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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.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

True Christian Religion #621

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621. 1 At this point I shall insert some accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

I saw a gathering of spirits all on their knees praying God to send them angels, with whom they could talk face to face, and open to them the thoughts of their hearts. When they got up, three angels dressed in fine linen were to be seen standing before them. 'The Lord Jesus Christ,' they said, 'has heard your prayers and has therefore sent us to you. Open to us the thoughts of your hearts.'

[2] 'Our priests have told us,' they answered, 'that in theological matters it is not the understanding but faith which is effective; and that faith based on the understanding is no help in such matters, because it derives from and smacks of man, not of God. We are English, and we have heard a lot from our ministers of religion, which we believed. But when we talked with others, who also called themselves Reformed, and with others who called themselves Roman Catholics, and even with members of sects, they all appeared to be learned, yet on many subjects there was not one who agreed with another. All the same, they all said, "Believe us," and some said, "We are God's ministers, and we know." But we know that the Divine truths, which are called the truths of faith and are possessed by the church, do not come to anyone from his native soil or by heredity, but from God out of heaven; and they show the way to heaven, entering a person's life together with the good of charity, and so leading to everlasting life. So we became worried, and prayed on our knees to God.'

[3] 'Read the Word,' the angels said to this, 'and believe in the Lord, and you will see truths which will be your guides to faith and life. All Christian people draw their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.' But two of the gathering said, 'We have read it, but not understood it.'

'You did not approach the Lord,' replied the angels, 'and He is the Word. Also you had first convinced yourselves of falsities.' The angels went on: 'What is faith without light, and what is thinking without understanding? This is not how human beings act. Ravens and jays can learn to talk without understanding too. We can assure you that every person whose soul so desires can see the truths of the Word in light. There does not exist an animal which does not know the food it needs to live on, when it sees it. Man is a rational and spiritual animal, so he knows the food not so much his body as his soul needs to live on. That is the truth of faith, provided he is hungry for it and begs the Lord for it.

[4] 'Moreover, anything that the understanding does not take in is not retained by the memory as a fact, but merely as words. So when we looked down on the world from heaven, we could see nothing, but only heard sounds, which were for the most part discordant. But we shall mention some things which the learned among the clergy have banished from the understanding, being unaware that there are two routes to the understanding, one from the world and the other from heaven. The Lord withdraws the understanding from the world, as He enlightens it. But if religion dictates that the understanding is to be shut off, the route to it from heaven is shut off, and then one sees no more in the Word than a blind man. We have seen many such people fall into pits, and be unable to get out of them again.

[5] 'Let us give some examples to illustrate this. Surely you can understand what charity and faith are - that charity is doing good to the neighbour, and faith is having a correct idea of God and the essential doctrines of the church? And as a result, that a person who does good and has a correct idea, that is to say, who lives a good life and has a correct belief, is saved?' They said that they understood this.

[6] The angels went on to say that for a person to be saved he must repent of his sins, and unless he does so, he remains in the sins to which he was born. Repentance consists in not willing evils because they are sins against God; and once or twice a year examining oneself, seeing one's evils and confessing them to the Lord, asking for help, desisting from those evils and starting a new life. So far as a person does this and believes in the Lord, so far are his sins forgiven. 'We understand this,' said some of the gathering, 'and so we know what the forgiveness of sins is.'

[7] Then they asked the angels to tell them more, and this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration and baptism.

'We shall not say anything,' the angels replied, 'which you cannot understand. If we did, our words would be like rain falling on a desert and the seeds it holds, which, despite being watered from heaven, still wither away and die.'

On the subject of God they said: 'All who come to heaven are allotted their place, and thus have everlasting joy, depending upon the idea they have of God, because it is this idea which is universally dominant in every detail of worship. To think of God as a spirit, if a spirit is believed to be like the ether or the wind, is meaningless. But to think of God as Man is a correct notion, because God is Divine love and Divine wisdom, with all their attributes; and that of which love and wisdom can be predicated is man, not ether or wind. In heaven they think of God as the Lord the Saviour; as He taught us, He is the God of heaven and earth. Make your idea of God like ours, and we shall welcome you into our company.' When they said this, the faces of the others lit up.

[8] On the immortality of the soul they said: 'Man lives for ever, because by means of love and faith he can be linked with God. Every single person has this capacity. And if you think a little more deeply about it, you can understand that this capacity constitutes the immortality of the soul.'

