THE ESSENTIAL SWEDENBORG

Basic Religious Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg

Selected and Edited By Sig Synnestvedt

ISBN: 0-87785-152-2

Preface

The sheer bulk of Swedenborg’s writings has doubtless been a limiting factor in the study of histhought. During his earlier years (1720 1745) he wrote on civic, scientific, and philosophical sub-jects. These contributions fill at least twenty large volumes. During the latter part of his life (17451772) he turned to theology, and his religious works, not including five volumes of his SpiritualDiary, fill thirty additional tomes of more than a quarter million words each. Few religious writershave left as large a body of teachings for later generations to study.1

During his own lifetime, Swedenborg’s contributions were well known in European intellectualcircles. Men like Immanuel Kant, Carl Gustaf Tessin, Carolus Linnaeus, Hermann Boerhaave,Charles XII of Sweden, Friedrich Christopher Oetinger, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, EdmundHalley, Christopher Polhem, Jean Jacques Rousseau, François M. Aronet [Voltaire], and JohnWesley knew Swedenborg or his works. Some reacted favorably to his writings; others did not. Butfew leading intellects of the eighteenth century failed to take note of them.

Swedenborg’s fame increased during the nineteenth century. Distinguished thinkers looked on himas one of the great men of all time. Ralph Waldo Emerson, when including Swedenborg in hiscollection of essays on representative men of history, called him, “A colossal soul, . . . [who] liesvast abroad on his times, uncomprehended by them, and requires a long focal distance to be seen. . .. One of the missouriums and mastodons of literature, he is not to be measured by whole colleges ofordinary scholars.”2

Of Swedenborg, Henry James, Sr. wrote: “The incomparable depth and splendor of Swedenborg’sgenius are shown in this that he alone of men has . . . dared to bring creation within the bounds ofconsciousness. . . . He grasped with clear and intellectual vision the seminal principles of things.”3

Edwin Markham, the American poet who won fame with his “Man With the Hoe” at the turn ofthe century, once said: “There is no doubt that Swedenborg was one of the greatest intellects thathave appeared upon the planet.” On another occasion Markham called him “the wisest man inmillions. He was the eyeball on the front of the eighteenth century.”4

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Bigelow, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, WilliamBlake, Thomas Carlyle, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edward Everett Hale, Honoré de Balzac, Johann F.Oberlin, William Dean Howells, Henri Bergson, James Freeman Clarke, and other nineteenth-century leaders recognized Swedenborg as a man of exceptional insight and mental power.

The twentieth century has made scant note of Swedenborg’s science or philosophy and paid practi-cally no attention at all to his theology. Yet, Emanuel Swedenborg speaks to modern problems. Histeachings deserve more study than they currently receive. “God is dead” say many modern theolo-gians. By this striking phrase, some at least mean that traditional, dogmatic Christianity has died.Swedenborg wrote in a similar vein two hundred years ago.

His prophecy of a new church that will spread over the world has yet to be realized. But interestedpersons will find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that his theological writings contain impressivestatements that cover the entire range of human existence and are consistent with the clear teachingsof the Bible. Helen Keller studied Swedenborg throughout her notable career. She concluded that hewas a “Titan Genius” who took “giant strides,” served as an “eye among the blind, an ear among thedeaf,” and emerged eventually as “one of the noblest champions true Christianity has ever known.”5

Thoughtful modem readers may reach similar conclusions after perusing the calm yet intense teach-ings of this remarkable Swedish philosopher.

This volume contains the basic elements of Swedenborg’s thought within the confines of a briefcompendium. The task has been attempted before; a score of compendiums of various types havebeen published. But, most of them appeared during the nineteenth century and nearly all are longout of print. Furthermore, without exception, they have taken forms which appealed primarily topersons already acquainted with Swedenborgian teachings. This study seeks to present the centralaspects of Swedenborg’s thought to persons who have had little or no previous contact with hiswritings. Those already initiated into his somewhat difficult terminology, style, and concepts, mayfind this to be a useful overview. Hopefully, those who are new to Swedenborg will be led to con-sider his works themselves. The Swedish seer deserves a wider audience.

S.S

Part I

The Nature of Life

Swedenborg’s writings cover a wide range of subjects. The great philosophic questions - what isthe nature of the universe? of God? of man? what is the destiny of each? how may these things beknown? what is morality? what constitutes the good life? - which have attracted all of the powerfulminds of history, receive attention in Emanuel Swedenborg’s teachings. From earliest youth to oldage, individuals continuously make choices which affect both their own lives and the lives of thosearound them. Some of these choices involve minute, personal questions which make little differenceto any one but the person making the judgment. Most of these everyday choices, however, have alarger scope. The courses of human lives proceed in a common sea and the route which an indi-vidual takes as well as the wake he leaves affects others. “No man is an island,” wrote the poet;Swedenborg agrees. Further, he teaches that a person’s relationship with his fellow man determineshis relationship with his God. Part I of this study, “The Nature of Life,” deals primarily with ques-tions concerning people while Part II, “The Source of Life,” treats of more abstruse matters regard-ing the divine hand behind human affairs. Together the two parts of this compendium present theessence of the Swedenborgian view of life.

Certain assumptions underlie all of Swedenborg’s teachings, concrete and abstract alike. In sum,Swedenborg presumes a divine center of the universe from which flow all creative forces which findexpression in both a spiritual and a natural kingdom of consciousness. Love and wisdom, united inuse, constitute the personal God he pictures. The human individual is the highest end of creation.

Human happiness to eternity in heaven is the ultimate object of all divine action. Mankind, whilehaving no life from himself, has been created to feel that he controls his own destiny. And indeed,according to Swedenborg, mankind does control his own destiny in that he may choose a life whichconforms to divine order - one of charity and use - or one which does not. Freedom to accept orreject God sets the stage for the human drama. The quality of a person’s life determines his place inthe spiritual world after death.

God, according to Swedenborg, has always provided communication with mankind both by directrevelation and through the workings of nature, although people has not always listened to divineteaching. When a person acts in accord with the divine plan his life is blessed ultimately if not atonce; when a person does not so act he separates himself from the divine order. But happiness, inSwedenborg’s view, is entirely within each person’s grasp if he only will listen, reason, and applyhimself to a good life. By these means a person can direct his energies toward a life of useful serviceto others and eventually enter heaven.

Freedom

People live in a world in which freedom and rationality balance each other and produce order. Thetwin essentials of freedom in order form the crucible of life. Neither can be slighted without harm tohuman development. Swedenborgian thought rests upon a firm and explicit belief in the freedom ofthe human will.

So long as a person is in this world he is midway between evil and good, and is kept in freedom to

turn himself to either the one or the other; if he turns to evil he turns away from good; if he turns togood he turns away from evil. (Life 19).A person’s free will arises from the fact that he feels the life in himself [to be] . . . his own. Godleaves him so to feel in order that conjunction may be effected, which is not possible unless it bereciprocal, and it becomes reciprocal when a person acts from freedom altogether as if from him-self. If God had not left this to mankind he would not be human, neither would he have eternal life.Reciprocal conjunction with God causes people to be human and not a beast, and also causes him tolive after death to eternity. Free will in spiritual things effects this. (TCR 504)As no one can be reformed except in freedom, therefore freedom is never taken away from a aperson, in so far as the appearance is concerned for it is an eternal law that everyone should be infreedom as to his interiors. . . . [By these means] the affection of good and truth may be implanted inhim. (AC 2876).From freedom . . [a person] feels . . and perceives life . . to be his own. Freedom is the power tothink, will, speak, and do from one’s self, as if from oneself. . . Therefore freedom was given to aperson together with his life. . . . [If it were] taken away or lessened . . . a person [would feel] . . thathe does not live, but that another lives in him. . The delight of all things of his life would be takenaway or lessened [and he would] become a slave. (AE 1138).It is impossible for any one to know what slavery is, or what freedom is, unless he knows the originof the one and of the other, which he cannot know but from the Word [Bible].He must also know how a person is circumstanced as to the affections which appertain to his under-standing. The case with a person as to his affections and thoughts is this: no one whatsoever, man,spirit or angel, can will and think from himself, but [only] from others. These others [do not] willand think from themselves, but all again from others, and so on. Thus each [wills and thinks] fromthe first source of life, which is the Lord. . . . Evil and false principles have connection with thehells. . . . But goods and truths have connection with heaven. . . . (AC 2885 - 86) Few persons knowwhat freedom is, or what it is not. It appears to be whatever is agreeable to any kind of love and thedelight thereof. Whatever is contrary to any kind of love and its delight [does not] appear to be . . .freedom. The indulgence of self-love and the love of the world, and of the lusts thereof, appears to aperson like freedom, but it is infernal freedom. [In contrast] the indulgence of love to the Lord andneighborly love, consequently of the love of good and truth, is essential and heavenly freedom. (AC2870)Every one . . . is desirous to come out of a state which is not free into one which is, this being agree-able to his life. Hence . . nothing is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord which proceeds from aprinciple . . . void of spontaneity or willingness. When any one worships the Lord from a principlevoid of freedom, he worships Him from no principle of his own, but is moved thereto only by someexternal . . . [force which] partakes of compulsion. . . (AC 1947)Whoever lives in good, and believes that the Lord governs the universe, and that from Him alonecome all the good . . of love and charity, and all the truth . . . of faith . [indeed] that from Himcomes life . . . is in such a state as to be capable of being gifted with celestial freedom, and there-with also with peace. In such case he will trust only in the Lord, and will count other things of noconcern. [He] is certain that then all things tend to his good, blessedness and happiness to eternity.But who so believes that he governs himself, is in continual disquiet, being betrayed into evil lustsand anxieties concerning things to come, and thereby into manifold . . . [cares]. Inasmuch as he sobelieves . . . the lusts of evil and the persuasions of what is false adhere to him. (AC 2892)There are two things that are in a person’s freedom by reason of the perpetual presence of the Lord,and His perpetual desire to conjoin Himself with humanity. The first thing . . . is that he has themeans and faculty to think well about the Lord and the neighbor. . . . If he thinks well the door is

opened; if ill it is shut. To think well about the Lord and the neighbor is not from a person himself . .. but from the Lord, who is perpetually present and by His perpetual presence gives a person thatmeans and faculty. But to think ill about the Lord and the neighbor is from a person himself. .The other thing which is in a person’s freedom by reason of the perpetual presence of the Lord withhim . . . is a person’s ability to abstain from evils. So far as he does abstain the Lord opens the doorand enters. The Lord is unable to open and enter so long as evils are in a person’s thoughts and will,since these block the way. . . . Moreover, it has been granted to mankind by the Lord to know theevils of the thought and will, as also the truths by which evils are to be dispersed. The Word is givenwherein these things are disclosed. (AE 248)Natural freedom is a person’s heredity. In it he loves only himself and the world. . . . Rational free-dom is from the love of good repute for the sake of standing or gain. The delight of this love is toseem outwardly a moral person. . . . Spiritual freedom is from love of eternal life. Into this love andits enjoyment, only he comes who regards evils as sins and therefore does not will them, and wholooks to the Lord. (PP 73) [But] free will in spiritual things is given to mankind, from the womb tothe last hour of his life in the world, and afterward to eternity. (TCR 499)

Order

To Swedenborg, human freedom constitutes the central ingredient of individuality. But he adds thatwithout order, nothing, people included, could be free. Freedom and order are so interrelated that Onecannot fully exist without the other. The universe was created in perfect order but mankind has free-dom to create disorder.

The Lord is order itself, and therefore, where He is present there is order, and where there is orderHe is present. (AC 5703) God is order because He is substance itself and form itself. He is substancebecause all things that subsist have come forth and continue to come forth from Him. He is formbecause every quality of substance has sprung and continues to spring from Him, quality having noother source than form. . . . God from Himself, introduced order both into the whole universe andinto all things and each thing in it. (TCR 58)Mankind was created a form of Divine order because he was created an image and likeness of God.As God is order itself, [people] were created an image and likeness of order. . . . Two things . . . arethe source of order . . . the Divine love and the Divine wisdom. A person was created a receptacle ofthese, and was therefore created also into the order in . . . which these two act in the universe. . . .The entire heaven is in its largest . . . [sense] a form of Divine order, and is in the sight of God likeone person. (TCR 65)The life of everyone, both people, of spirits, and also of angels, flows in solely from the Lord, whois life itself, and diffuses itself . . . into everyone. The life which flows in is received by each oneaccording to his disposition. Good and truth are received as good and truth by the good. But goodand truth are received as evil and falsity by the evil, and are also turned into evil and falsity in them.The case with this is comparatively like the light of the sun, which diffuses itself into all the objectsof the earth, but is received according to the quality of each object, and becomes of a beautiful colorin beautiful forms, and of a disagreeable color in disagreeable forms. (AC 2888)It is [of] order that the goods and truths [i.e. life] which proceed from the Lord should be receivedby people. When this is done, there is order in everything the person intends and thinks. But when aperson does not receive goods and truths according to the order which is from the Lord . . . [andrather] believes that all things are blind flowings . . . [or determinations] of his own prudence, heperverts order. He applies to himself the things of order with a view to taking care only of himself,

and not of his neighbor, except in so far as his neighbor favors him. (AC 6692)The laws of order enjoined upon mankind are, that he should acquire for himself truths from theWord, and reflect upon them naturally, and as far as he can, rationally, and thus acquire for himselfa natural faith. The laws of order on the part of God . . are, that He will draw near and fill thesetruths with His Divine light, and thus fill the person’s natural faith . . . with a Divine essence. (TCR78)Those who do not understand . . . Divine . . . [power] may suppose either that there is no such thingas order, or that God can act contrary to order as well as according to it. Yet, without order, nocreation was possible. The primary thing of order is for people to be an image of God, consequently,that a person be continually perfecting in love and wisdom, and thus becoming that image more andmore. To this end God is working continually in a person. . . . Thus it is the same whether we say,acting contrary to order, or acting contrary to God. God Himself, even, cannot act contrary to Hisown Divine order, since this would be to act contrary to His very Self. Therefore He leads everyperson according to that order which is Himself, guiding the wandering and the fallen into it, andthe resisting toward it.If people could have been created without freedom of choice in spiritual things, what would havebeen more easy for an omnipotent God than to lead all the inhabitants of the world to believe in theLord? [He could] . . . have implanted this faith in everyone, both without means and by means. [Hecould have done so] without means, by His absolute power, and its irresistible operation, which isunceasing in its efforts to save humanity. Or [he could have done so] by means . . of tormentsbrought upon a person’s conscience, or through mortal convulsions of the body and awful threats ofdeath, if he did not receive that faith. Or still further, [he could have done so] by the opening of helland the presence of devils therefrom holding frightful torches in their hands, or by calling forththerefrom the dead whom they had known, in the forms of fearful specters. (TCR 500)The Lord never does anything contrary to order, because He Himself is Order. The Divine truth thatgoes forth from the Lord is what constitutes order. Divine truths are the laws of order. It is in accordwith these laws that the Lord leads people. Consequently to save mankind by mercy apart frommeans would be contrary to Divine order, and what is contrary to Divine order is contrary to theDivine. Divine order is heaven in a person, and people has perverted this in themselves by a lifecontrary to the laws of order, which are Divine truths. Into this order a person is brought back by theLord out of pure mercy by means of the laws of order. So far as he is brought back into this order hereceives heaven in himself. . . . This . . . makes evident that the Lord’s Divine mercy is pure mercy,and not mercy apart from means. (HH 523) To receive order into one’s self is to be saved, and this iseffected solely by living according to the Lord’s commandments. (AC 10659) He who does not liveaccording to the commandments and laws which are of Divine order, does not live in the Lord,consequently . . . the Divine is obscured with him. By living according to order is . . meant to be ledby the Lord through good. (AC 8512)Animals are in the order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in them from thespiritual world, because they have no rational faculty. People, on the other hand . . having pervertedwhat is in them from [the spiritual] . . world by a life contrary to order, which their rational facultyhas favored, must . . . be born into mere ignorance and afterwards be led back by Divine means intothe order of heaven. (HH 108) If a person were in the order into which he was created - love towardthe neighbor and . . . love to the Lord - he above all animals would be born not only into matters ofknowledge, but also into all spiritual truths and celestial goods and thus into all wisdom and intelli-gence. (AC 6823)Everything which is from the Divine begins from Himself, and advances according to order down tothe ultimate end, thus through the heavens down to the world, and there rests . . . in its ultimate. (AC

10684) The order is for the celestial to inflow into the spiritual and adapt it to itself; for the spiritual. . . to inflow into the rational and adapt it to itself; and for the rational . . . to inflow into thememory-knowledge [of people] and adapt it to itself. When a person is being instructed in his earli-est childhood, the order is indeed the same, but it appears otherwise. . . . [It appears] that he ad-vances from memory-knowledges to rational things, from these to spiritual things, and so at last tocelestial things. The reason it so appears is that a way must . . . be opened to celestial things, whichare the inmost. All instruction is simply an opening of the way. (AC 1495)The Lord rules the last things of a person equally as his first. The order from the Lord is successivefrom first things to last, and in the order itself there is nothing but what is Divine. This being so, thepresence of the Lord must needs be in the last things equally as in the first, for the one follows fromthe other according to the tenor of order. (AC 6473)

Use

Probably Swedenborg’s concept of use permeates his view of life more completely than any othersingle idea. Down through the centuries philosophers and theologians have discussed the ingredientsof the “good life.” Swedenborg joins this discussion with an abundance of detail and illustration. Use,by which Swedenborg means the service of others, unifies all of creation. Both worlds - spiritual andnatural - rest upon this concept of use. A person enjoys true happiness when he reaches out to serveothers, while at the same time fulfilling his particular destiny in turning his individual talents to thepursuit of excellence in fields consistent with his loves. Use, to Swedenborg, means “good.”

A person is born for no other end than that he may perform use to the society in which he is and tothe neighbor, while he lives in the world, and in the other life according to the good pleasure of theLord. The case in this respect is the same as it is in the human body, every part of which must per-form some use, even things which in themselves are of no value, such . . . as the many salival fluids,the biles, and other secretions, which must be of service not only to the food, but in separating theexcrements and purging the intestines. (AC 1103)No one . . . lives for himself alone, but at the same time for others. From this comes society, whichwould not otherwise exist. To live for others is to perform uses. Uses are the bonds of society . . .and uses are infinite in number. There are spiritual uses, which are of love to God and of love to-wards the neighbor. There are moral and civil uses, which are of the love of the society and thecommunity in which a person resides, and of his companions and fellow citizens among whom hedwells. There are natural uses, which belong to the love of the world and its necessaries. And thereare uses of the body, which belong to the love of its conservation for the sake of the higher uses. Allthese uses are inscribed on mankind, and follow in order one after the other, and when they existtogether one is within the other. (CL 18)All a person knows, and all his understanding and being wise, and therefore all his willing, ought tohave use for their end. That which is conducive to use is to know what is good and true. That whichis of use is to will and do what is good and true. (AC 5293) The Lord leads through the affection ofuse. (LJ Post. 170) Since affections are the essences of uses, and uses are the subjects of affections,it follows that there are as many affections as there are uses. (D. Love ix)A person . . . is such as hisuse is. But uses are manifold; in general they are heavenly or infernal. Heavenly uses are those thatare serviceable more or less . . . remotely, to the church, to the country, to society, and to a fellowcitizen, for the sake of these as ends. Infernal uses are those that are serviceable only to the indi-vidual himself and those dependent on him, and if serviceable to the church, to the country, tosociety, or to a fellow citizen, it is not for the sake of these as ends, but for the sake of self as the

end. Everyone ought from love, though not from self-love, to provide the necessaries and requisitesof life for himself and those dependent on him. When a person loves uses by doing them in the firstplace, and loves the world and self in the second place, the former constitutes his spiritual and thelatter his natural. The spiritual rules and the natural serves. (AE 1193)Use is to perform one’s office and to do one’s work rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly. It is onlyknown obscurely . . what is really meant in the Word by the goods of charity, which are called“good works,” also “fruits,” and here uses. From the sense of the letter of the Word it is believedthat they consist in giving to the poor, assisting the needy, doing good to widows and orphans, andlike things. However such uses are not meant in the Word by “fruits,” “works,” and goods of char-ity, but . . . performing one’s office, business, and work rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly.When this is done the . . . public good is consulted, also one’s country, a society greater and less, thefellow citizen, companion and brother, who . . . are the neighbor in a broad and in a restricted sense.When this is done everyone, whether he be a priest, governor or officer, a merchant, or a laborer, isevery day doing uses. A priest [performs uses] by preaching, a governor or officer by his administra-tive work, a merchant by trading, and a laborer by his work. For example, a judge who judgesrightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly, is doing uses to the neighbor as often as he judges. A minis-ter [does so] in like manner as often as he teaches; so in other instances. (D. Wis. XI) By pursuit andbusiness are meant every application to use. While a person is in some pursuit and business, or is inuse, his mind is limited and circumscribed - as by a circle within which it is successively coordi-nated into a form that is truly human. (CL 249) By uses are not meant merely the necessaries of life,which have relation to food, clothing and habitation for people and for those dependent on them, butalso the good of one’s country, of society, and of the fellow citizen. Business is such a good whenthat is the final love, and money is a mediate and subservient love, provided the businessman shunsand turns away from frauds and evil devices as sins. It is other wise when money is the final love,and the business is the mediate and subservient love, for this is avarice, which is the root of evils.(DP 220)Works are more or less good according to the excellence of the use. Works must be uses. The bestare those that are done for the sake of the uses of the church. Next in point of goodness come thosethat are done as uses of one’s country, and so on, the uses determining the goodness of the works.(AE 975)Dignities with their honors are natural and temporal when in them a person regards himself person-ally, and not the common wealth and uses. [In such case] a person . . . thinks interiorly in himselfthat the commonwealth is for his sake, and not he for the commonwealth’s sake. He is like a kingwho thinks that the kingdom and all the people in it exist for his sake, and not he for the sake of thekingdom and the people. But . . . dignities with their honors are spiritual and eternal when a personregards himself personally as existing for the sake of the commonwealth and uses, and not . . . they .. . for his sake. (DP 220)The Lord’s kingdom is a kingdom of ends, which are uses, or what is the same thing, a kingdom ofuses which are ends. For this reason the universe has been so created and formed by the Divine thatuses may be everywhere. . . . In the nature of the world, in its threefold kingdom, all things exist inaccordance with order and forms of uses, or effects formed from use for use. . . . In the case of aperson, so far as he is in accordance with Divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the Lord andin charity towards the neighbor, so far are his acts uses in form. Through these he is conjoined toheaven. To love the Lord and the neighbor means in general to perform uses. (HH 112)

Charity

Since the concept of use takes such a central place in Swedenborg’s view of life, the related idea ofcharity necessarily receives some redefinition. Swedenborg does not demean acts of charity such asgiving alms to the poor, supporting the sick, and assisting the needy. Yet he questions the degree ofintelligence and even of justice in indiscriminate acts of charity practiced on the undeserving and thedeserving alike. Motive, of course, determines the quality of the act for the individual who performsit. But society is best served by a life of continuous service through one’s prime function rather thanby overt benefactions which sometimes do more harm than good. To be useful and to allow everyoneelse the fullest possible opportunity to be useful also provides the greatest charity. All unjust, arbi-trary, and artificial restraints on any individual’s opportunity to live a fully useful life intrude upon thedivine order of things.Swedenborg couples charity and faith. Together they lead toward a life freed from evil. The person ofcharity shuns evils as sins against God, but he does so as a matter of religious faith. Thus,Swedenborg categorically rejects faith without charity; faith alone has no place in his understanding ofthe order of creation.

The first thing of charity is not to do evil to the neighbor; to do good to him occupies the secondplace. This is, as it were, the door to the doctrine of charity. (TCR 435) The life of charity consistsin willing well and doing well to the neighbor, in acting in every work from justice and equity, fromgood and truth, and in like manner in every office. In a word, the life of charity consists in perform-ing uses. (NJHD 124)Those who are in charity, that is, in love to the neighbor . . pay no regard to the enjoyment of pleas-ures except on account of the use. There is no charity apart from works of charity. It is in its practiceof use that charity consists. He who loves the neighbor as himself perceives no delight in charityexcept in its exercise, or in use. A life of charity is a life of uses. (AC 997)It is believed by many that love to the neighbor consists in giving to the poor, in assisting the needy,and in doing good to everyone, but charity consists in acting prudently, and to the end that good mayresult. He who assists a poor or needy villain does evil to his neighbor through him, for through theassistance which he renders he confirms him in evil, and supplies him because . . . every person is aneighbor, but in a different manner. A smaller and a larger society is more the neighbor. Our countryis still more the neighbor, the Lord’s kingdom yet more, and the Lord above all. And in the universalsense good, which proceeds from the Lord, is the neighbor, consequently sincerity and justice too. . .. He therefore who does any good for the sake of sincerity and justice, loves his neighbor and exer-cises charity. He does so from the love of what is good, sincere, and just, and consequently from thelove of those in whom good, sincerity, and justice are.Charity is therefore an internal affection from which a person wills to do good, and this withoutremuneration. The delight of his life consists in doing it. With those who do good from an internalaffection there is charity in everything that they think and say, and that they will and do. . . . Aperson or an angel, as to his interiors, is charity when good is his neighbor. (NJHD 101-104)When a person sincerely, justly, and faithfully does the work that belongs to his office or employ-ment, from affection and its delight, he is continually in the good of use, not only to the communityor public, but also to individuals and private citizens. But this cannot be unless he looks to the Lordand shuns evils as sins. . . . The goods that he does are goods of use, which he does every day. . . .There is an interior affection which inwardly remains and desires it. Hence . . . he is perpetually inthe good of use, from morning to evening, from year to year, from his earliest age to the end of hislife. Otherwise he cannot become a form . . . or receptacle of charity. (C 158)The businessman, if he looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins, and transacts his business sin-

cerely, justly, and faithfully . . . becomes charity. He acts as from his own prudence, and yet trusts inthe Divine Providence. He is . . . not despondent in misfortune nor elated with success. He thinks ofthe morrow; yet does not think of it. He thinks of what should be done on the morrow, and how itshould be done, yet does not . . . concern himself with the morrow, because he ascribes the future tothe Divine Providence and not to his own prudence. He loves business as the principal of his voca-tion and money as its instrumental. . . . He loves his work which is in itself a good of use and not themeans rather than the work. . . He loves the general good while loving his own good. (C 167)The merchant who acts from sincerity and not from fraud, consults the good of his neighbor withwhom he has business. So also a workman or a tradesman, if he does his work rightly and sincerely,and not craftily and deceitfully. It is the same with all others, as with captains and sailors, withfarmers and servants. This is true charity, which may be defined as doing good to the neighbor dailyand continually, not only to the neighbor individually, but also collectively. This can only be accom-plished by doing what is good and just in the office, business, and employment in which someone isengaged, and to those with whom he has any dealings. This work he does daily. . . . Justice andfidelity form his mind and his bodily exercises, and gradually, because of his form, he desires andthinks of only such things as pertain to charity. (TCR 422-23) The private duties of charity are . . .numerous, such as the payment of wages to workmen, payment of interest, the fulfillment of con-tracts, the guarding of securities, and so on. Some are duties by statute law, some by common law,and some by moral law. . . . Those who are in charity perform them justly and faithfully. . . . Butthose who are not in charity discharge these same duties quite differently. (TCR 432)By charity is meant love toward the neighbor, and mercy. He who loves his neighbor as himself isalso compassionate toward him in his sufferings. . . . (AC 351) The Word teaches nothing else thanthat everyone should live in charity with his neighbor, and love the Lord above all things. They whodo this have in themselves the internal things. . . . (AC 1408)It has been a subject of controversy from the most ancient times, which principle is the first-born ofthe Church, charity or faith. . . . This controversy originated in the ignorance which anciently pre-vailed, and which prevails still, concerning this truth: that people have only so much of faith as theyhave of charity.In the process of regeneration charity meets faith, or what is the same thing, good meets truth,insinuating itself into all the particulars thereof, and adapting itself thereto, and thus causing faith tobe faith. Consequently . . . charity is the first [of religion] . . . although it appears otherwise to peo-ple. (AC 2435)Charity, which in its essence is the affection of knowing, understanding, willing, and doing truth,does not come into any perception of a person until it has formed itself in the thought, which is fromthe understanding. It then presents itself under some form or image by which it appears before theinterior sight, for the thought that a thing is so in truth is called faith. From this it is clear that charityis actually prior and faith posterior, as good is actually prior and truth posterior, or as that whichproduces is essentially prior to the product. . . . Charity is from the Lord, and is also formed first inthe spiritual mind. Because charity does not appear to a person before it becomes faith . . . it may besaid that faith does not exist with a person until it becomes charity in form. . . . They both come intoexistence at the same moment. Although charity produces faith, yet as they make one, neither ofthem in respect to a person’s perception can exist separate from the other. . . . Faith when separatedfrom life is not alive, and what is not alive . . . can save no one. (AE 795-96)When charity is banished and extinguished, . . . the bond which connects the Lord with humanity issevered, since only charity, or love and mercy, are what conjoin us with Him, and never faith with-out charity. . . . Can any one be of judgment so weak as to believe that faith alone in the memory . . .can be of any avail, when everybody knows from his own experience that no one esteems the words

or assenting of another, no matter of what nature, when they do not come from the will or intention?It is this that makes them pleasing, and that conjoins one person with another. The will is the realperson, and not the thought or speech which he does not will. A person acquires his nature anddisposition from the will, because this affects him. If any one thinks what is good, the essence offaith, which is charity, is in the thought, because the will to do what is good is in it. But if he saysthat he thinks what is good, and yet lives wickedly, he cannot possibly will anything but what is evil,and there is therefore no faith. (AC 379)There is no genuine . . . living charity, but that which makes one with faith; both unitedly look to theLord. . . . The Lord, charity, and faith, are the three essentials of salvation. When they make one,charity is charity, and faith is faith, and the Lord is in them and they are in the Lord. But on the otherhand, when these three are not united, charity is either spurious, or hypocritical, or dead. (TCR 450)

Civil Affairs

Swedenborg’s message deals with the practical matters of everyday human relations as well as withthe grander aspects of existence. Many passages contain generalizations about the proper organizationand structure of life in the natural world and the role that individuals should play in pursuit of life,liberty, and happiness for all. While civil questions belong to the most external plane of humanexistence, they provide the base for moral and spiritual order. He who loves proper civil order for itsown sake and seeks to maintain individual freedom, comes eventually to support the kingdom of theheavens. A person can scarcely become spiritual without being active in the business of life on theexternal plane.

