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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #224

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224. To this I will add the following account:

I saw a gathering of spirits, all upon their knees, praying to God to send them angels they could speak with face to face and to whom they could disclose the thoughts of their heart.

Then when they arose, three angels appeared in white linen standing before them, and the angels said, "The Lord Jesus Christ has heard your prayers, and has therefore sent us to you. Disclose to us the thoughts of your heart."

[2] The spirits then replied, "Priests have told us that in theological matters it is not the intellect but faith that accomplishes anything, and that in such matters an intellectual faith is of no help to anyone, because it takes its origin from man.

"We are English, and we have heard many things from our sacred ministry which we believed. However, when we spoke with some other people who call themselves Reformed, and with some who call themselves Roman Catholics, and moreover with some Nonconformists, they all seemed to us learned, and yet in many matters not one of them agreed with another. But nevertheless they all said, 'Believe us.' And some said, 'We are God's ministers and we know.'

"Still we knew that the Divine truths that are called truths of faith and are the church's truths are no one's heritage by birth alone, or by heredity, but that they descend out of heaven from God. And because these show the way to heaven, and enter into one's life together with the good of charity and so lead to eternal life, we became anxious and prayed on our knees to God."

[3] At that the angels replied, "Read the Word and believe in the Lord, and you will see the truths that must be those of your faith and life. All in the Christian world draw their doctrinal teachings from the Word as from a single font."

[4] But two of the gathering of spirits said, "We have read it, but have not understood."

The angels replied, "You have not turned to the Lord, and you have also confirmed yourselves in falsities."

The angels also said further, "What is faith without light? And what is thinking without understanding? It isn't human. Ravens too and magpies can learn to speak without understanding. We can assure you that everyone whose soul longs for it can see the truths of the Word in a state of light. There is no animal that does not know the right food for its life when it sees it, and the human being is a rational and spiritual animal. If he hungers for it and seeks it from the Lord, the human being sees for his life not food for his body but food for his soul, which is the truth of faith. Moreover, whatever he does not receive with his intellect, also does not stick in his memory as a concept, but only as words. Consequently when we have looked down from heaven into the world, we have not seen anything, but have only heard sounds, mostly lacking in any harmony.

[5] "But we will list some truths that the learned of the clergy have banished from the intellect, not knowing that there are two paths to the intellect, one from the world and the other from heaven, and not knowing that the Lord raises the intellect from the world when He enlightens it. However, if the intellect is closed by religion, the path to it from heaven is closed, and a person then sees no more in the Word than a blind man sees. We have seen many of this sort fall into pits, from which they have not risen.

"Let examples serve to illustrate. You can understand what charity and faith are, can you not? That charity is to comport oneself well with the neighbor, and that faith is to think rightly about God and the essential constituents of the church? And therefore that anyone who behaves well and thinks rightly, that is, who lives rightly and believes rightly, is saved?"

In response to this the spirits said that they understood.

[6] The angels went on, "You understand, do you not, that to be saved a person must repent of his sins, and that unless a person repents, he remains caught up in the sins into which he was born? Moreover, that to repent means not to will evils because they are sins against God, and once or twice a year to examine oneself, see one's evils, confess them before the Lord, implore His aid, desist from them, and embark upon a new life? And that to the extent a person does this and believes in the Lord, his sins are forgiven?"

Then some of the gathering of spirits said, "This we understand, and so also what the forgiveness of sins is."

[7] At that the spirits then asked the angels to tell them something more, and specifically this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration, and baptism.

To this the angels replied, "We shall say nothing but what you can understand. Otherwise what we say will fall like rain on sand, and however much they may be watered from heaven, any seeds there will still dry up and die."

Regarding God then they said, "People who enter heaven are all allotted a place there and accordingly come into eternal joy in accord with their idea of God, because this idea reigns universally throughout all aspects of worship.

"An idea of God as invisible is not focused on anyone, and so has no focus in anyone. Consequently it passes away and dies.

"An idea of God as a spirit, when one believes a spirit to be like the ether or a puff of wind, is an idea empty of content.

"But an idea of God as a man is a proper idea. For God is Divine love and wisdom, with every property of these, and their containing vessel is man, not ether or a puff of wind.

"The idea of God found in heaven is an idea of the Lord. He is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught. Let your idea of God be like ours, and we will be comrades."

