1. THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW CHURCH

A statement of faith, set out in both universal and particular terms, is placed at the beginning to serve as a preface to the book which follows, to be like a doorway leading into a church, and a summary presenting in a short compass what follows at more length. It is called the faith of the new heaven and the new church, because heaven, where the angels are, and the church among men form a single unit, just as the internal and external sides of the personality make up a single individual. This is why a member of the church who possesses the good of love which arises from the truths of faith, and possesses the truths of faith which arise from the good of love, is, so far as the interiors of his mind are concerned, an angel of heaven. Therefore too after dying he comes into heaven, and there enjoys happiness depending upon how far the good and truth are linked. It should be known that in the new heaven, which is at the present time being established by the Lord, this statement of faith serves as its preface, doorway and summary.

402. (vi) THE PURELY NATURAL AND SENSUAL MAN.

Few know who are meant by the term 'sensual men' or what sort of people they are, so, since it is important to know this, they must be described.

1. The term 'sensual man' is applied to a person whose every judgment relies upon the bodily senses, and who believes nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, regarding these things as real and rejecting all else. So the sensual man is the lowest level of the natural man.

[2] 2. The interiors of his mind, which would allow him to see by the light of heaven, are shut off, so that he can see there no truth at all that has to do with heaven or the church, since he thinks at the most superficial level with no inward enlightenment from any spiritual light.

[3] 3. Since he enjoys the gross light of nature, he is inwardly opposed to anything to do with heaven or the church, even though outwardly he can speak in their favour, with passion if he seeks power by their means.

[4] 4. Sensual men are sharp and clever in reasoning, because their thought is so close to their speech that it is virtually in it, so to speak, on their lips; and because in speaking they regard all intelligence as based solely upon memory.

[5] 5. Some of them are able to prove anything they wish, and with great skill what is false; and after proving them they believe these ideas are true. But their reasoning and proofs are based upon illusions produced by the senses, and these serve to attract the attention of and persuade ordinary people.

[6] 6. Sensual men surpass others in trickery and malice.

[7] 7. The interiors of their minds are foul and filthy, since through them they are in touch with the hells.

[8] 8. The spirits in the hells are sensual, and the deeper their hell, the more sensual they are. The sphere emanating from spirits in hell links itself to a person's sensual faculty from behind.

[9] 9. Sensual men cannot see any genuine truth in light, but reason and dispute on all subjects whether it is so. These disputes are heard by others as the sound of gnashing of teeth; this is, on a correct view, the noise of falsities in conflict with one another and the conflict of falsity and truth. Hence it is plain what is meant by 'gnashing of teeth' in the Word. This is because reasoning from the illusions produced by the senses corresponds to the teeth.

[10] 10. Educated and learned people who have become deeply convinced of false ideas are more sensual than other people, and even more so, if they oppose the truths of the Word, though they may not appear so to the world's eyes. Heresies have chiefly sprung from people who were sensual.

[11] 11. Hypocrites, tricksters, pleasure-seekers, adulterers and misers are for the most part sensual.

[12] 12. Those who reasoned solely from sense impressions, and against the genuine truths of the Word, and therefore of the church, were called by the ancients serpents of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since sense impressions mean things impinging on the bodily senses and apprehended by their means, it follows that:

[13] 13. By sense impressions a person is in touch with the world, and by rational ideas above their level with heaven.

[14] 14. Sense impressions supply such things from the natural world as may be of service to the interiors of the mind in the spiritual world.

[15] 15. There are sense impressions which supply the understanding (these are the various natural phenomena known as physics), and there are sense impressions which supply the will (these are the pleasures of the senses and the body).

[16] 16. If thought is not raised above the level of sense impressions, a person's wisdom is very restricted; a wise man thinks on a higher level than sense impressions. When his thought is raised above this level, he comes into brighter illumination, and eventually into the light of heaven. This is how a person perceives truth, which is what intelligence really is.

[17] 17. The ancients were well acquainted with the raising of the mind above sense impressions and its withdrawal from them.

