which had previously been bright, was suddenly snuffed out. After a second, but vain, warning, I saw that community sinking down, though I could not see how deeply; but it sank out of sight of those who worship the Lord alone, and turn their backs on justification by faith alone.

[2] A few days later I saw perhaps as many as a hundred coming up from the lower earth, to which that small community had sunk; they approached me and one of them said: 'Listen to this extraordinary occurrence. When we sank down, we saw what looked like a lake, and after a while dry land; then later a small town in which many found a home for themselves. Next day we got together to discuss what we should do. Many people said that the two leaders of the church should be approached and gently reproved for sending the document back to the heaven it came from, since it was because of that this had happened to us. They also chose a few people (and the man talking to me said he had been one of them) who went off to the leaders, where one of their number who was especially wise addressed them as follows: "We believed that we excelled others in possessing the church and religion, because we heard it said that we enjoy the strongest light of the Gospel. But some of us have been granted enlightenment from heaven, and this enlightenment has been accompanied by the perception that at the present time there is no longer a church, because there is no religion, in the Christian world."

[3] 'The leaders said: "What is this you are saying? Is not the church where there is the Word, where Christ the Saviour is known, and where there are the sacraments?" Our spokesman replied to this: "They belong to the church, for they make the church; but they make it inside, not outside, a person." He went on to say: "Can there be a church where three Gods are worshipped? Can there be a church where its whole teaching is based upon a misinterpretation of a single saying of Paul, and thus not upon the Word? Can there be a church, when the Saviour of the world, who is the God of the church Himself, is not approached? Can anyone deny that religion is shunning evil and doing good? Is there any religion [where it is taught] that faith alone saves, and not together with charity? Is there any religion where it is taught that the charity which man exercises is only moral and civil charity? Is there anyone who does not see that that sort of charity contains nothing religious? Does faith alone involve any act or deed, though religion consists in action? Is there a nation anywhere in the whole world which attributes no saving power to the good of charity, which is good deeds? Yet the whole of religion consists in good, and the whole of the church consists in the teaching of truths, and by means of truths the teaching of various kinds of good. How glorious our lot would have been, if we had welcomed the teachings at the heart of the document sent down from heaven!"

[4] 'Then the leaders said: "Your remarks aim too high. Surely faith in action, which is the faith which fully justifies and saves, is the church? Surely faith at rest, which is the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, is religion? You must grasp this, my children." But then our wise man said: "Listen, fathers. Surely according to your dogma man resembles a block of wood in conceiving faith in action? Can a block be made alive so as to become a church? Surely faith at rest is according to your notion the continuation and progress of faith in action? And when, as your dogma insists, all saving power resides in faith, and the good of charity on man's part makes no contribution, where is religion then?" Then the prelates said: "Friend, you talk like this because you do not know the secrets of justification by faith alone; and if one is ignorant of these, one cannot know inwardly the way to salvation. Your way is external and fit only for the common people. Go that way if you like. But you should know that all good is from God, and nothing of it from man, so that in spiritual matters man can achieve nothing by himself. How then can a man by himself do good which is spiritual good?"

[5] 'To this our spokesman replied with great indignation: "I know more about your secrets of justification than you do, and I tell you frankly that I have seen nothing inwardly in your secrets but phantoms. Surely religion consists in acknowledging [and loving] God, and shunning and hating the devil? Is not God good itself and the devil evil itself? Is there anyone anywhere in the world, who, if he has a religion, does not know this? Is not acknowledging and loving God doing good, because this is God's and from God; and is not shunning and hating the devil not doing evil, because this is the devil's and from the devil? Or to put it another way, does your faith in action, which you called the faith that fully justifies and saves, or in other words your act of justification by faith alone, teach you to do any good deed which is God's and from God, or to shun any evil because it is the devil's and from the devil? None at all, since you lay down that there is no salvation in either. What is your faith at rest, which you called the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, but the same as faith in action? How can this be perfected, since you exclude all good done by man as if of himself, saying in your secret doctrines: 'How can anyone be saved by any good done by himself, when salvation is a free gift?' Or 'What good can be done by man except with a view to seeking merit, when yet Christ's merit is all-sufficient? Thus doing good to achieve salvation would be attributing to oneself what belongs to Christ alone, and it would also be wishing to justify and save oneself.' Or 'How can anyone do a good deed, when the Holy Spirit performs everything with no help from man? What need then is there for any extra good from man, when all good from man is not in essence good at all?'