There are two things which ought to be in order with people, namely, the things which are ofheaven, and the things which are of the world. The things which are of heaven are called ecclesiasti-cal, and those which are of the world are called civil. Order cannot be maintained in the worldwithout governors. [They] are to reward those who live according to order, and punish those wholive contrary to order. If this be not done, the human race will perish, for the will to commandothers, and to possess the goods of others, from heredity, is connate with everyone, whence proceedenmities, envyings, hatreds, revenges, deceits, cruelties, and many other evils. . . . Unless . [peopleare] kept under restraint by the laws . . . [with] rewards suited to their loves . . . the human racewould perish. Honors and gains. . . [are supplied to] those who do goods, and punishments . . .[involving] the loss of honors, of possessions, and of life, for those who do evils. .There must therefore be governors to keep the assemblages of people in order, who should beskilled in the law, wise, and who fear God. There must also be order among the governors, lest anyone from caprice or ignorance, should permit evils which are contrary to order, and thereby destroyit. This is guarded against when there are superior and inferior governors, among whom there issubordination. (NJHD 311 - 13)As priests are appointed to administer those things which relate to the Divine law and worship, sokings and magistrates are appointed to administer those things which relate to civil law and judg-ment. Because the king alone cannot administer all things, therefore there are governors under him,to each of whom a province is given to administer, which the king cannot . . administer alone. Thesegovernors, taken together constitute the royalty, but the king himself is the chief. Royalty itself isnot in the person, but is adjoined to the person. The king who believes that royalty is in his ownperson, and the governor who believes that the dignity of the government is in his own person, is notwise. Royalty consists in administering according to the laws of the realm, and in judging accordingto them from justice. . . . The king who regards the laws as above himself, places the royalty in the

law, and the law has dominion over him. He knows that the law is justice, and that all justice . . . isDivine. But he who regards himself as above the laws, places the royalty in himself, and eitherbelieves himself to be the law, or the law to be from himself; he arrogates to himself that which isDivine. . The law . . . ought to be enacted in the realm by persons skilled, . . . wise, and who fearGod. [Under these circumstances] both the king and his subjects ought to live according to it. Theking who lives according to the enacted law, and in this precedes his subjects by his example, istruly a king. A king who has absolute power . . . [and] believes that his subjects are such slaves thathe has a right to their possessions and lives is not a king, but a tyrant. There ought to be obedienceto the king according to the laws of the realm, nor should he be injured by any means either bydeeds or words. On this the public security depends. (NJHD 319-25)A person is the neighbor. . . . A society is the neighbor because a society is a composition of people.One’s own country is the neighbor because the country consists of many societies, and is therefore astill more a composition of people. And the human race is composed of great societies, each ofwhich is a composition of people. (C 72) One’s country is more a neighbor than a single commu-nity, because it consists of many communities, and consequently love towards the country is abroader and higher love. Moreover, loving one’s country is loving the public welfare. One’s countryis the neighbor because it is like a parent. One is born in it, and it has nourished him and continuesto nourish him, and has protected and continues to protect him from injury. People ought to do goodto their country from a love of it, according to its needs, some of which are natural and some spir-itual. Natural needs relate to civil life and order, and spiritual needs to spiritual life and order. Thatone’s country should be loved, not as one loves himself, but more than himself, is a law inscribed onthe human heart, from which has come the well-known principle, which every true person endorses,that if the country is threatened with ruin from an enemy or any other source it is noble to die for it,and glorious for a soldier to shed his blood for it. This is said because so great should be one’s lovefor it. (TCR 414)The common soldier . . . if he looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins, and sincerely, justly, andfaithfully does his duty becomes charity. . . . He is averse to unjust depredation. He abominates thewrongful effusion of blood. In battle it is another thing. There he is not averse to it, for he does notthink of it, but of the enemy as an enemy, who desires his blood. When he hears the sound of thedrum calling him to desist from the slaughter, his fury ceases. He looks upon his captives aftervictory as neighbors, according to the quality of their good. Before the battle he raises his mind tothe Lord, and commits his life into His hands. After he has done this, he lets his mind down from itselevation into the body and becomes brave, the thought of the Lord - which he is then unconsciousof remaining still in his mind, above his bravery. And then if he dies, he dies in the Lord; if he lives,he lives in the Lord. (C 166)The public duties of charity are especially the payment of tribute and taxes, which ought not to beconfounded with official duties. Those who are spiritual pay these with [a different] disposition ofheart [from] ... those who are merely natural. The spiritual pay them from good-will, because theyare collected for the preservation of their country, and for its protection and that of the church, alsofor the administration of government by officials and governors, to whom salaries and stipends mustbe paid from the public treasury. . .They to whom their country and also the church are the neighbor,pay their taxes with a spontaneous and favorable will, and regard it as iniquitous to withhold themor to deceive in their payment. But they to whom their country and the church are not the neighbor,pay them with a reluctant and repugnant will, and at every opportunity defraud and pilfer. (TCR430)Everyone was predestined to heaven, and no one to hell, for all are born people, and in consequencethe image of God is in them. The image of God in them is the ability to understand truth and to do

good. The ability to understand truth is from the Divine wisdom, and the ability to do good . . . fromthe Divine love. This ability is the image of God, which remains in every sane person. . . . From thiscomes his ability to become a civil and moral person. The civil and moral person can also becomespiritual, for the civil and moral is a receptacle of the spiritual. He is called a civil person whoknows the laws of the kingdom wherein he is a citizen and lives according to them. And he is calleda moral person who makes these laws his moral laws and his virtues, and from reason lives them. . .. Live these laws, not only as civil and moral laws, but also as Divine laws, and you will be a spir-itual person. Scarcely a nation exists so barbarous as not to have prohibited by laws, murder, adul-tery with the wife of another, theft, false-witness, and injury to what is another’s. The civil andmoral person observes these laws, that he may be . . . a good citizen. (DP 322)Those, who in the world love their country’s good more than their own, and their neighbor’s good astheir own, . . . in the other life love and seek the Lord’s kingdom, for there the Lord’s kingdom takesthe place of country. Those who love doing good to others, not with self as an end but with good asan end, love the neighbor, for in heaven good is the neighbor. All such are in the Greatest Man, thatis, heaven. (HH 64)

Morality

Swedenborg’s teachings on morality are consistent with the great moral teachings of human history.But he emphasizes that a civil-moral life should be grounded in religious convictions which presumespiritual causes. Some of his most pointed and, at the same time, felicitous phrases set forth theprinciples of a highly ethical life. He wrote them within the context of the rather loose morality of theeighteenth century. His family connections, wealth, education, and public offices gave him access to awide circle of European upper-class life. He observed the varieties of immorality then in vogue andwrote with keen insight. But all available evidence indicates that Swedenborg’s own life epitomizedhis moral teachings.

There are three kinds of truths, civil, moral, and spiritual. Civil truths relate to matters of judgmentand government in kingdoms, and . . . to what is just and equitable in them. Moral truths pertain tothe matters of everyone’s life which have regard to companionships and social relations, in generalto what is honest and right, and in particular to virtues of every kind. But spiritual truths relate tomatters of heaven and of the church, and in general to the good of love and the truth of faith.(HH468)The laws of spiritual life, the laws of civil life, and the laws of moral life are set forth in the . . .Decalogue; in the first three [appear] the laws of spiritual life, in the four that follow the laws ofcivil life, and in the last three the laws of moral life. Outwardly the merely natural person lives inaccordance with the same commandments in the same way as the spiritual person does, for in likemanner he worships the Divine, goes to church, listens to preachings, and assumes a devout counte-nance, refrains from committing murder, adultery, and theft, from bearing false witness, and fromdefrauding his companions of their goods. But all this he does merely for the sake of himself and theworld, to keep up appearances. Inwardly, since in [his] heart he denies the Divine, in worship [he]acts the hypocrite, and when left to himself and his own thought laughs at the holy things of thechurch, believing that they merely serve as a restraint for the simple multitude. Consequently he iswholly disjoined from heaven, and not being a spiritual person he is neither a moral nor a civilperson. Although he refrains from committing murder he hates everyone who opposes him, andfrom his hatred burns with revenge. [He] would . . . commit murder if he were not restrained by civillaws and external bonds, which he fears. As he longs to do so, it follows that he is continually

committing murder. Although he does not commit adultery, yet, as he believes it to be allowable heis all the while an adulterer. . . . Although he does not steal, yet as he covets the goods of others anddoes not regard fraud and wicked devices as opposed to what is lawful, in intent he is continuallyacting the thief. The same is true of the commandments relating to moral life, which forbid falsewitness and coveting the goods of others. Such is every individual who denies the Divine, and whohas no conscience derived from religion. (HH 531)Moral truths are those that the Word teaches respecting the life of an individual with his neighbor.[This] life is called charity. The goods of this life, which are uses, have relation, in brief, to justiceand equity, to sincerity and uprightness, to chastity, to temperance, to truth, to prudence, and tobenevolence. To the truths of moral life belong also the opposites which destroy charity, and whichhave relation to lasciviousness, to intemperance, to lying, to cunning, to enmity, to hatred andrevenge, and to ill-will. These latter are called truths of moral life, because all things that a a personthinks to be true, whether evil or good, he classes among truths. . . . Civil truths are the civil laws ofkingdoms and states, which have relation, in brief, to many phases of justice that are observed, andon the contrary to the various kinds of violence that exist in act. (D. Wis. XI) The virtues whichpertain to the moral wisdom of people are of various names, and are called . . . sobriety, probity,friendship, modesty, . . . obligingness, civility, and also diligence, industry, alertness, alacrity,munificence, liberality, generosity, earnestness, [courage] . . . and other names. Spiritual virtueswith people are the love of religion, charity, truth, faith, conscience, innocence, and many others.These virtues and the former may in general be referred to as love and zeal for religion, for thepublic good, for country, for fellow citizens, for parents, for wife, and for children. In all thesejustice and judgment dominate. Justice is of moral wisdom, and judgment is of rational wisdom.(CL 164) Every person is taught by his parents and teachers to live morally . . . , to act the part of agood citizen, to discharge the duties of an honorable life, which relate to the various virtues that areessentials of an honorable life, and to bring them forth through the formalities of . . . [such a] life,which are called proprieties. As he advances in years he is taught to add to these what is rational,and thereby to perfect what is moral in his life. In children, even to early youth, moral life is natural,and becomes afterwards more and more rational. Any one who reflects well upon it can see that amoral life is the same as a life of charity, and that this is to act rightly towards the neighbor, and toso regulate the life as to preserve it from contamination by evils. . . . (TCR 443)All words and deeds pertain to moral and civil life, and therefore have regard to what is honest andright, and what is just and equitable. What is honest and right pertains to moral life, and what is justand equitable to civil life. (HH 484) Moral life, when it is also spiritual, is a life of charity, becausethe practices of a moral life and of charity are the same. Charity is willing rightly towards theneighbor, and consequently acting rightly towards him. This is also moral life. (TCR 444)Good and truth make a a person’s life. Moral and civil good and truth make the life of the externalperson, and spiritual good and truth, the life of the internal person. (AC 9182) There are moralpeople who keep the commandments of the second table of the Decalogue, not committing fraud,blasphemy, revenge, or adultery. Such of them as confirm themselves in the belief that such thingsare evils because they are injurious to the public weal, and are therefore contrary to the laws ofhumane conduct, practice charity, sincerity, justice, chastity. But if they do these goods and shunthose evils merely because they are evils, and not at the same time because they are sins [againstGod’s order], they are still merely natural people, and with the merely natural the root of evil re-mains imbedded. . . . (Life 108)The Lord is chiefly worshiped [through] . . . a life according to His injunctions in the Word, for bythese a person is acquainted with. . . faith. . . and. . . charity. . . . This life is the Christian life, and iscalled spiritual life. But a life according to the laws of what is just and honorable, without that life,

is a civil and moral life. This life makes an individual to be a citizen of the world, but the other to bea citizen of heaven. (AC 8257)

Marriage and Sex

No aspect of morality as the basis of spiritual life receives more extensive comment in Swedenborg’swritings than that of the proper relationship between the sexes. He advocates a monogamous marriagein which the partners love only each other and look together to the Lord for guidance in their lives.Such a marriage he terms truly conjugial 28 and insists that marriage of this kind spans not only lifeon earth but eternity. Death does not part those who truly love each other.According to the Swedenborgian view, men and women are fundamentally different, not merely as tobody and appearance, but as to mind. Masculinity stems from a nature which is basically intellectual.Femininity, on the other hand, results from inborn affectional qualities. The former looks towardwisdom, the latter toward love. Together they form a unity, each supplementing and complementingthe other.Swedenborg sees the marriage relation as the basic unit of both the natural and the spiritual worlds.Through it the human race continues; from it proper order is maintained. From it also stem suchprogress as the race may make, for married couples, seeking to perform uses together, fulfill theultimate purpose of creation. Since the marriage relation is the seminary of human existence, thegreatest delights and happiness are found in it.Swedenborg is surprisingly modern in his frank acceptance of the power of sex. In the second part ofhis work Conjugial Love, he takes up some of the problems posed by the sensual urge. He subtitlesthis section “The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love.” In it he continues to hold up theideal of a truly monogamous marriage untarnished by other affiliations. Yet his realistic view recog-nizes problem areas and accepts categories of individual permission to vary from the ideal. Suchvariances are not set forth as equally valid substitutes for the ideal, but as sometimes permissivedepartures from it.