[9] On regeneration: 'Anyone can see that any person is free to think about God or not to think about Him, so long as he has been taught that there is a God. So anyone has just as much freedom in spiritual as in social or natural matters. The Lord continually grants this to all; so a person is to blame, if he fails to think about God. It is this capacity which makes man a man, and its absence makes an animal an animal. Man can therefore reform and regenerate himself as if of himself, so long as he acknowledges in his heart that this comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person should do both as if of himself, but this as if of himself comes from the Lord. It is true that a person cannot from himself contribute anything, not in the slightest, to that process. Yet you have not been created statues; you were created human beings, so that you could do it from the Lord as if of yourselves. It is this and this alone which is the reciprocal offering of love and faith, which the Lord expressly wills should be made to Him by man. In short, act from yourselves and believe that it is from the Lord; that is how to act as if of yourselves.'

[10] Then they asked whether acting as if of oneself was implanted in man from creation. The angel replied: 'It is not implanted, because acting from himself is an attribute only of God. But it is continually given, that is to say, it is continually being applied; and then so far as a person does good and believes truth as if of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But so far as he does evil and thus believes falsity, and this too is as if of himself, so far is he a spirit of hell. You may be surprised that this too is as if of oneself, but still you can see this, when you pray to be protected from the devil seducing you, from him entering into you as he did into Judas, from filling you with every wickedness and destroying you both soul and body. But everyone becomes responsible, if he believes he is acting of himself, whether it is good or evil that he does. But he does not incur guilt, if he believes he is acting as if of himself. For if he believes that he does good of himself, he is claiming for himself what belongs to God; and if he believes that he does evil of himself, he is attributing to himself what belongs to the devil.'

[11] On baptism they said that it was a spiritual washing, and this is reformation and regeneration. 'A child is reformed and regenerated when on growing up he does what his godparents pledged on his behalf, the two promises of repentance and faith in God. For they first pledge that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and secondly, that he will believe in God. All children in heaven are taught those two promises, but for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord. Moreover, baptism is a sign visible to the angels that a person belongs to the church.' When they heard this, some in the gathering said: 'We understand this.'

[12] But at this point a voice was heard from one side shouting: 'We do not understand;' and another: 'We do not want to understand.' They made enquiry to discover whose voices these were, and discovered that they came from those who had convinced themselves of false beliefs, and wanted to be believed like oracles, so receiving worship.

'Do not be surprised,' said the angels, 'there are many like this at the present time. To us seeing them from heaven they look like carved images so cunningly made that they can move their lips and make noises, like musical instruments. But they are quite unaware whether the breath that makes them sound blows from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether a thing is false or true. They keep on reasoning and producing proofs, yet cannot see whether anything is so or not. But you should know that the human brain can prove anything it wants, so that it really appears to be so. So this is something heretics or irreligious people can do; in fact atheists can prove that God does not exist, only nature.'

[13] After this the gathering of Englishmen was fired with a desire for wisdom and said to the angels: 'Such varying ideas are expressed regarding the Holy Supper, tell us what is the truth.'

'The truth is,' the angels answered, 'that a person who looks to the Lord and repents is by that most holy act linked to the Lord and brought into heaven.'

But people in the gathering said: 'This is a mystery.' 'It is a mystery,' the angels replied, 'but one that can be understood. The bread and wine do not bring this about; there is nothing holy about them. But material bread and spiritual bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and spiritual wine. Spiritual bread is the holiness of love, spiritual wine the holiness of faith. Both of these are from the Lord, and both are the Lord. Thus there is a linking of the Lord with man, and of man with the Lord. It is not with the bread and wine, but with the love and faith of the man who has repented. Being linked with the Lord is also being brought into heaven.'

Now that the angels had taught them something about correspondence, some in the gathering said: 'Now for the first time we can understand this.' As soon as they said this, a flaming radiance came down from heaven and joined them to the angels' company, and they loved one another.

Voetnoten:

1. This section is repeated with modifications from Apocalypse Revealed 224.

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

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Conjugial Love #115

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115. The second account:

Awakened from sleep in the middle of the night, I saw an angel at some height towards the east, holding in his right hand a piece of paper. It appeared in a shining brilliance owing to the light coming in from the sun. In the middle of the paper there was writing in gold letters, and I saw the phrase, "The marriage between good and truth." From the writing sprang a radiance that turned into a large halo around the piece of paper. The halo or ring consequently had an appearance similar to the appearance of dawn in springtime.