[6] There are many other questions; are not these your secrets? But in my eyes they are simply quibbles and tricks invented in order to get rid of good deeds, which are the good deeds of charity, so as to establish firmly your doctrine of faith alone. And because you do so, you consider man as regards faith, and in general as regards all spiritual matters relating to the church and religion as a block of wood, or like a lifeless effigy, not as a human being created in the image of God, who has been given and is continually given the ability to understand and to will, to believe and to love, and to speak and act, exactly as if of himself, especially in spiritual matters, since they are what make a human being human. If a human being were not to think and act in spiritual matters as if of himself, what then would become of the Word? What would then become of the church and religion? And what of worship? You know that doing good to the neighbour as the result of love is charity; but you do not know what charity is. Yet it is the soul and essence of faith. And since charity is both these things, how can faith divorced from charity be anything but dead? Dead faith is nothing but a phantom. I call it a phantom, because James 2:17 calls faith without good deeds not only dead, but even diabolical."

[7] Then one of the leaders, on hearing his faith called dead, diabolical and a phantom, became so furious that he snatched the mitre off his head and threw it on the table saying: 'I will not put it on again until I have taken vengeance on the enemies of the faith of our church.' So he shook his head murmuring 'That man James! That man James!' On the front of the mitre was a plate, with the words 'Faith alone justifies' engraved on it. Then there suddenly appeared a monster rising out of the ground; it had seven heads, feet like a bear's, a body like a leopard's, a mouth like a lion's, exactly like the beast described in Revelation (Revelation 13:1-2), and of which an image was made and honoured (Revelation 13:14-15). This phantom took the mitre from the table, pulled its lower edge apart and put it on its seven heads. At this the ground gaped open beneath its feet and it sank down. On seeing this the leader cried: 'Assault, assault.' Then we left them, and found steps before our eyes which we went up; so we came back upon the earth and into sight of heaven, where we had been before.'

This was the story told me by the spirit who with a hundred companions had come up from the lower earth.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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True Christian Religion #388

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388. The fourth experience.

I talked with some of those who are meant in Revelation by the dragon, and one of them said: 'Come with me, and I will show you what delights our eyes and hearts.'

So he took me through a dark wood and up a hill, from which I could watch the pleasures of the dragons. I saw an amphitheatre constructed in the shape of a ring surrounded by benches running up in tiers, on which the spectators were sitting. Those sitting on the lowest benches looked to be from a distance like satyrs and priapi 1 ; some had clothing to conceal their private parts, and some without it were totally naked. On the benches above them sat fornicators and prostitutes, as it appeared to me by the gestures they made.

Then the dragon said to me: 'Now you will see our sport.' I saw let into the space in the ring what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs; and when they were inside, a gate was opened and in rushed what looked like young lions, panthers, tigers and wolves. These furiously attacked the cattle, tore them in pieces and massacred them. After this bloody slaughter the satyrs sprinkled sand over the place where they had been killed.

[2] Then the dragon said to me: 'These are the sports which delight our minds.' 'Away with you, demon,' I replied, 'in a short while you will see this amphitheatre turned into a lake of fire and brimstone.' He laughed at this and went away. But afterwards I began to reflect why such things are permitted by the Lord. I received a reply in my heart, that they are permitted so long as people are in the world of spirits; but once their time in that world is up, such theatrical scenes are turned into the torments of hell.

[3] Everything which I saw had been the product of the dragon's imagination. So they were not really calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs, but they made the genuine kinds of good and truth in the church, which they hated, appear in this form. The lions, panthers, tigers and wolves were the forms taken by the desires of the people who looked like satyrs and priapi. The ones with no clothing around their private parts were those who believed that evils were not manifest to God; those who had some clothing were those who believed that evils were manifest, but did not damn a person so long as he had faith. The fornicators and prostitutes were those who falsify the truths of the Word, for fornication means the falsification of truth. In the spiritual world everything at a distance looks like what it corresponds to, and when these take visible form they are called representations of spiritual things in the form of objects resembling those in the natural world.

[4] Later on I saw them emerging from the wood, the dragon in the midst of satyrs and priapi, with servants and camp-followers, who were the fornicators and prostitutes, coming after them. The column they formed grew as they went, and then I heard what they were discussing.

They were saying they had seen in a meadow a flock of sheep with lambs, and this was a sign that close by was one of the Jerusalem cities, where charity is the leading characteristic. 'Let us go,' they said, 'and capture that city, expel the inhabitants and plunder their property.' So they approached, but there was a wall around it, and angels on the wall to guard it. So then they said: 'Let us capture it by a trick. Let us send them someone skilled in sophistry, who can make black appear white and white black, and put a colourable gloss on anything.'