The male is born intellectual, and the female volitional. . The male is born into an affection forknowing, understanding, and being wise, and the female into the love of conjoining herself with thataffection in the male. Since the interiors form the exteriors to their likeness, and the masculine formis a form of intellect, and the feminine form is a form of the love of that intellect, . . . the male has adifferent face, and a different voice, and a different body from the female. The male has a harderface, a harsher voice, and a stronger body, and moreover a bearded chin, in general, a form lessbeautiful than the female. They differ also in bearing and manners. In a word, nothing whatever isalike in them, and yet in the least things there is what is conjunctive. (CL 33)People have not the least of thought, nor the least of affection and action, in which there is not akind of marriage of the understanding and the will. Without a kind of marriage, nothing ever existsor is produced. In the very organic forms of an individual both composite and simple, and even inthe most simple, there is a passive and an active, which, if they were not coupled as in marriage, likethat of man and wife, could not even be there, still less produce anything. The case is the samethroughout universal nature. These incessant marriages derive their source and origin from theheavenly marriage. There is impressed upon everything in universal nature, both animate and inani-mate, an idea of the Lord’s kingdom. (AC 718)A wife cannot enter into the duties proper to the husband, nor on the other hand a husband into theduties proper to the wife. They differ as do wisdom and its love, or as thought and its affection, or asunderstanding and its will. In the duties proper to men, understanding, thought, and wisdom act theleading part. In the duties proper to wives, will, affection, and love act the leading part. From these

the wife does her duties, and from those the husband does his. Their duties are therefore of theirown nature different, and yet are conjunctive. . . . It is believed by many that women can performthe duties of men, if only they are initiated into them from their earliest age after the manner ofboys. Into the exercise of them they can indeed be initiated, but not into the judgment on which theright performance of the duties inwardly depends. Women, therefore, who are initiated into theduties of men are constrained in matters of judgment to consult with men, and then, if free to act,they choose out of their counsels what favors their own love. . . . On the other hand, men cannotenter into the duties proper to women and rightly perform them . . . because they cannot enter intotheir affections, which are . . . distinct from the affections of men. (CL 175)The inclination to unite the man to herself is constant and perpetual with the wife, but with the manit is inconstant and alternating. . . . Love cannot do otherwise than love . . . in order that it may beloved in return. Its essence and life are nothing else, and women are born loves. Men, with whomthey unite themselves that they may be loved in return, are receptions. Love is continually efficient.It is like heat, flame, and fire, which if restrained so that they go not forth into effect, perish. Henceit is that with the wife the inclination to unite the man to herself is constant and perpetual. That withthe man there is not a similar inclination to the wife, is because the man is not love but only a re-cipient of love. The state of reception comes and goes, according to interrupting cares, according tothe changes of heat and want of heat in the mind from various causes, and according to increase anddecrease in the powers of the body. . . . (CL 160)No wife loves her husband for his face, but for the intelligence in his employment and in his man-ners. . . . The wife unites herself with the intelligence of the man, and thus with the man. If then aman loves himself for his own intelligence he withdraws his love from his wife to himself, whencecomes disunion and not union. Moreover, to love his own intelligence is to be wise of himself, andthis is to be insane. [He] therefore . . . [loves] his own insanity. (CL 331)The conjugial of one man with one wife is the precious treasure of human life. . . . (CL 457) [It] isthe fundamental of all loves. (AC 4280) The most perfect and the noblest human form is when twoforms become one form by marriage, thus when the flesh of two becomes one flesh according tocreation. For then the mind of the man is elevated into superior light, and the mind of the wife intosuperior heat. . . . They put forth, and blossom, and bear fruit as trees in the time of spring. From theennobling of this form noble fruits are born, spiritual in the heavens, natural on earth. (CL 201)[Conjugial love], considered in its essence by virtue of its derivation . . . is holy and pure beyondevery love with angels and with people. . (CL 64)Few will acknowledge that all joys and all delights from first to last are gathered into conjugial love,for the reason that love truly conjugial into which they are gathered is so rare at this day that it is notknown what is its nature, and it is scarcely known to exist. . . . These joys and delights are in noother but in the genuine conjugial love. As this is so rare on earth it is impossible to describe itssupereminent felicities, otherwise than from the mouth of angels. . . . Its inmost delights, which areof the soul, - into which the conjugial of love and wisdom, or of good and truth, from the Lord firstflows, - are imperceptible and therefore ineffable, because they are delights at once of peace and ofinnocence. . . . Delights . . . become perceptible, more and more, - in the higher regions of the mindas states of blessedness, in the lower as states of happiness, in the breast as delights therefrom. Fromthe breast they diffuse themselves into each and every part of the body, and finally unite in theultimates in the delight of delights. (CL 69) Love of the sex . . is the universal of all loves. . . . It isimplanted by creation in a person’s very soul, whence it is the essence of the whole man, and thisfor the sake of propagating the human race. (CL 46) The love of the sex with man is not the originof conjugial love but is its first. It is as the external natural in which the internal spiritual is im-planted. . . . Love truly conjugial is with those only who earnestly desire wisdom, and therefore

progress in wisdom more and more. The Lord foresees them and provides conjugial love for them.[This] love begins with them, it is true, from the love of the sex, or rather through that love, but yetit does not originate from that. Wisdom and this love are inseparable companions. That conjugiallove begins through the love of the sex, is from the fact that before a consort is found, the sex ingeneral is loved and regarded with a fond eye, and . . . treated with courteous morality. A young manhas his choice to make, and . . . from an inherent inclination to marriage with one which lies hiddenin the inmost shrine of his mind, there is an agreeable warmth in his external. . . . Decisions withreference to marriage are for various reasons delayed, even to the middle of manhood, and mean-while the beginning of the love is as lustful desire. . . These things are said of the male sex, becauseit has the allurement which actually inflames, but not of the female sex. (CL 98)Love of the sex is the love for many and with many of the sex, but conjugial love is the love for oneand with one only of the sex. Love for many and with many is a natural love, for it is in commonwith beasts and birds, and these are natural, while conjugial love is a spiritual love and peculiar andproper to people, because we were created and are therefore born to become spiritual. For . . . [this]reason so far as man as a man becomes spiritual he puts off the love of the sex and puts on conjugiallove. In the beginning of marriage the love of the sex appears as if conjoined with conjugial love.But in the progress of marriage they are separated, and then, with those that are spiritual the love ofthe sex is exterminated and conjugial love is insinuated. But with those that are natural the contrarytakes place. . . . Love of the sex, because it is with many and in itself natural, . . . [even] animal, isimpure and unchaste, and because it is vagrant and unlimited, it is scortatory. Conjugial love isaltogether otherwise. (CL 48)The love of the sex is with the natural man, but conjugial love with the spiritual man. The naturalman loves and desires only external conjunctions, and from them pleasures of the body, but thespiritual man loves and desires internal conjunction, and the states of happiness of the spirittherefrom. He perceives that these are given with one wife, with whom he can be perpetually moreand more conjoined into one. The more he is thus conjoined the more he perceives his states ofhappiness ascending in like degree, and continuing to eternity. But the natural man has no thoughtof this. (CL 38)True marriage love [is not] possible between one husband and several wives, for its spiritual origin,which is the formation of one mind out of two, is thus destroyed. In consequence interior conjunc-tion, which is the conjunction of good and truth, from which is the very essence of that love, is alsodestroyed. Marriage with more than one is like an understanding divided among several wills. (HH379)By betrothal the mind of the one is conjoined to the mind of the other, in order that a marriage of thespirit may be effected before that of the body takes place. (CL 303) Viewed in themselves, mar-riages are spiritual, and therefore holy. They descend from the heavenly marriage of good and truth,and things conjugial correspond to the Divine marriage of the Lord and the Church, and hence arefrom the Lord Himself. . . . Because the ecclesiastical order administer on earth the things which areof the priesthood with the Lord, that is, which are of His love, and thus those that pertain to blessing,it is fitting that marriages should be consecrated by His ministers. Because . . . they are also thechief of the witnesses, it is proper that the consent to the covenant . . . should be heard, accepted,confirmed, and thus established by them. (CL 308)The first state of love between married partners is a state of heat not yet tempered with light. it issuccessively tempered, as the husband is perfected in wisdom and the wife loves that wisdom in thehusband. (CL 145) This is effected by uses and according to them, which uses, both of them bymutual aid, perform. . . . Delights follow according as heat and light, or wisdom and its love, aretempered. (CL 137)

With those who are in love truly conjugial, the happiness of dwelling together increases. With thosewho are not in conjugial love it decreases. . . Those that are in love truly conjugial . . . love eachother mutually with every sense. The wife sees nothing more lovely than the man, and the man,nothing more lovely than the wife . . . nothing more lovely do they hear, smell, and touch. Hence thehappiness to them of dwelling together in house, in chamber, and in bed. . . . (CL 213) That which isdone from love truly conjugial is done from freedom on both sides, because all freedom is fromlove, and both have freedom when one loves that which the other thinks and . . . wills. From this it isthat the wish to command in marriages destroys genuine love, for it takes away from its freedom,thus also its delight. The delight of commanding . brings forth disagreements, and sets the minds atenmity, and causes evils to take root according to the nature of the domination on the one side, andthe nature of the servitude on the other.Marriages are holy, and . . . to injure them is to injure that which is holy. . . . Adulteries are profane.As the delight of conjugial love descends from heaven, so the delight of adultery ascends from hell.(AC 10173)Those who have lived together in love truly conjugial do not wish to marry again [if one partnerdies] unless for reasons apart from conjugial love. . . . They are united as to souls, and thence as tominds, and this unition being spiritual is an actual adjunction of the soul and mind of the one tothose of the other, which can by no means be dissolved. . . . As to the body also they are united,through the reception by the wife of the propagations of the soul of the husband, and thus by theinsertion of his life into hers, whereby the virgin becomes a wife. . . . The reception of the conjugiallove of the wife by the husband . arranges the interiors of his mind, and at the same time the interi-ors and exteriors of his body, into a state receptive of love and perceptive of wisdom. [This] statemakes him from a young man into a husband. . . . A sphere of love from the wife and a sphere ofunderstanding from the man flows forth continually, and . . . this perfects the conjunctions. . . . (CL321)No one can know the nature of the chastity of marriage except the man who shuns as a sin thelasciviousness of adultery. . . . The lasciviousness of adultery and the chastity of marriage standtoward each other exactly as do hell and heaven; the lasciviousness of adultery makes hell in aperson, and the chastity of marriage makes heaven. (Life 76).The sensuous person believes from fallacy that adulteries are allowable. From the sensuous heconcludes that marriages are instituted merely in behalf of order for the sake of the education of theoffspring, and that so long as this order is not destroyed, it is immaterial from whom the offspringcomes. [He believes] that what is of marriage differs from lasciviousness merely in its being al-lowed. . . . [A sensuous person cannot accept the idea that] . . . heavenly marriage and marriages onearth [correspond] . . . that no one can have in himself anything of marriage unless he is in spiritualtruth and good . . that genuine marriage cannot possibly exist between a husband and several wives,and . . . that marriages are in themselves holy. . . . When . . . what is sensuous rules in an individual,the rational . . . sees nothing and is in thick darkness, and it is then believed that everything is ra-tional which is concluded from what is sensuous. (AG 5084)Fornication is of the love of the sex. . . . The love of the sex is as a fountain from which bothconjugial love and scortatory love can be derived. . . . The love of the sex is in every man, and iteither puts itself forth or does not put itself forth. If it puts itself forth before marriage with a womanthat is a harlot it is called fornication. If not until with a wife it is called marriage. If after marriage,with another woman it is called adultery. Therefore . . . the love of the sex is a fountain from whichmay issue either love that is chaste or love that is unchaste. . . . [But no one should come] to theconclusion that one who has indulged in fornication might . . . be more chaste in marriage.The love of the sex, from which is fornication, has its beginning when a youth begins to think and

act from his own understanding and the voice of his speech begins to become masculine. . . . At thattime a change in the mind takes place. Before, he only thought from things carried in the memory,meditating upon and obeying them. Afterwards . . . he disposes the things seated in his memory intoa new order, and conformably to this order begins his own life. Successively, more and more [he]thinks according to his own reason, and wills from his own freedom. The love of the sex followsthis beginning of his own understanding, and progresses according to the vigor of it. . . . It is wisdomto restrain the love of the sex, and insanity to let it loose. (CL 445-46)If on account of the unbridled power of lust it cannot be [restrained], then an intermediary course isto be sought whereby conjugial love can meanwhile be kept from perishing. [Limited cohabitation] .. . is such a means. . . . [By it] inordinate, promiscuous fornications are curbed and limited, and amore restrained state induced which is more nearly akin to the life of conjugial love. The ardor ofvenery, boiling and as it were burning in its beginning, is quieted and assuaged, and thus the lascivi-ousness of salacity, which is foul, is tempered by something as it were analogous to marriage. . . .But these things are not said for those who can control the surging heat of lust, nor for those whocan enter marriage as soon as they are grown to manhood, and can offer and devote the first fruits oftheir manly power to their wife. (CL 459)Conjugial love of one man with one wife is called the precious treasure of human life. . . . In andfrom this union are the celestial beatitudes, the spiritual satisfactions, and from these the naturaldelights, which have been provided from the beginning for those who are in love truly conjugial. Itis the fundamental love of all celestial, spiritual, and . . . natural loves. Into this love are broughttogether all joys and all gladnesses, from the first to the last. (CL 457)

The Nature of Wisdom

The Swedenborgian conception of the nature of creation rests upon belief in the inviolability ofhuman freedom. People can use this freedom for ends which conform to or deny the divine pattern;otherwise, this freedom would not be genuine. Yet within the divinely given freedom God hopespeople will apply themself to wisdom. Swedenborg defines wisdom as the welding of good and truth,in support of use. Some of the more abstruse aspects of the Swedenborgian view of life may be foundin his comments on the human mind, how it receives influx from the spiritual world, and how itarrives at decisions. The selections which follow were chosen to provide an introduction intoSwedenborg’s ideas concerning the difficult subject of the nature of wisdom, a subject which philoso-phers and theologians have argued through the centuries.