When the angels said this, their faces shone.

[8] Regarding the immortality of the soul the angels said, "A person lives to eternity because through love and faith he can be conjoined with God. This is possible for everyone. You can understand that the immortality of the soul results from this possibility if you think about it a little more deeply."

[9] Regarding regeneration they said, "Who does not see that everyone has the freedom to think about God or not to think about Him, provided he has been taught that God exists. Thus everyone has just as much freedom in spiritual matters as he does in civil and moral matters. The Lord gives this freedom to all people continually. Consequently it is his fault if he does not think about God. A person is human because of this ability [to think about God], while an animal is an animal because it lacks the ability. Therefore a person can reform and regenerate himself as though of himself, provided he acknowledges at heart that the ability comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person must do both as though of himself, but the "as though of himself" comes from the Lord.

"It is true that a person can contribute nothing to this end - nothing at all - but still you were not created sculpted forms, but were created human beings, in order that you might accomplish this from the Lord as though of yourselves. This reciprocation of love and faith is the one thing that the Lord above all wishes a person to do for Him.

"In a word, do it of yourselves, but believe that you do it from the Lord, thus doing it as though of yourselves."

[10] The spirits, however, then asked the angels whether doing things as though of oneself was not something with which a person was endowed from creation.

One of the angels replied, "It is not something with which a person is endowed, because to do something of oneself is God's alone, but He grants the ability to a person continually, that is to say, He attaches it to a person continually; and then to the extent that a person does good and believes truth as though of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But to the extent that he does evil and so believes falsity, which he does also as though of himself, he is to that extent an angel of hell. You are surprised to be told that he does this also as though of himself, but yet you see it when you pray to be protected from the devil, that he not lead you astray, lest he enter into you as he entered into Judas, fill you with all iniquity, and destroy both soul and body. 1

"Still, everyone makes himself responsible for an action if he believes that he does it of himself, be it good or evil, but does not make himself responsible for it if he believes that he does it as though of himself."

[11] Regarding baptism the angels said that it was a spiritual washing, which is reformation and regeneration, and that a little child is reformed and regenerated when he becomes an adult and does the things that his sponsors promised for him, of which there are two, namely, repentance and faith in God. For his sponsors promise first that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and second that he will believe in God. All little children in heaven are initiated into these two, though for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord.

"Moreover, baptism is a sign to angels that a person belongs to the church."

[12] Having heard this, some of the gathering of spirits said, "We understand it." But a voice from the side was heard crying, "We don't understand it." And another voice, "We don't want to understand it."

The spirits then inquired into whose voices they were, and they found that they belonged to people who had confirmed themselves in the falsities of their faith, and who wished to be credited as oracles so as to be revered.

The angels said, "Do not be astonished. Such is the character of very many people today. From heaven they look to us like sculpted forms, so skillfully made that they can move their lips and make organism-like sounds, but they do not know whether the breath they use to make sounds comes from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether anything is false or true. They reason and reason, and defend and defend, but they do not see whether anything is so.

"You should know, however, that human ingenuity can defend whatever it wishes, even to the point that it appears to be the case. Heretics, therefore, can do this. So can the impious. Atheists indeed can make it appear that there is no God, but only nature."

[13] After this the gathering of English spirits, burning with a desire to become wise, said to the angels, "People say such different things about the Holy Supper. Tell us what the truth is."

The angels said, "The truth is that anyone who turns to the Lord and repents is, by that most holy act, conjoined with the Lord and introduced into heaven."

But some of that gathering said, "This is a mystery."

To which the angels replied, "It is a mystery, but yet of the sort that one can understand.

"The bread and wine do not create the conjunction. There is no holiness in them. But material bread and heavenly bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and heavenly wine. Heavenly bread is the holiness in love, and heavenly wine is the holiness in faith, both originating from the Lord, and both being the Lord. This occasions a conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord - a conjunction not with the bread and wine but with the love and faith of a person who has repented - and conjunction with the Lord is also an introduction into heaven."

Then, after the angels taught them something about correspondence and its effect, some of the gathering said, "Now for the first time we understand."

And when they said, "We understand," suddenly something flame-like descending with its light from heaven affiliated the spirits with the angels, and they loved each other.

Footnotes:

1. A reference to the prayer recited before Anglican celebrations of Holy Communion, the English text of which is quoted in The Doctrine of Life 5, which concludes, "Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul."

  
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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #76

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76. The first experience.

One day I had been meditating on the creation of the universe. This was noticed by the angels above me to the right, where there were some who had several times meditated and reasoned about the same matter; so one of them came down and invited me to join them. I passed into the spirit and accompanied him; on my arrival I was brought to the prince, in whose hall I saw as many as a hundred assembled with the prince in their midst.

Then one of them said: 'We noticed here that you have meditated about the creation of the universe, a subject which has several times occupied our thoughts. But we were unable to reach a conclusion because our thinking clung to the idea of chaos being like a great egg, from which everything in the universe in its due order was hatched. Yet now we perceive that such a vast universe could not have been hatched like this. Another idea which stuck in our minds was that everything was created by God from nothing; yet now we perceive that nothing comes from nothing. Our minds have not yet been able to disentangle themselves from these two ideas and shed a little light on how creation happened. For this reason we have summoned you from the place where you were, to expound your thinking on the subject.'

[2] 'I will indeed,' I replied on hearing this. 'I meditated on this,' I said, 'for a long time but to no purpose. But later, when I was admitted by the Lord into your world, I perceived that it was futile to form any conclusions about the creation of the universe, unless it were first known that there were two worlds, one occupied by angels and the other by men; and that men after death pass from their world into the other. Then I also saw that there are two suns, one from which pour forth all spiritual things, and one from which pour forth all natural things; and that the sun from which all spiritual things pour forth is pure love from Jehovah God, who is in its midst, while the sun from which all natural things pour forth is pure fire. When I had grasped these facts, once when I was in a state of enlightenment, I was granted the perception that the universe was created by Jehovah God by means of the sun in the midst of which He is; and because love cannot exist except together with wisdom, that the universe was created by Jehovah God from His love by means of His wisdom. I have been convinced of the truth of this by everything I have seen in the world where you are, and in the world where I am at present in the body.

[3] 'It would be too tedious to explain how creation progressed from its first beginning. But while I was in a state of enlightenment I perceived that by means of the light and heat from the sun of your world, one after another spiritual atmospheres were created, which are in themselves substantial. Because there are three of them, and they therefore have three degrees, three heavens were made, one for angels in the highest degree of love and wisdom, one for angels in the second degree, and a third for angels in the lowest degree. But because this spiritual universe could not come into being without a natural universe, in which the spiritual one might produce its effects and perform its services, at the same time the sun which is the source of all natural things was created; and through this in the same way, by means of light and heat, three atmospheres were created to surround the first three, like a shell round a kernel or bark round wood; and it was finally through these that the globe with its lands and seas was created from the earth consisting of soil, stones and minerals, to be the home of men, animals, fish, trees, shrubs and plants.

[4] 'This is an extremely general outline of how creation took place and progressed. It would take a series of books to explain all the particular details; but all lead to this conclusion, that God did not create the universe from nothing, since, as you said, nothing comes of nothing, but through the sun of the heaven of angels, which is from His Being (Esse) and so is pure love together with wisdom. Every single detail of the universe, by which I mean both the spiritual and natural worlds, bears witness and proclaims that the universe was created from the Divine love by the Divine wisdom. This you can clearly see, if you consider these facts in due order and in their connexions, by the light which illuminates the perceptions of your understanding. But it should be kept in mind that the love and wisdom, which in God make one, are not love and wisdom in the abstract, but are in Him as substance. For God is the very, sole and consequently prime substance and essence, which is and continues in existence in itself.

[5] All things being created from the Divine love and the Divine wisdom is what is meant by this passage in John:

The Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things were made through Him; and the world was made through Him, John 1:1, 3, 10.

God there means the Divine love, and the Word the Divine truth, or the Divine wisdom. That is why the Word is there called the light; light, when referring to God, means the Divine wisdom.'

At the end of this speech when I was saying good-bye, gleams of light from the sun there came gliding down through the heavens of the angels and entered their eyes, and through them the dwellings of their minds. Under this enlightenment they applauded my speech, and then escorted me into the courtyard; and my earlier companion took me to the house where I was living, and from there went back up to his own community.

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

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