So they found someone who was an expert in metaphysics, able to turn real ideas into terminological ones, conceal the facts under forms of words, and so fly off like a hawk with its prey beneath its wings. He was told what to say to the people in the city, that they were co-religionists and should be let in. He went up to the gate and knocked, and when it was opened he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. He went in and was taken to someone, whom he addressed in these words: 'My brethren are outside the city, begging to be admitted. They are your co-religionists, for you and we both make faith and charity the two essentials of religion. The only difference is, that you put charity first and derive faith from it, and we put faith first and derive charity from it. What does it matter which is put first, when we believe in both?'

[5] The wise citizen replied: 'Let us not discuss this subject by ourselves, but in the presence of a larger audience who can act as umpires and judges. Otherwise we shall not reach a decision.' So more people were soon summoned, and they were addressed by the dragon's ambassador in similar words to those he had previously used.

Then the wise citizen made his reply: 'You have said that it is much the same whether charity or faith is regarded as the leading matter in the church, so long as there is agreement that either of them constitutes the church and its religion. Yet the difference is like that between prior and posterior, cause and effect, principal and instrumental, and essential and formal. I use these terms because I notice that you are an expert on metaphysics, a subject we call mere sophistry, and some people call magic formulas. But let us drop these terms. The difference is like that between what is above and what is beneath. Or rather, if you will believe me, it is the difference between the minds of those in this world who live on the upper level and the minds of those on the lower level. For the leading point constitutes the head and chest, and what is derived from it the feet and the soles of the feet. But first of all let us agree on the definition of charity and faith. Charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of God, salvation and everlasting life; and faith is thinking from a trust in God, salvation and everlasting life.

[6] But the ambassador said: 'I agree that this is the definition of faith, and I also agree that charity is that affection for the sake of God, because it is for the sake of His commandment, but not for the sake of salvation and eternal life.' After this partial agreement and partial disagreement, the wise citizen said: 'Is not affection or liking the leading point, and thought derived from it?' The dragon's ambassador said: 'This I deny.'

But he was answered: 'You cannot deny it. Surely anyone thinks as the result of some liking. Take away the liking, and can he think at all? It is exactly as if you removed the sound from speech; if you took away the sound, could you say anything? Sound too is the product of the affection of some love or other, and speech is the product of thought, for love makes a sound and thought puts it into words. It is also like a flame and light; if you take away the flame, is not the light extinguished? It is much the same with charity, because this is the product of love, and with faith, because this is the product of thought. Can you not thus grasp that the leading point is all-important for the secondary, exactly as the flame is for the light? It is obvious from this that if you do not put the leading point first, you cannot have the second either. Therefore, if you put faith, which is in the second place, in first place, you cannot fail to appear in heaven as upside down, with your feet uppermost and your head down, or like a clown who walks upside down on the palms of his hands. When you look like this in heaven, what then will your good deeds look like, which are charity in action? They can only be the sort of things the clown does with his feet, since he cannot do them with his hands. That is why your charity is natural rather than spiritual, since it is upside down.'

[7] The ambassador understood this, since every devil can understand truth when he hears it; but he is unable to keep it in his memory, because the affection for evil, which is essentially the longing of the flesh, on its return expels thought of the truth. Afterwards the wise citizen showed at some length what is the nature of faith when it is taken as the leading point, namely, that it is purely natural, a conviction devoid of any spiritual life, and in consequence no faith at all. 'And I can almost say that there is no more spirituality in your faith, than there is in thinking about the Mogul empire, the diamond mine in it, and the treasury or court of that emperor.' On hearing this the dragon's man went off in anger and reported to his companions outside the city. When they heard it had been said that charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of [God,] 2 salvation and everlasting life, they all shouted: 'This is a lie!', and the dragon himself cried: 'Ah, what a crime! Surely all charitable deeds if they are done for the sake of salvation, are merit-seeking?'

[8] Then they said to one another: 'Let us summon still more of our people, and lay siege to this city, and let us expel these paragons of charity.' But when they attempted this, a sudden flash of fire from heaven consumed them. But the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger and hatred directed against the people in the city, since they had cast down faith from first to second place, or rather to the lowest place beneath charity, since they claimed that it was no faith. The reason they appeared to be consumed by fire was that hell opened up beneath their feet, and they were swallowed up. Similar events to this occurred in many places on the day of the Last Judgment; this too is the meaning of the following passage in Revelation:

The dragon will come forth to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, to assemble them for war; and they went up on the surface of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them, Revelation 20:8-9.

Fußnoten:

1. Priapus, a Roman god of lechery.

2. Restored from Apocalypse Revealed 655.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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