Divine order [provides that] people should act in freedom according to reason, because to act infreedom according to reason is to act from themself. And yet these two faculties, freedom andreason, are not . . . [a person’s own] but are the Lord’s in him. In so far as he is a human being, theymust not be taken away from him, because without them he cannot be reformed. Without them hecannot perform repentance, he cannot fight against evils, and afterwards bring forth fruits worthy ofrepentance. It is from the Lord that an individual possesses freedom and reason. As a person actsfrom them, it follows that he does not act from himself, but as from himself (Life 101)There are three things which cohere and cannot be separated, love, wisdom and use of life. If one isseparated, the other two fall to the ground. (AR 352) Let no one believe that he has wisdom becausehe knows many things, perceives them in some light, and is able to talk intelligently about them,unless his wisdom is conjoined to love. It is love that, through its affections, produces wisdom. Notconjoined to love, wisdom is like a meteor vanishing in the air and like a falling star. Wisdomunited to love is like the abiding light of the sun and like a fixed star. A person has the love of

wisdom when he is averse . . . to the lusts of evil and falsity. (DP 35) In the natural [mind] there arememory-knowledges of various kinds. There are memory-knowledges about earthly, bodily, andworldly things, which are the lowest, for these are immediately from the things of the externalsenses, or of the body. There are memory-knowledges about the civil state, its government, statutes,and laws, which are a little more interior. There are memory-knowledges about the things of morallife, which are more interior still. But the memory-knowledges which belong to spiritual life aremore interior than all the former. These latter.., truths of the church ... in so far as they are only fromdoctrine with a a person, are nothing but memory-knowledges. But when they are from the good oflove, they then rise above memory-knowledges, for they are then in spiritual light, from which theylook at memory-knowledges in their order beneath them. By means of degrees of memory-knowledges a person mounts to intelligence, for by means of these degrees memory-knowledgesopen the mind so that light from the spiritual world can flow in. (AC 5934)From his infancy up to the end of his life in the world, a person is being perfected as to intelligenceand wisdom, and, if it is well with him, as to faith and love. Memory-knowledges chiefly conduce tothis use. These knowledges are imbibed by hearing, seeing, and reading, and are stored up in theexternal or natural memory. These are of service to the internal sight or understanding as a plane ofobjects, from which it may choose and bring out such things as promote wisdom. By virtue of itslight, which is from heaven, the interior sight or understanding looks into this plane, that is, into thismemory, which is below itself. From the various things which are there, it chooses and brings outsuch as agree with its love. These it calls forth to itself from thence, and stores them up in . . . theinternal memory. From this is the life of the internal person, and its intelligence and wisdom. (AC9723) A boy, being not yet of mature age, cannot think from anything higher than the exteriornatural, for he composes his ideas from things of sense. But as he grows up, and, from things ofsense, draws conclusions as to causes, he thereby begins to think from the interior natural. Fromthings of sense he then forms some truths, which rise above the senses, but still remain within thethings that are in nature. But when he becomes a young man, if, as he then matures he cultivates hisrational, he . . . forms reasons from the things in the interior natural, which reasons are truths stillhigher, and are as it were drawn out from the things in the interior natural. The ideas of thoughtfrom these are called in the learned world intellectual and immaterial ideas. [On the other hand], theideas [derived] from the memory-knowledges . . . [of] the senses . . . partake of the world [and] arecalled material ideas. In this way a person mounts in his understanding from the world towardheaven. But still he does not come into heaven with his understanding unless be receives good fromthe Lord, which is continually present and flowing in. If he receives good, truths also are bestowedon him, for in good all truths find their abode. As truths are bestowed on him, so also is understand-ing, by reason of which he [eventually] is in heaven. (AC 5497)A person is not a human being because of his having a human face and human body, but because ofthe wisdom of his understanding and the goodness of his will. As the quality of these ascends, hebecomes the more a human being. At birth a person is more a brute than any animal, but he becomesa human being through instruction of various kinds, by receiving which his mind is formed. Fromhis mind and according to it a person is a human being. There are some beasts whose faces resemblethe human face, but these enjoy no faculty of understanding or of doing anything from the under-standing. They act from the instinct which their natural love excites.A beast expresses by sounds the affections of its love, while a human being speaks them as they areformulated in thought. A beast with his face downward looks upon the ground, while man with hisface raised beholds heaven all about him. From all this it may be inferred that someone is a humanbeing so far as he speaks from sound reason, and looks forward to his abode in heaven. [When] . . .he speaks from perverted reason, and looks only to his abode in the world, . . . he is not a human

being. Yet even such are potentially human, though not actually, for every human being enjoys theability to understand truth and to will what is good. But so far as he has no wish to do good orunderstand truth, he can only counterfeit mankind in externals and play the ape. (TCR 417)Truths should be known and believed, for people are enlightened by truths, but are made blind byfalsities. By truths there is opened to the rational an immense and almost unbounded field. But byfalsities comparatively none at all, although this does not appear to be so. It is because the angelsare in truths that they enjoy wisdom so great, for truth is the very light of heaven. (AC 2588)He who learns truths and does not practice them, is like the one who sows seed in a field and doesnot harrow it in. The seed becomes swollen by the rain and is spoiled. But he who learns truths andpractices them, is like one who sows that seed and covers it, and the rain causes it to grow to a cropand to be of use for food. (TCR 347)Sensual people can reason, some of them more cunningly and keenly than any one else. But theyreason from the fallacies of the senses confirmed by their knowledges. Because they are able toreason in this way they believe themselves to be wiser than others. [However], the fire that kindles .. . their reasonings is the fire of the love of self and the world. (HH 353)All [people] have the capacity to understand and to be wise, but the reason one person is wiser thananother is that they do not in like manner ascribe to the Lord all things of intelligence and wisdom. .. . They who ascribe all to the Lord are wiser than the rest, because all things of truth and good,which constitute wisdom, flow in from heaven. . . . The ascription of all things to the Lord opens theinteriors of people toward heaven, for thus it is acknowledged that nothing of truth and good is fromthemself. In proportion as this is acknowledged, the love of self departs, and with the love of self thethick darkness from falsities and evils. In the same proportion also the person comes into innocence,and into love and faith to the Lord, from which comes conjunction with the Divine, influx thence,and enlightenment. . . . All alike have the capacity of being wise [although] not . . . an equal capac-ity of being wise. . . . By the capacity to be wise is not meant the capacity to reason about truths andgoods from memory-knowledges, nor the capacity to confirm whatever one pleases. The capacity tobe wise is to discern what is true and good, to choose what is suitable, and to apply it to the uses oflife. They who ascribe all things to the Lord do thus discern, choose, and apply, while those who donot ascribe to the Lord, but to themselves, know merely how to reason about truths and goods. . . .As they cannot look into truths themselves, they stand outside, and confirm whatever they receive,whether it be true or false. They who can do this in a learned way from memory-knowledges arebelieved by the world to be wiser than others. But the more they attribute all things to themselves,thus the more they love what they think from themselves, the more insane they are. They confirmfalsities rather than truths, and evils rather than goods, and this because they have light from noother source than the fallacies and appearances of the world, and consequently from their own[natural] light . . . separated from the light of heaven. Light . thus separated is mere thick darknessin respect to the truths and goods of heaven. (AC 10227)From . . . [the Lord] proceeds wisdom, through wisdom intelligence, through intelligence reason,and so by means of reason the knowledges of the memory are vivified. This is the order of life. . .(AC 121)

Religion

According to Swedenborg, life should center on religion, and the life of religion means doing good.But he did not seek a specific church organization to support his concept of religion. He believed thatthe form of religion meant little compared to its essence - a life of use. Thus the quality of a person’slife defines his true religion.

Swedenborg, although convinced that God was speaking a new revelation through him, was ecumeni-cally minded. He asserted that all people can go to heaven, provided they live a good life, in conso-nance with their religious beliefs.The truths given to a particular religion do, of course, affect the quality of its goods. Swedenborglooks to the ideal of ultimate acceptance of a rational faith by all people. Yet his teachings allow forvaried forms of religious individuality consistent with belief in a God-centered universe.

All religion has relation to life and the life of religion is to do good. (Life 1) The glorification ofGod . . means to bring forth the fruits of love, that is, faithfully, sincerely, and diligently to do thework of one’s employment. This is of love to God and of love to the neighbor. And this is the bondof society and its good. By this God is glorified. (CL 9)Every person who has religion knows and acknowledges that he who leads a good life is saved, andthat he who leads an evil life is damned. He knows and acknowledges that the individual who livesaright thinks aright, not only about God but also about his neighbor. Not so the person whose life isevil. The life of an individual is his love, and that which he loves he not only likes to be doing, butalso likes to be thinking. . . Doing what is good acts as a one with thinking what is good, for if in aperson these two things do not act as a one, they are not of his life. (Life 1)A deed or work is in quality such as are the will and thought that produce it. If the thought and willare good the deeds and works are good. But if the thought and will are evil the deeds and works areevil, although in outward form they appear alike. A thousand people may . . . do . . . deeds so alikein outward form as to be almost undistinguishable, and yet each one regarded in itself [is] different,because from an unlike will. (HH 472)To acknowledge God and to refrain from doing evil because it is against God are the two things thatmake a religion to be a religion. If one of these is lacking it cannot be called a religion. To acknowl-edge God and to do evil is a contradiction; also to do good and not acknowledge God, for one is notpossible without the other. The Lord provides that there shall be some religion nearly everywhere,and that there shall be these two things in every religion. The Lord also provides that everyone whoacknowledges God should have a place in heaven. (DP 326)Religion with a person consists in a life according to the Divine commandments, which are con-tained in a summary in the Decalogue. He . . . [who] does not live according to these can have noreligion, since he does not fear God, still less does he love God, nor does he fear his fellow man,still less does he love him. Can one who steals, commits adultery, kills, bears false witness, fear Godor people? (AE 948) It is a common principle of every religion that a a person ought to examinehimself, repent, and desist from sins, and that if he fails to do so he is in a state of damnation. (Life64)People live a moral life from a spiritual origin when they live it from religion. . . . [Then] they think,when anything evil, insincere, or unjust presents itself, that this must not be done because it iscontrary to the Divine laws. When anyone abstains from doing such things in deference to Divinelaws he acquires for himself spiritual life, and his moral life is then from the spiritual. By suchthoughts and faith people communicate with the angels of heaven. By communication with heaventheir internal spiritual man is opened, the mind of which is a higher mind, such as the angels ofheaven have, and they are thereby imbued with heavenly intelligence and wisdom. . . . To live amoral life from a spiritual origin is to live from religion. . . . Those who live a moral life fromreligion and from the Word are elevated above their natural man, thus above what is their own, andare led by the Lord through heaven. They have faith, the fear of God, and conscience, and also thespiritual affection of truth, which is the affection of the knowledges of truth and good from theWord. To such people these are Divine laws, according to which they live. . .

But on the other hand, to live a moral life not from religion, but only from the fear of the law in theworld, or of the loss of fame, honor, and gain, is to live a moral life not from a spiritual but from anatural origin. To such there is not communication with heaven. As they think insincerely andunjustly regarding the neighbor, although they speak and act otherwise, their internal spiritual manis closed, and the internal natural man only is opened. When this is open they are in the light of theworld, but not in the light of heaven. For this reason such persons have in them little regard forDivine and heavenly things, and some deny them, believing nature and the world to be everything.(AE 195)From the most ancient times there has been religion, and everywhere the inhabitants of the worldhave had knowledge of God, and have known something about a life after death. . . . (SS 117) It isof the Lord’s Divine providence that every nation has some religion. . . . Every nation that livesaccording to its religion, that is, that refrains from doing evil because it is contrary to its god, re-ceives something of the spiritual in its natural. . . . [If someone says] I have been baptized, I haveknown about the Lord, I have read the Word, I have attended the sacrament of the Supper - does thisamount to anything if he does not regard murders, or the revenge that breathes them, adulteries,secret thefts, false testimony or lies, and various kinds of violence, as sins? Does such an individualthink about God or any eternal life? Does he believe that there is any God or any eternal life? Doesnot sound reason declare that such a person cannot be saved? (DP 322)There is a general opinion that those born outside of the church, who are called the nations, orheathen, cannot be saved, because not having the Word they know nothing about the Lord, and apartfrom the Lord there is no salvation. But . . . the mercy of the Lord is universal . . . [and] extends toevery individual. [The heathen] equally with those within the church, who are few in comparison,are born as people, and . . . their ignorance of the Lord is not their fault. . . . No one is born for hell,for the Lord is love itself and His love is to will the salvation of all. (HH 818) Many of the heathenlive . . . a moral life, for they think that evil must not be done because it is contrary to their religion.This is why so many of them are saved. (AE 195) Heaven is within a person, and those that haveheaven within them come into heaven. Heaven with a person is acknowledging the Divine and beingled by the Divine. (HH 319)Everyone is born into the religion of his parents, is initiated into it from his infancy, and afterwardsholds to it. He who remains in his own religion . . . believes in God . . [regards] the Word as holy . . .[lives] according to the ten commandments, [and] does not swear allegiance to falsities, . . . canembrace [truths] and so be led away from falsities. Not so the individual who has confirmed thefalsities of his religion, for confirmed falsity remains and cannot be rooted out. After confirmation afalsity becomes as if the person had sworn to the truth of it, especially if it chimes in with his ownself-love, and the derivative conceit of his own wisdom. (SS 92)It is very common for those who have taken up an opinion respecting any truth of faith, to judge ofothers that they cannot be saved, unless they believe as they do - a judgment which the Lord hasforbidden. . . . People of every religion are saved, provided that by a life of charity they have re-ceived [from the Lord] remains of good and of apparent truth. . . . The life of charity consists inthinking kindly of another, and . . . wishing him well, and . . . perceiving joy in one’s self from thefact that others are saved. (AC 2284)The Lord’s spiritual church . . . exists throughout the universal world. It is not confined to those whohave the Word and thence know the Lord and some truths of faith. It exists also with those who havenot the Word and therefore are altogether ignorant of the Lord and consequently know no truths offaith. . . (AC 3263)There are three essentials of the church: acknowledgment of the divine of the Lord, acknowledg-ment of the holiness of the Word, and the life which is called charity. . . . Had these three been