[18] 18. If sense impressions are in the last place, they serve to open the way for the understanding, and truths are refined by the method by which they are extracted. But if sense impressions occupy the first place, they serve to block that way, and a person can only see truths as if in a mist, or as if at night.

[19] 19. Sense impressions occupy the last place in the case of a wise person, and they are subject to more inward things; but in the case of an unwise person they occupy the first place and are dominant. It is these people who are properly called sensual.

[20] 20. Human beings have some sense impressions which are shared with animals, and others which are not.

[21] To the extent that a person thinks above the level of sense impressions, he is truly a human being. But no one can think above this level and see the truths of the church, unless he acknowledges God and lives in accordance with His commandments. For it is God who raises the level and enlightens the mind.

339. The reason why we must believe, that is, have faith in God the Saviour Jesus Christ is that it is faith in a visible God, in whom there is an invisible God; and faith in a visible God, who is man and at the same time God, enters into a person. For faith is in its essence spiritual, but in its form natural. With a person therefore faith becomes spiritual-natural, for everything spiritual must be accepted in the natural, in order to be of any value to a person. The bare spiritual does in fact enter into a person, but is not accepted. It is like the ether which flows in and out again without producing any effect; for an effect to be produced, it must be perceived and so accepted, both of these being processes in the human mind, and this cannot happen in a person except at the natural level.

On the other hand a purely natural faith, one, that is, devoid of spiritual essence, is no faith, merely a firm conviction or knowledge. A firm conviction mimics faith externally, but, lacking any inward spirituality, cannot therefore contribute anything to salvation. Such is faith in the case of all who deny the divinity of the Lord's Human; such too was the faith of the Arians and also the Socinians ¹ , both of whom rejected the Lord's divinity. What is faith without a goal towards which it is directed? Is it not like a look directed towards the universe, a look which falls as if on empty space and thus comes to naught? It is also like a bird soaring above the atmosphere into the ether, where it dies, as if in a vacuum. The time this faith resides in the human mind can be compared with that of the winds in the halls of Aeolus ² , or that of light in a shooting star. It arises like a comet with a long tail, but, like a comet, it passes and disappears.

[2] In brief, faith in an invisible God is in fact blind faith, since the human mind cannot see its God; and the light of this faith, not being spiritual-natural, is a false light. This light resembles that of a glowworm, or the light seen at night on marshes or sulphurous ground, or that from rotting wood. Nothing can come of such light but pure imagination, which make appearances seem real when they are not. Faith in an invisible God sheds only this kind of light; especially so, when one reflects that God is a spirit, and thinks of spirit as the ether. What result can this have except to make a person look on God as he does the ether? So he looks for God in the universe, and not finding Him there, believes that Nature is God. This is the source of the nature-worship which is prevalent at the present time. Did not the Lord say that no one has ever heard the Father's voice or seen His appearance (John 5:37)? And also that no one has ever seen God, and that the only-begotten Son, who is in the Father's bosom, has revealed Him (John 1:18)? No one has seen the Father except Him who is with the Father; He has seen the Father (John 6:46). And that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Further we read that a person who sees and knows Him sees and knows the Father (John 14:7ff).

[3] It is, however, different with faith in the Lord God the Saviour. Since He is God and man, and can be approached and seen in the mind's eye, this faith is not without a goal, but has a goal from which it proceeds and to which it is directed; and once accepted, it remains. It is as when one has seen an emperor or king; whenever one recalls them, their likeness recurs to the mind. The vision that faith gives is like looking at a shining cloud, with an angel in its midst, calling the person to himself so that he can be raised to heaven. That is how the Lord appears to those who have faith in Him, and He comes near to each individual, to the extent that he knows and acknowledges Him. This happens in so far as he knows and does His commandments, that is, to shun evils and do good deeds; and finally He comes to his house and makes His dwelling with him together with the Father, who is in Him, as this passage of John promises:

Jesus said, He who has my commandments and does them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him. And we shall come to him and make our dwelling with him, John 14:21, 23.

This was written in the presence of the Lord's twelve Apostles, who were sent to me by the Lord while I was writing this.

Footnotes: