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.

806. The British ¹ in the spiritual world.

Human beings have two modes of thinking, external and internal. In the natural world they use the external mode, in the spiritual world the internal. These two modes act as one in the case of the good, but not in the case of the wicked. It is rarely possible in the natural world to see what a person's interior is like, since he has learned from childhood to behave well and rationally, and he likes to seem to be so. But in the spiritual world everyone's nature is plain to see, for then he is a spirit, and the spirit is the internal man. Now because I have been allowed to be in that world and see there what internal men from different kingdoms are like, it is my duty, because of its importance, to make this generally known.

Footnotes:

650. VIII. The Lord imputes good to everyone and hell imputes evil to everyone.

It is news to the church that the Lord imputes good and never evil to a person, and that the devil (by which is meant hell) imputes evil and never good to him. The reason this is news is that we read in many passages in the Word that God is angry, takes revenge, hates, condemns, punishes, throws someone into hell, tempts him, all of which are the actions of a wicked person, and so are evils. But, as was shown in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture, the literal sense of the Word was composed out of what are called appearances and correspondences. This was in order to link the externals of the church with its internals, and so to link the world with heaven. The same chapter also showed that when such things are read about in heaven, the appearances of truth in their passage from man to heaven are actually changed into genuine truths. These are that the Lord is never angry, never takes revenge, hates, condemns, punishes, throws anyone into hell, or tempts him; thus He never does evil to anyone. I have often observed this transmutation and change in the spiritual world.