regarded as the church’s essentials, intellectual differences would not have divided it but only variedit as light varies colors in beautiful objects and as various insignia of royalty give beauty to a king’scrown. (DP 259)The natural man says in his heart, how can so many discordant religions exist, instead of one truereligion over all the earth, if the Divine providence has as its end a heaven from the human race?[But] all the human beings that are born, however many and in whatever religion, can be saved,provided they acknowledge God and live according to the commandments of the Decalogue, whichare not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, and not to bear false witness, for the reason thatdoing such things is contrary to religion, and thus contrary to God. Such fear God and love theneighbor. They fear God in the thought that to do such things is contrary to God. They love theneighbor in the thought that to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness, and to covetthe neighbor’s house or wife is against the neighbor. Because such in their life look to God and donot do evil to the neighbor, they are led by the Lord. Those who so live, love to be taught, whilethose who live otherwise do not. Because they love to be taught, when, after death they becomespirits, they are instructed by the angels and gladly accept such truths as are in the Word. (DP 253)The religion of the Christian world has closed up the understanding, and faith alone has sealed it.Both of these have placed around themselves, like a wall of iron, the dogma that theological matterstranscend the comprehension, and cannot therefore be reached by any exercise of the reason, and arefor the blind, not for those that see. In this way have the truths been hidden that teach what spiritualliberty is. (DP 149)What pertains to doctrine does not itself make the external, still less the internal. . . . Nor with theLord does it distinguish churches from each other, but that which does this is a life according todoctrinals, all of which, provided they are true, look to charity as their fundamental. What is doc-trine but that which teaches how a person must live? In the Christian world it is doctrinal mattersthat distinguish churches. From them people call themselves Roman Catholics, Lutherans, andCalvinists, or the Reformed and Evangelical, and by other names. It is from what is doctrinal alonethat they are so called, which would never be if they would make love to the Lord and charity to-ward the neighbor the principal of faith. Doctrinal matters would then be only varieties of opinionconcerning the mysteries of faith, which real Christians would leave to everyone to hold in accord-ance with his conscience, and would say in their hearts that someone is truly a Christian when helives as a Christian, that is, as the Lord teaches. From all the differing churches there would be madeone church. All the dissensions that come forth from doctrine alone would vanish. All hatreds of oneagainst another would be dissipated in a moment, and the Lord’s kingdom would come upon theearth. (AC 1799)When truth itself is received as a principle . . . as for example that love to the Lord and charitytoward the neighbor. . are . . . the essentials of all doctrine and worship . . . heresies would be dissi-pated, and one church would arise out of many, no matter how greatly the doctrinal and ritual mat-ters that flowed from or led to it might differ If it were so now, all.. . would be as members andorgans of one body which, although dissimilar in form and function, have nevertheless relation toone heart on which they all depend both in general and particular, be their respective forms ever sovarious. In this case, too, everyone would say of another, in whatsoever doctrine or in whatsoeverexternal worship he might be principled, ‘This is my brother, I see that he worships the Lord, andthat he is a good person.’ (AC 2385)With respect to . . . priests, they ought to teach people the way to heaven, and also to lead them.They ought to teach them according to the doctrine of their church from the Word, and to lead themto live according to it. Priests who teach truths, and thereby lead to the good of life, and so to theLord, are good shepherds. . . . But they who teach and do not lead to the good of life, and so to the

Lord, are evil shepherds.Priests ought not to claim to themselves any power over the souls of people, because they do notknow in what state the interiors of a person are. Still less ought they to claim the power of openingand shutting heaven, since that power belongs to the Lord alone.Dignity and honor ought to be paid to priests on account of the holy things which they administer.But they who are wise give the honor to the Lord, from whom the holy things are, and not to them-selves. They who are not wise attribute the honor to themselves; these take it away from the Lord. . .. The honor of any employment is not in the person, but is adjoined to him according to the dignityof the thing which he administers. What is adjoined does not belong to the person himself, and isalso separated from him with the employment. All personal honor is the honor of wisdom and thefear of the Lord.Priests ought to teach the people, and to lead them by truths to the good of life, but still they oughtto compel no one, since no one can be compelled to believe contrary to what he thinks from hisheart to be true. He who believes otherwise than the priest, and makes no disturbance, ought to beleft in peace. . . . (NJHD 315 - 18)

Evil, Sin, and the Permissions Involved

Many modern thinkers doubt the very existence of evil and sin. But Swedenborg believed otherwise.Evil and falsity exist and together lead to sin. Sin, repeated, becomes confirmed and sinners eventu-ally consign themselves to hell. Thus, Swedenborg’s view of life contains great similarity to thetraditional Christian concept of evil.Yet Swedenborg presents much new thought on these subjects. Evil and falsity were not part of thedivine order except in the sense that people received true freedom to choose evil over good. Subse-quently people were born into tendencies toward the evils of their ancestry. Yet, people do not acquireany evils except as a result of confirming them by the actions of their lives. A person does what heloves; he may violate order in accord with the exercise of his inborn free will.Repentance from sin may lead to regeneration of the person’s basic character and to ultimate happi-ness in heaven. Such character regeneration comes from the Lord, but the individual must initiate theprocess. This initiative can stem only from a genuine desire to reform, thus from a free choice. Divinelove seeks the salvation of every individual but permits those who will, to fail. No divine fiat couldalter this without fundamentally denying the human individual an opportunity to be captain of his ownsoul.

Does it square with Divine justice that because [Adam and Eve] . . . both ate of that tree they wereaccursed, and that this curse clings to everyone that comes after them? [Was] . . . the whole humanrace . . . damned for the fault of one individual, in which there was no evil arising from the lust ofthe flesh or iniquity of heart? Why did not Jehovah in the first place restrain people from eating ofthe tree, since He was present and saw the consequences? And why did He not hurl the serpent intoHades before he had persuaded them?But . . . God did not do this, because He would thus have deprived people of their freedom ofchoice, from which a person is a human being, and not a beast. When this is known it is very evidentthat by these two trees, one of life and the other of death, a person’s freedom of choice in spiritualthings is represented. Moreover, inherited evil is not from that source, but from parents, by whom aninclination to the evil in which they themselves have been, is transmitted to their children. The truthof this is clearly seen by any one who carefully studies the manners, dispositions, and faces of thechildren . . . that have descended from one father. Nevertheless, it depends on each one in a familywhether he will accede to or withdraw from inherited evil, since everyone is left to his own choice.

(TCR 469)Evils . . . did not exist until after creation. (Can, VI, 10) By turning away from God . . . [people]imposed . . . [evil] upon themselves. [The] . . . origin of evil was not in Adam and his wife, but whenthe serpent said: - In the day that ye eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be asGod. (Gen. iii. 5) They then turned away from God and turned to themselves as to a god. They madein themselves the origin of evil. (CL 444)Eminence and opulence in the world are not real divine blessings . . . [although] people, from theirpleasure in them, calls them so. They . . . seduce many, and turn them away from heaven. Eternallife, and its happiness, are real blessings, which are from the Divine. . .The evil succeed in evils according to their arts . . . because it is according to Divine order thateveryone should act . . . from freedom. Unless people were left to act from freedom according totheir reason . . . people could by no means be disposed to receive eternal life, for this is insinuatedwhen people are in freedom, and their reason is enlightened. No one can be compelled to good,because nothing that is compelled inheres with him. It is not his own. That becomes a a person’sown which is done from freedom according to his reason, and that is done from freedom which isdone from the will or love. The will or love is the individual himself. If a person were compelled tothat which he does not will, his mind would continually incline to that which he wills. Everyonestrives after what is forbidden, and this from a latent cause, because he strives for freedom. . . .Unless people were kept in freedom, good could not be provided for them.To leave people, from their own freedom . . . to think, to will, and, so far as the laws do not restrain,to do evil, is called permitting. (NJHD 270-72)The love of self and the love of the world by creation are heavenly loves, for they are loves of thenatural man serviceable to spiritual loves, as a foundation is to a house. A person, from the love ofself and the world, seeks the welfare of his body, desires food, clothing, and habitation, is solicitousfor the welfare of his family, and to secure employment for the sake of use. . . Through these thingsa person is in a state to serve the Lord and to serve the neighbor. When, however, there is no love ofserving the Lord and serving the neighbor, but only a love of serving himself by means of the world,then, from being heavenly that love becomes hellish, for it causes a person to sink his mind anddisposition in what is his own, and that in itself is wholly evil. (DLW 896)[Thus perverted] the evil of the love of self disjoins the individual not only from the Lord, but alsofrom heaven. He loves no one but himself, and others only so far as he regards them in himself, orso far as they make one with him. He diverts to himself the attention of all, and entirely averts itfrom others, most especially from the Lord. When many in a society do this, it follows that all aredisjoined, and at heart each regards the others as enemies, and if any one does aught against him, heholds him in hatred, and takes delight in his destruction. Nor is it different with the evil of the loveof the world, for this covets the wealth and goods of others, and desires to possess all that belongs tothem. Enmities and hatreds, but in a less degree [arise]. In order for any one to know what evil is,and consequently what sin is let him merely study to know what the love of self and of the world . . .are. In order to know what good is, let him merely study to know what love to God and love towardthe neighbor [are]. (AC 4997)The love of self is the source of hatreds, revenges, cruelties, and adulteries. It is the source of allthings that are called sins, wickednesses, abominations, and profanations. Therefore when this loveis in the rational part of a person, and is in the cupidities and phantasies of his external man, theinflux of heavenly love from the Lord is continually repelled, perverted, and contaminated. It is likefoul excrement, which dissipates . . . [and] defiles all sweet odor. It is like an object that turns thecontinually inflowing rays of light into dark and repulsive colors. It is like a tiger, or a serpent,which repels all fondling, and kills with bite and poison those who offer it food. Or [it is] like a

vicious person who turns even the best intentions of others, and their very kindnesses, into what isblameworthy and malicious. (AC 2045)Persons who give no thought to the evils in them, and who do not examine themselves and thendesist from the evils . . . [are] ignorant what evil is, and . . . love it . . . from delighting in it. Onewho is ignorant of . . . [evil] loves it, and one who fails to give it thought, goes on in it, blind to it.Thought sees good and evil as the eye sees beauty and ugliness. One who thinks and wills evil is inevil, and so is a person who thinks that it does not come to God’s sight. . . . If such persons refrainfrom doing evil, they do so not because it is a sin against God, but for fear of the law and for theirreputation’s sake. In spirit they still do evil, for it is a person’s spirit that thinks and wills. . In thespiritual world, into which everyone comes after death, the question is not asked what your beliefhas been or your doctrine, but what your life has been. . . . Such as one’s life is, such is one’s belief .. . one’s doctrine. Life fashions a doctrine and a belief for itself. (DP 101)Good continually flows in from the Lord. It is the evil of life that hinders its being received in thetruths which are with a person in his memory or knowledge. In so far as someone recedes from evil,so far good enters and applies itself to his truths. Then the truth of faith with him becomes the goodof faith. A person may indeed know truth, may also confess it under the incitement of some worldlycause, may even be persuaded that it is true. Yet this truth does not live so long as he is in a life ofevil. Such a person is like a tree on which there are leaves, but no fruit. His truth is like the light inwhich there is no heat, such as there is in the time of winter when nothing grows. But when there isheat in it, the light then becomes such as there is in the time of spring, when all things grow. (AC2388)How many . . . live according to the commandments of the Decalogue, and other precepts of theLord, from religion? How many . . . desire to look their own evils in the face, and to perform actualrepentance . . .? And who among those that cultivate piety, perform any other repentance than oraland oratorical? [They confess] . . . themselves to be sinners, and [pray] according to the doctrine ofthe church, that God the Father, for the sake of His Son, who suffered upon the cross for their sins,took away their damnation, and atoned for them with His blood . . . [will] mercifully forgive theirtransgressions, that . . . they [may] . . . be presented without spot or blemish before the throne of Hisjudgment. Who does not see, that this worship is of the lungs only, and not of the heart, conse-quently that it is external worship, and not internal? He prays for the remission of sins, when yet hedoes not know one sin with himself, and if he did know of any, he would cover it over with favorand indulgence, or with a faith that is to purify and absolve him, without any works of his. But thisis comparatively like a servant going to his master with his face and clothes defiled with soot andfilth, and saying, Sir, wash me. Would not his master say to him, Thou foolish servant, what is itthou sayest? See! there is water, soap, and a towel, hast thou not hands, and ability to use them?Wash thyself. (BE 52) People by their own exertion and power should purify themselves from sins,and not stand still believing in their own impotency, and expecting God to wash their sins away in amoment. (TCR 71)Sins are not forgiven through repentance of the mouth, but through repentance of life. Sins arecontinually being forgiven people by the Lord, for he is mercy itself. But sins adhere to the person,however much he may suppose that they have been forgiven, nor are they removed from him exceptthrough life according to the commands of faith. So far as he lives according to these commands, sofar his sins are removed. So far as they are removed, so far they have been forgiven. (AC 8393)Many . . . [think] that a person is cleansed from evils by merely believing what the church teaches.Others [think that someone is cleansed] by his doing good . . . knowing, talking about, and teachingthe things of the church, . . . reading the Word and pious books, . . . attending churches, listening tosermons, and especially by coming to the Holy Supper. [Still] others [think someone is cleansed] by

. . . renouncing the world and devoting [oneself] to piety . . . confessing . . . sins, and so on. Yetnone of these cleanse a person in the least unless he examines himself, sees his sins, acknowledgesthem, condemns himself for them, and repents by refraining from them. All this he must do as if ofhimself, but with acknowledgment from the heart that he does it from the Lord. Until this is donethe things that have been mentioned above do not help at all, for they are either meritorious orhypocritical. (DP 121)The sins . . . [people] must refrain from and must shun and turn away from are chiefly adulteries,frauds, illicit gains, hatreds, revenges, lies, blasphemies, and [self adulation in general]. . . . (AE803)If . . . someone in his boyhood and youth . . . [does] a certain evil from the enjoyment of his love,like fraud or blasphemy or revenge or whoredom, as these things have been done from freedom inaccordance with his thought, he has appropriated them to himself. If he afterwards repents of them,shuns them, and looks upon them as sins that must be hated, and thus refrains from them fromfreedom in accordance with reason, then the good things to which those evils are opposed are appro-priated to him. These goods then constitute the center and remove the evils toward the circumfer-ences further and further, to the extent that he loathes and turns away from them. Nevertheless, theycannot be so cast out as to be said to be extirpated, although by such removal they may appear to be. . . [so] . . . This is true both of all a person’s inherited evil and of all his actual evil. (DP 79)Sins cannot be taken away from a a person except by actual repentance, which consists in his seeinghis sins, imploring the Lord’s help, and desisting from them (Doct. Lord 17)All the good a person has thought and done from infancy even to the last of his life, remains. In likemanner all the evil, so that not the least of it completely perishes. Both are inscribed on his book oflife . . . on . . . his memories, and on his nature, that is, his native disposition and genius. From thesehe has formed for himself a life, and so to speak a soul, which after death is of a correspondingquality. But goods are never so commingled with evils, nor evils with goods, that they cannot beseparated. If they should be commingled, the person would eternally perish. In relation to this theLord exercises His providence, and when a person comes into the other life, if he has lived in thegood of love and of charity, the Lord then separates his evils, and by what is good with him elevateshim into heaven. But if he has lived in evils, . . . contrary to love and charity, the Lord then separatesfrom him what is good, and his evils bring him into hell. Such is the lot of everyone after death. (AC2256)

Part II

The Source of Life

The topics treated in Part I, “The Nature of Life,” namely Freedom, Order, Use, Charity, Civil Af-fairs, Morality, Marriage, Wisdom, Religion, and Evil all relate primarily to a person’s everyday liferather than to things which look beyond natural existence.But no theology, no way of life which considers all potential eventualities including possible life afterdeath, can avoid reference to transcendent concepts. Every theology requires metaphysical explana-tions for the great questions of a person’s origin, nature, and destiny. Although Emanuel Swedenborgbelieved that reason and rationality characterized life, he did not imply that all things could be under-stood merely by the exercise of reason based upon sense impressions. To the contrary, such effortsalone could never lead to wisdom. He said that the ultimate meaning of life could only be understoodfrom revelations given by the divine creator. Consequently, Swedenborg’s concept of life containsmuch that deals with the abstruse. The seven topics which follow present the basic aspects of hismetaphysics, although a variety of more recondite teachings might easily have been added.

