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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.

Из Сведенборгових дела

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church # 115

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115. The second memorable occurrence. Once an angel said to me, “Do you want to see clearly what faith and goodwill are, and therefore what faith separated from goodwill is, and what faith united to goodwill is? I will express it in visual terms for you.”

“Please do!” I answered.

The angel said, “Instead of faith and goodwill, think of light and heat, and you will see them clearly. Faith in its essence is truth that relates to wisdom. Goodwill in its essence is affection that relates to love. In heaven, truth related to wisdom is light and affection related to love is heat. The light and heat that angels live in are, in essence, exactly this. As a result, you can clearly see what faith is when it is separated from goodwill and what it is when it is united to goodwill.

“When faith is separated from goodwill, it is like the light in winter. When faith is united to goodwill, it is like the light in spring. The light in winter, which is a light separated from heat, is united to coldness; therefore it completely strips trees of their leaves, kills grass, makes ground as hard as rock, and freezes water. Light in spring, which is a light united to heat, causes trees to grow, first producing leaves, then flowers, and finally fruit; it also unlocks and softens the ground so that it produces grass, plants, flowers, and shrubs; and it melts ice, so that water flows from its sources again.

“The situation with faith and goodwill is absolutely identical. Faith separated from goodwill kills everything. Faith united to goodwill brings everything to life. This killing and this bringing to life are vividly visible in this spiritual world of ours, because here faith is light and goodwill is heat. Where faith has been united to goodwill there is a paradise of gardens, flower beds, and lawns; the more united faith and goodwill are, the more pleasing the gardens are. Where faith has been separated from goodwill, there is not even grass; the only greenness comes from thorns and brambles.”

At that point there were some members of the clergy not far away. The angel called them “justifiers and sanctifiers of people through faith alone” and also “arcanists.” We said the same things to the members of the clergy and added enough proof that they could see that what we said was true. But when we asked them, “Isn’t that so?” they turned away and said, “We didn’t hear you.” So we cried out to them and said, “Then keep listening to us,” but they put both hands over their ears and shouted, “We don’t want to hear you!”

Closing Thought from Jeremiah 7:2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11

Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah and proclaim this word there. “Thus says Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: ‘Make your ways and your deeds good. Do not put your trust in lying words, saying, “The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah are these.” Are you going to steal, kill, commit adultery, and swear falsely, and then come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say “We are delivered” when you are doing all these abominations? Has this house become a den of thieves? Behold I, even I, have seen it,’ says Jehovah.”

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

Из Сведенборгових дела

 

Conjugial Love # 353

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353. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first:

I was once in the midst of angels and overheard their conversation. They were talking about intelligence and wisdom, saying that a person has no other perception than that these are both in him, consequently that whatever he thinks with his intellect and intends from his will is from him - even though not a bit of it is from the person, beyond a capacity to receive those things having to do with the intellect and will from God. Moreover, because every person is inclined from birth to love himself, they said, to keep a person from perishing from love of self and a conceit in his own intelligence, it has been provided from creation that that love in a man be transferred to his wife, and that it be implanted in her from birth to love the intelligence and wisdom of her husband and thus the man. That is why a wife continually draws her husband's conceit in his own intelligence to herself, extinguishing it in him and causing it to live in her, thus turning it into conjugial love and filling it with gratifications beyond measure. This has been provided by the Lord, they said, to keep a man from becoming so infatuated with his own intelligence that he believes himself to be intelligent and wise from himself rather than from the Lord, thus wishing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and suppose himself on that account to be like God, and also God Himself, as said and urged by the serpent, which symbolized the love of one's own intelligence. After eating of the tree, man was therefore expelled from Paradise, and a cherub guarded the way to the tree of life. 1 (Paradise, in its spiritual meaning, is intelligence. To eat of the tree of life is, spiritually, to be intelligent and wise from the Lord. And to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, spiritually, to be intelligent and wise from self.)

Фусноте:

1. See Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-24.

  
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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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