After this I saw the angel descending with the paper in his hand. Moreover, as he descended, the paper appeared less and less bright, and the writing - which said, "The marriage between good and truth" - turned from the color of gold to silver, then to the color of copper, next to the color of iron, and lastly to the color of rusty iron and corroded copper. Finally I saw the angel enter a dark cloud and descend through the cloud to the ground. There the piece of paper disappeared, although the angel was still holding it in his hand. (This took place in the world of spirits, the world all people go to first after they die.)

[2] The angel then spoke to me, saying, "Ask the people who are coming this way whether they see me and whether they see anything in my hand."

A host of people came - a crowd from the east, a crowd from the south, a crowd from the west, and a crowd from the north. Those coming from the east and south were people who in the world had devoted themselves to becoming learned, and I asked them whether they saw anyone with me there and whether they saw anything in his hand. They all said they saw nothing at all.

I then asked the people who came from the west and north. They were people who in the world had believed whatever the learned said. They said they did not see anything, either.

The last of these, however, were people who in the world had possessed a simple faith stemming from charity, or some truth resulting from goodness, and after the people before them went away, they said that they saw a man with a piece of paper - a man handsomely dressed, and a piece of paper with letters printed on it. Moreover, when they looked more closely, they said they could read the phrase, "The marriage between good and truth." Then they spoke to the angel, asking him to tell them what it meant.

[3] The angel said that everything which exists in the whole of heaven and everything which exists in the whole world is nothing but a form of the marriage between good and truth, since each and every thing was created out of and into a marriage of good and truth - both everything that lives and breathes and also whatever does not live and breathe.

"There is nothing," he said, "that was created solely into a form of truth, and nothing that was created solely into a form of good. Good alone or truth alone has no reality, but they take form and become real through a marriage of the two, the character of the resulting form being determined by the character of the marriage.

"Divine good and Divine truth in the Lord the Creator are good and truth in their very essence. The being of His essence is Divine good, and the expression of His essence is Divine truth. In Him, moreover, good and truth exist in their very union, for in Him they are infinitely united. Since these two are united in Him, the Creator, therefore they are also united in each and every thing created by Him. By this the Creator is also conjoined with all things created by Him in an eternal covenant like that of a marriage."

[4] The angel said further that the Holy Scripture, which came directly from the Lord, is as a whole and in every part an expression of the marriage between good and truth. And because the church, which is formed through truth of doctrine, and religion, which is formed through goodness of life in accordance with truth of doctrine, are in the case of Christians based solely on the Holy Scripture, it can be seen that the church as a whole and in every part is an expression of the marriage between good and truth. (For an explanation of this, see The Apocalypse Revealed, nos. 373, 483.)

The same thing that the angel said above regarding the marriage of good and truth he also said of the marriage between charity and faith, since good has to do with charity and truth has to do with faith.

Some of the first people, who had not seen the angel or the writing, were still standing around, and on hearing these things they mumbled, "Yes, of course. We see that."

But then the angel said to them, "Turn away from me a little and repeat what you said."

So they turned away, and they said quite plainly, "No, it isn't so."

[5] Afterwards the angel spoke with some married couples about the marriage of good and truth, saying that if their minds were in a such a state of marriage, with the husband being a form of truth and the wife a form of the good of that truth, they would both experience the blissful delights of innocence and thus the happiness that angels of heaven enjoy.

"In such a state," he said, "the husband's power of insemination would continually be in the spring of youth, and he would therefore remain in the effort and power to transmit his truth, and the wife, out of love, would be in a continual state to receive it.

"The wisdom that men have from the Lord knows no greater delight than to transmit its truths. And the love of wisdom that wives have in heaven knows no greater pleasure than to receive them as though in a womb, and thus to conceive them, carry them, and give them birth.

"That is what spiritual procreations are like among angels of heaven. And if you would believe it, natural procreations come also from the same origin."

After bidding all farewell, the angel rose from the earth, and passing through the cloud, ascended into heaven. Moreover, as he ascended, the piece of paper then began to shine as before, until the halo that had previously had the appearance of dawn suddenly descended and dispelled the cloud which had cast a shadow over the earth, and it became sunny.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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