Revelation

Swedenborg, as has been noted, believed implicitly in two worlds, the natural and the spiritual. Heoften writes of the connection between the natural and spiritual worlds; the word of God serves to linkheaven and earth. In Swedenborg’s view, God has always communicated with mankind and usuallyhas done so in written form to enable people to study and reflect on necessary truths of life. TheSwedenborgian view postulates the necessity of God revealing himself to mankind continuously.

It is believed in the world that people are able to know from the light of nature, thus without revela-tion, many things that belong to religion, as that there is a God, that He is to be worshiped, and alsothat He is to be loved, likewise that people will live after death, and many other things that dependupon self-intelligence. But . . . of themselves, and without revelation, people know nothing whateverabout Divine things, and about the things that belong to heavenly and spiritual life.People are born into the evils of the love of self and of the world, which are of such a nature thatthey shut out the influx from the heavens, and open influx from the hells. Such . . . make peopleblind, and incline them to deny that there is a Divine, that there is a heaven and a hell, and that thereis a life after death. This is very manifest from the learned in the world, who by means ofknowledges have carried the light of their nature above the light of others. It is known that thesedeny the Divine, and acknowledge nature in place of the Divine, more than others. Also that whenthey speak from the heart, and not from doctrine, they deny the life after death, likewise heaven andhell, consequently all things of faith, which they call bonds for the common people. (AC 8944)Without the Word no one would possess spiritual intelligence, which consists in having knowledgeof a God, of heaven and hell, and of a life after death. . . . (SS 114) It is through the Word that theLord is present with a person and is conjoined with him, for the Lord is the Word, and as it werespeaks with the person in it. The Lord is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is the Word. From this itis evident that the Lord is present with an individual and is at the same time conjoined with him,according to his understanding of the Word. According to this the person has truth and the deriva-tive faith, and also love and the derivative life. The Lord is indeed present with a person through thereading of the Word, but he is conjoined with him through the understanding of truth from the

Word. (SS 78)The Word is truth Divine itself, which teaches people that there is a God, that there is a heaven anda hell, and that there is a life after death, and which teaches besides how a person must live andbelieve in order that he may come into heaven, and thus, be eternally happy. Without revelation,thus on this earth without the Word, all these things would have been utterly unknown. . . . (AC9352)[It was] necessary that of the Lord’s Divine Providence some revelation should come into existence,for a revelation or Word is the general recipient vessel of spiritual and celestial things, thus conjoin-ing heaven and earth. Without it they would have been disjoined, and the human race would haveperished. Besides it is necessary that there should be heavenly truths somewhere, by which a personmay be instructed, because he was born for heavenly things, and, after the life of the body, ought tocome among those who are heavenly. The truths of faith are the laws of order in the kingdom inwhich he is to live forever. (AC 1775)The nations in every part of the earth have been in worship from some religion. . . . Religion cannotexist except by some revelation, and by the propagation thereof from nation to nation. (Cor 39)There was immediate revelation with the most ancient people on this earth. Therefore they had nowritten Word. But after their times, when immediate revelation could neither be given nor receivedwithout danger to their souls, lest the communication and conjunction of people with the heavensshould be intercepted and perish, it pleased the Lord to reveal Divine truth by means of the Word . .. (Word 27)The Word . . . [has] existed in all times, but not the Word which we have at this day. There . . .[was] another Word in the Most Ancient Church which was before the flood, and another Word inthe Ancient Church which was after the flood. Then came the Word written by Moses and theprophets in the Jewish Church. Lastly the Word . . . was written by the Evangelists in . . . the [Chris-tian] church. (AC 2895) From the most ancient times there has been religion, and the inhabitants ofthe world have had knowledge of God, and have known something about a life after death. . . fromthe ancient Word. [These knowledges came] . . . at a later period from the Israelitish Word. Fromthese two Words the things of religion . . . spread into the Indies and their islands, and throughEgypt and Ethiopia into the kingdoms of Africa, and from the maritime parts of Asia into Greece,and from thence into Italy. But as the Word could not he written in any other way than by means ofrepresentatives, which are such things in this world as correspond to heavenly things, and thereforesignify them, the things of religion among many of the nations were turned into idolatry. In Greece[they were turned] into fables, and the Divine attributes and predicates into so many gods, overwhom they set one supreme. . . . They had knowledge of Paradise, of the flood, of the sacred fire,and of the four ages, from the first or golden age to the last or iron age, by which are meant the fourstates of the church.. . . The Mohammedan religion, which came later. . . destroyed the formerreligions of many nations. [It] was taken from the Word of both Testaments. (SS 117)A person, like the earth, can produce nothing of good unless the knowledges of faith are first sownin him, whereby he may know what is to be believed and done. It is the office of the understandingto hear the Word, and of the will to do it. (AC 44)He who abstains from profaning the name of God, that is, the holiness of the Word, by contempt,rejection or any blasphemy, has religion. Such as his abstinence is such is his religion. No one hasreligion except from revelation, and . . , revelation is the Word. Abstinence from profaning theholiness of the Word must be from the heart, and not merely from the mouth. Those who abstainfrom the heart live from religion. But those who abstain merely from the mouth do not live fromreligion, for they abstain either for the sake of self or for the sake of the world, in that the Word canbe made to serve them as a means of acquiring honor and gain, or they abstain from some fear. Of

these, many are hypocrites who have no religion. (AE 963)No one can believe in and love a God whom he cannot comprehend under some form. Those whoacknowledge the incomprehensible, in their thought fall into nature, and thus believe in no God.Wherefore it pleased the Lord to be born . . . [on earth] to make this manifest by the Word, not onlyin order that it might become known on this globe, but that by this means it might also be mademanifest to all in the universe who come into heaven from any earth whatever. In heaven there is acommunication of all. (AC 9356)The Word is in all the heavens. it is read there as in the world and they preach from it, for it is theDivine truth from which the angels have intelligence and wisdom. Without the Word no one knowsanything of the Lord, of love and faith, of redemption, or of any other arcana of heavenly wisdom.Without the Word there would be no heaven, as without the Word, there would be no church in theworld, thus there would be no conjunction with the Lord. There is no such thing as natural theologywithout revelation, and in the Christian world without the Word. . . . If it cannot exist in the world,neither can it exist after death, for such as a person is as to his religion in the world, such he is as tohis religion after death when he becomes a spirit. The whole heaven does not consist of any angelscreated before the world, or with the world, but of those who have been people, and were theninteriorly angels. These through the Word come in heaven into spiritual wisdom, which is interiorwisdom, because the Word there is spiritual. (Word 30)

Life after Death

More than perhaps any other seer of history, Swedenborg details a life after death which consists ofreal experiences in a world in many basic ways quite similar to the natural world. Angels in heaven donot have an ethereal or ephemeral existence but enjoy an active life of service to others. They sleepand wake, love, breathe, eat, talk, read, work, recreate, and worship. They live a genuine life in a realspiritual body and world.Swedenborg goes into great detail describing the three main parts or states of the spiritual world -heaven, hell, and the world of spirits located between them. This world of spirits serves as a finalpreparation ground for a life to eternity in surroundings consistent with the ruling loves of the noviti-ate. Those whose dominant loves are good go to heaven while those who have chosen evil are led bytheir perverse loves to hell. There they are kept in external order and are as happy as their selfishnature permits them to be. They perform uses but, unlike the angels, from compulsion rather thandesire.

The angelic heaven is the end for which all things in the universe were created. It is the end onaccount of which the human race exists, and the human race is the end regarded in the creation ofthe visible heaven, and the earths included in it. . . The angelic heaven primarily has respect toinfinity and eternity, and therefore to its multiplication without end, for the Divine Himself dwellstherein. . . . The human race will never cease, for were it to cease, the Divine work would be limitedto a certain number, and thus its looking to infinity would perish. (LJ 13)Heaven does not consist of angels created such to begin with, nor does hell come from any devilcreated an angel of light and cast down from heaven. Both heaven and hell are from mankind,heaven consisting of those in the love of good and consequent understanding of truth and hell ofthose in the love of evil and consequent understanding of falsity. (DP 27)The Lord’s Divine influx does not stop midway but goes on to its outmosts. . . . The connection andconjunction of heaven with the human race is such that one has its permanent existence from theother. The human race apart from heaven would be like a chain without a hook; and heaven withoutthe human race would be like a house without a foundation. (HH 304)

Hell and heaven are near to a person, yea, in a person. Hell [is] in an evil person, and heaven in agood person. Everyone comes after death into that hell or into that heaven in which he has beenwhile in the world. (AC 8918) It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it iswithin him. . . . Unless heaven is within one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and bereceived. . . . If those that have lived wickedly come into heaven they gasp for breath and writheabout, like fishes out of water in the air, or like animals in ether in an air pump when the air hasbeen exhausted. (HH 54)Angels and spirits are entirely above or outside of nature, and are in their own world, which is underanother sun. Since in that world spaces are appearances . . . angels and spirits cannot be said to be inthe ether or in the stars. In fact, they are present with us, conjoined to the affection and thought ofour spirit. . . . The spiritual world is wherever we are, and in no wise away from us. In a word,everyone as regards the interiors of his mind is in that world, in the midst of spirits and angels thereand he thinks from its light and loves from its heat (DLW92)The universals of hell are three loves: the love of ruling from the love of self, the love of possessingthe goods of others from the love of the world, and scortatory love. The universals of heaven are thethree loves opposite to these: the love of ruling from the love of use, the love of possessing thegoods of the world from the love of performing uses by means of them, and love truly conjugial.(CL 261)A person’s spirit, which is his mind in his body, is in its entire form a human being. A person afterdeath is just as much a person as he was in the world, with this difference only, that he has cast offthe coverings that formed his body in the world. (DP 124)We are in this [natural] world in order to be initiated by our activities here into the things which areof heaven. Our life in this world is hardly a moment in comparison with our life after death, for thisis eternal. [Although] . . . there are few who believe that they will live [again] . . . we immediatelyafter death are in the other life. . . . Our life in this world is wholly continued there, and is of thesame quality as it had been in this world. This I can assert . . . for I have talked, after their decease,with almost all with whom I had been acquainted in the life of the body, and thus by living experi-ence it has been given me to know what lot awaits everyone, namely, a lot according to our life. . . .(AC 5006)The first state of a person after death resembles his state in the world, for he is then likewise inexternals, having a like face, like speech, and a like disposition, thus a like moral and civil life. . . .He is made aware that he is not still in the world only by giving attention to what he encounters, andfrom his having been told by the angels when he was resuscitated that he had become a spirit. Thusis one life continued into the other, and death is merely transition. (HH 493) This first state of aperson after death continues with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year,but seldom with any one beyond a year. (HH 498)The second state of a person after death is called the state of his interiors because he is then let intothe interiors of his mind . . . . [or] his will and thought. His exteriors, which he has been in duringhis first state, are laid asleep. (HH 499) When the spirit is in the state of his interiors it becomesclearly evident what the person was in himself when he was in the world, for at such times he actsfrom what is his own. He that had been in the world interiorly in good then acts rationally andwisely, and even more wisely than in the world, because he is released from connection with thebody, and thus from those earthly things that caused obscurity and interposed, as it were, a cloud.But he that was in evil in the world then acts foolishly and insanely, and even more insanely than inthe world, because he is free and under no restraint. (HH 505)The third state of a person after death . . . is a state of instruction. This state is for those who enterheaven and become angels. . . . Good spirits . . . are led from the second state into the third, which is

the state of their preparation for heaven by means of instruction. One can be prepared for heavenonly by means of knowledges of good and truth . . . since one can know what spiritual good andtruth are . . . only by being taught. [This third state] is not for those who enter hell, because such areincapable of being taught, and therefore their second state is also their third, ending in . . . [being]wholly turned to their own love, thus to that infernal society which is unlike love. (HH512)Spirits . . . possess far more exquisite sensations than during the life of the body. I know . . . [this] byexperience repeated thousands of times. Should any be unwilling to believe this, in consequence oftheir preconceived ideas concerning the nature of spirit, let them learn it by their own experiencewhen they come into the other life, where it will compel them to believe. . . . Spirits have sight, forthey live in the light, and good spirits, angelic spirits, and angels, in a light so great that the noondaylight of this world can hardly be compared to it.Spirits also have hearing, hearing so exquisite that the hearing of the body cannot be compared to it.. . . They have also the sense of smell. . . . They have a most exquisite sense of touch. . . . They havedesires and affections. . .Spirits think with much more clearness and distinctness than they had thought during their life in thebody. There are more things contained within a single idea of their thought than in a thousand of theideas they had possessed in this world. They speak together with so much acuteness, subtlety, sagac-ity, and distinctness, that if a person could perceive anything of it, it would excite his astonishment.In short, they possess everything that people possess, but in a more perfect manner, except the fleshand bones and the attendant imperfections. They acknowledge and perceive that even while theylived in the body it was the spirit that sensated, and that although the faculty of sensation manifesteditself in the body, still it was not of the body. . . . When the body is cast aside, the sensations are farmore exquisite and perfect. Life consists in the exercise of sensation, for without it there is no life,and such as is the faculty of sensation, such is the life. . . . (AC 322)People after death are as much human beings as they were before, so much so as to be unaware thatthey are not still in the former world. A person has sight, hearing and speech as in the former world.He walks, runs, and sits, as in the former world. He lies down, sleeps, and awakes, as in the formerworld. He eats and drinks as in the former world. He enjoys marriage delight as in the former world.In a word, he is human in each and every respect. . . Death is not the extinction but the continuationof life. (TCR 792)In the heavens there is no inequality of age, nor of rank, nor of wealth. As respects age, all there arein the bloom of youth, and remain in it to eternity. As to standing, all there regard others accordingto the uses they perform. The more eminent look upon those in lower standing as brethren, and donot put the dignity above the excellence of the use. . . . [And] . . . the Lord is Father of all. As re-gards wealth . . . this is there the gift of attaining wisdom; according to this, riches are given to themin sufficiency. (CL 250)Those that are in heaven are continually advancing towards the spring of life, with a greater advancetowards a more joyful and happy spring the more thousands of years they live. This [goes on] toeternity, with increase according to the growth and degree of their love, charity, and faith. Womenwho have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the Lord, in charity to theneighbor, and in happy marriage love with a husband, advance with the succession of years moreand more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty that transcends everyconception of any such beauty as is seen on the earth. Goodness and charity are what give this formand thus manifest their own likeness, causing the joy and beauty of charity to shine forth from everyleast particular of the face, and causing them to be the very forms of charity. . . .The form of charity . . . in heaven, is such that it is charity itself that both forms and is formed. This[is done] in such a manner that the whole angel is a charity. . . . This is both clearly seen and felt.

When this form is beheld it is beauty unspeakable, affecting with charity the very inmost life of themind. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. (HH 414)In heaven, as in the world, there are foods and drinks, there are festive meals and banquets. With theprincipal persons there are tables spread with sumptuous delicacies, with choice and deliciousviands, wherewith they are exhilarated and refreshed in spirit. There are also sports and exhibitions,and entertainments of music and song, and all these in the highest perfection. Such things give themjoys. . .There is a certain latent vein within the affection of the will of every angel which draws the mind onto do something. By this the mind tranquillizes and satisfies itself. This satisfaction and this tran-quillity induce a state of mind receptive of the love of use from the Lord. And from the reception ofthis comes heavenly happiness, which is the life of their joys. . . . Heavenly food in its essence isnothing else than love, wisdom, and use together. . . . Wherefore, in heaven, food for the body isgiven to everyone according to the use that he performs. . (CL 6)All who [go to heaven] . . . are prepared . . . in the world of spirits, which is in the midst betweenheaven and hell. After a certain time [they] desire heaven with a . . . longing, and presently theireyes are opened, and they see a way which leads to some society in heaven. They enter this way andascend, and in the ascent there is a gate, and a keeper there. The keeper opens the gate, and thusthey go in. Then an examiner meets them, who tells them from the governor, that they may enter instill further, and inquire whether there are any houses which they can recognize as their own, forthere is a new house for every novitiate angel. If they find any, they give notice of it and remainthere. But if they do not find any, they come back and say they have not seen any. Then they areexamined by a certain wise one there, to discover whether the light that is in them agrees with thelight of that society, and especially whether the heat does.The light of heaven in its essence is Divine truth, and the heat of heaven in its essence is Divinegood, both proceeding from the Lord as the sun there. If any other light and any other heat than thelight and heat of that society is in them, they are not received. . . . They depart thence, and go in theways which are opened among the societies in heaven, and this till they find a society which agreesin every respect with their affections, and here they take up their abode to eternity. They are hereamong their like, as among relations and friends whom, because they are in a similar affection, theylove from the heart. . . . They are in the enjoyment of their life, and in a fullness of bosom delightderived from peace of soul. There is in the heat and light of heaven an ineffable delight, which iscommunicated. Such is the case with those who become angels. (AR 611)As heaven is from the human race . . . angels, therefore, are of both sexes. From creation woman isfor man and man is for woman, thus the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both.(HH 366)A man is a man after death and a woman is a woman. . . . These two are so created that they ur-gently strive . . . for such conjunction that they may become one. . . As this conjunctive inclinationis inscribed upon all things, and upon every single thing of the male and of the female, it followsthat this inclination cannot be obliterated and die with the body. (CL 46) There are marriages inheaven as well as on the earth. But marriages in heaven differ widely from marriages on the earth.(HH 366)Those that have regarded adulteries as abominable, and have lived in a chaste love of marriage, aremore than all others in the order and form of heaven, and therefore in all beauty, and continueincreasingly in the flower of youth. The delights of their love are ineffable, and increase to eternity.(HH 489)Separations [of pairs married on earth] take place after death because the conjunctions formed onearth are seldom formed from any internal perception of love, but from an external perception

which hides the internal. An external perception of love has its cause and origin from such things aspertain to the love of the world and of the body. Wealth and large possessions especially are of thelove of the world. Dignities and honors are of the love of the body. Besides these there are variousseductive allurements, such as beauty, and a simulated propriety of manners, sometimes also un-chastity. Moreover, marriages are contracted within the district, city, or village of one’s birth orabode, where there is no choice but such as is restricted and limited to the families that are known,and within these limits, to such as are of corresponding station. It is for these reasons that marriagesentered into in the world are for the most part external, and not at the same time internal.Yet internal conjunction which is that of souls constitutes marriage itself. This conjunction is notperceivable until a person puts off the external and puts on the internal, which he does after death.Hence . . . separations then take place, and afterwards new conjunctions with those who are similarand homogeneous, unless these had been provided on earth, as they are in the case of those whofrom early youth . . . loved and desired and asked of the Lord a legitimate and lovely companionshipwith one, and . . . spurned and detested wandering lusts as an offense to their nostrils. (CL 49)A suitable wife is given to the man and a suitable husband to the woman. . . . No married partnerscan be received into heaven and remain there but such as are inwardly united, or as can be united, asinto one. . . . Two married partners are not called two but one angel. . . . That no other married pairsare received into heaven is because no others can live together there, that is be together in one houseand in one chamber and bed.In heaven all are consociated according to affinities and nearnesses of love, and according to thesethey have their abodes. In the spiritual world there are not spaces but appearances of space, andthese are according to the states of their life, and states of life are according to the states of love. Forthis reason no one there can dwell in any but his own house, which is provided and assigned to himaccording to the quality of his love. If he abides elsewhere he labors in. . . breathing. Nor can twolive together in the same house unless they are similitudes, and especially married partners cannot,unless they are mutual inclinations. If they are external inclinations and not at the same time inter-nal, the very house or very place separates, rejects, and expels them. . .Married partners enjoy similar intercourse with each other as in the world, only more delightful andblessed, but without prolification. In place of it, they have spiritual prolification, which is of loveand wisdom. The reason why married partners enjoy similar intercourse as in the world is that themale is a male and the female is a female after death, and in both an inclination to conjunction isinherent by creation. This inclination in people is of their spirit and thence of the body. Thereforeafter death when people become spirits the same mutual inclination continues, and this cannot bewithout similar intercourse. . . . (CL 50-51) The way is constantly open for the effects; they arenever lacking when they have desire, since without these their love would be like the channel of afountain stopped up. The effect opens that channel and causes continuance and conjunction thatthey may become as one flesh. The vital of the husband adds itself to the vital of the wife and bindstogether. [Angels] . . . declare that the delights of the effects cannot be described in the expressionsof any language in the natural world, nor be thought of in any except spiritual ideas, and that eventhese do not exhaust them. (AE992)Heavenly joy . . . is the delight of doing something that is useful to ourselves and to others. Thedelight of use derives its essence from love and its existence from wisdom. The delight of usespringing from love by wisdom is the life and soul of . . heavenly joys. There are most joyous com-panionships in the heavens, which gladden the minds of angels, amuse their spirits, fill their bosomswith delight, and revive their bodies. But they enjoy these delights when they have performed theuses of their employments and occupations. (CL 5)In uses all the delights of heaven are brought together and are present, because uses are the goods of

love and charity in which angels are. Everyone has delights that are in accord with his uses, and inthe degree of his affection for use. (HH 402)The delight from good and the pleasantness from truth which cause blessedness in heaven, do notconsist in idleness, but in activity. In idleness, delight and pleasantness become undelight and un-pleasantness. But in activity, delight and pleasantness are permanent and constantly uplift, and causeblessedness. With those who are in heaven, activity consists in the performance of uses, which tothem is delight from good, and in relishing truths with the end of uses, which to them is pleasantnessfrom truth. (AC 6410)Some think that heaven consists in a life of ease, in which they are served by others. But . . . there isno possible happiness in being at rest as a means of happiness, for so everyone would wish to havethe happiness of others made tributary to his own happiness. When everyone wishes this, no onewould have happiness. Such a life would not be an active life, but an idle one, in which they wouldgrow torpid. . . .Angelic life consists in use, and in the goods of charity. The angels know no greater happiness thanin teaching and instructing the spirits that arrive from the world. [They delight] in being of serviceto people, controlling the evil spirits about them lest they pass the proper bounds and inspiring thepeople with good, and in raising up the dead to the life of eternity. . From all this they perceive morehappiness than can possibly be described. Thus are they images of the Lord; thus do they love theneighbor more than themselves; and for this reason heaven is heaven. Angelic happiness is in use,from use, and according to use. . . . When those who have the idea that heavenly joy consists inliving at ease, idly breathing in eternal joy, have heard these things, they are given to perceive, inorder to shame them, what such a life really is. They perceive that it is a most sad one, that it isdestructive of all joy, and that after a short time they would loathe and nauseate it. (AC 454)There are in heaven more functions and services and occupations than can be enumerated. In theworld there are few in comparison. But however many there may be that are so employed, they areall in the delight of their work and labor from a love of use, and no one from a love of self or ofgain. As all the necessaries of life are furnished them gratuitously they have no love of gain for thesake of a living. They are housed . . . ,clothed . . . , and fed gratuitously. Those that have lovedthemselves and the world more than use have no lot in heaven; for his love or affection remainswith everyone after his life in the world, and is not extirpated to eternity.In heaven everyone comes into his own occupation in accordance with correspondence, and thecorrespondence is not with the occupation but with the use of each occupation. . In heaven . . .employment or occupation corresponding to . . use is in much the same condition of life as . . . inthe world. What is spiritual and what is natural make one by correspondence. Yet there is thisdifference, that . . . [people] then come into an interior delight, because into spiritual life, which isan interior life, and therefore more receptive of heavenly blessedness. (HH 393-94)Heaven does not consist in being on high, but is wherever there is anyone who is in love and charity,or in whom is the Lord’s kingdom. Neither does it consist in desiring to be more eminent thanothers, for to desire to be greater than others is not heaven, but hell. (AC 450)Heaven is given to everyone in accordance with the things of faith and charity in him. Charity andfaith make heaven with everyone. . . The life which has heaven in it, is a life according to the truthsand goods of faith about which the person has been instructed. Unless these are the rules and princi-ples of his life, in vain does he look for heaven, no matter how he has lived. Without these truthsand goods a person is like a reed which is shaken by every wind, for he is bent by evils equally as bygoods. He has nothing of truth and good made firm within him, whereby he may be kept by theangels in truths and goods, and be withdrawn from the falsities and evils which the infernals arecontinually injecting. (AC 7197)

Heaven in itself is so full of delights that viewed in itself it is nothing else than blessedness anddelight. The Divine good that flows forth from the Lord’s Divine love is what makes heaven ingeneral and in particular with everyone there. The Divine love is a longing for the salvation of alland the happiness of all from inmosts and in fullness. Thus whether you say heaven or heavenly joyit is the same thing.The delights of heaven are both ineffable and innumerable. But he that is in the mere delight of thebody or of the flesh can have no knowledge of or belief in a single one of these innumerable de-lights. His interiors . . look away from heaven towards the world, thus backwards. He that is whollyin the delight of the body or of the flesh, or what is the same, in the love of self and of the world,has no sense of delight except in honor, in gain, and in the pleasures of the body and the senses.These so extinguish and suffocate the interior delights that belong to heaven as to destroy all beliefin them. (HH 397-98)The delight . . . in the love of doing what is good without any end of recompense, is the rewardwhich remains to eternity. Every affection of love remains inscribed on the life. Into this there isinsinuated by the Lord, heaven and eternal happiness. (AC 9984)Heaven is from the human race, both from those born within the church and from those born out ofit; thus it consists of all from the beginning . . . that have lived a good life. How great a multitude ofpeople there is in this entire world any one who knows anything about the divisions, the regions, andkingdoms of the earth may conclude. Whoever goes into a calculation will find that . . . thousands ofpeople die every day, . . . [and] myriads of millions every year, and this from the earliest times. . . .All of these after death have gone into the other world, . . . and they are constantly going into it. . . .In ancient times the number [entering heaven] was very great, because people then thought moreinteriorly and spiritually, and from such thought were in heavenly affection. In the following agesnot so many [entered heaven] because in the process of time people became more external andbegan to think more naturally, and from such thought to be in earthly affection. . . .The immensity of the heaven of the Lord is shown also by this, that all children, whether bornwithin the church or out of it, are adopted by the Lord and become angels. The number of theseamounts to a fourth or fifth part of the whole human race on the earth. Every child, wherever born,whether within the church or out of it, whether of pious or impious parents, is received by the Lordwhen it dies, and is brought up in heaven, and is taught and imbued with affections for good, andthrough these with knowledges of truth, in accordance with Divine order. As he becomes perfectedin intelligence and wisdom [he] is brought into heaven and becomes an angel. . . . From all this aconclusion may be formed of the multitude of angels of heaven. . Again, how immense the heavenof the Lord is can be seen from this, that all the planets visible to the eye in our solar system areearths, and moreover, that in the whole universe there are innumerable earths, all of them full ofinhabitants. (HH 415-17)The universal heaven represents one man, which is called the Grand Man. . . . The whole and everypart of a human being corresponds thereto. . . . The angels in heaven all appear in the human form.On the other hand, the evil spirits who are in hell, though from phantasy they appear to one anotherlike people, in the light of heaven appear as monsters, more dire and horrible according to the evil inwhich they are. Evil itself is contrary to order, and thus contrary to the human form. . . . (AC 4839)They who are in the Grand Man breathe freely when they are in the good of love. . . . Everyonewhen in his own heaven is in his life, and receives influx from the universal heaven, each personthere being a center of all the influxes, and therefore in the most perfect equilibrium. . . . The amaz-ing form of heaven . . . is from the Lord alone . . . [and contains] all variety. (AC 4225)All those are within the Grand Man who are in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor,and who do good to the neighbor from the heart according to the good that is in him, and who have

a conscience of what is just and equitable. . . But all those are outside the Grand Man who are inthe love of self and the love of the world and the derivative . . [lusts] and who do what is good solelyon account of the laws, and for the sake of their own honor and the world’s wealth and the conse-quent reputation. [They] are interiorly unmerciful and in hatred and revenge against the neighbor fortheir own and the world’s sake, and are delighted with the neighbor’s injury when he does not favorthem. These are in hell. (AC 4225)[People believe that] at the hour of death . . . faith . . . can get [one] into heaven no matter in whataffection he may have lived during the whole course of his life. . . . [While] everyone can be admit-ted into heaven, because heaven is denied by the Lord to no one, . . . whether they can live there,they can [only] know when admitted. Some who firmly believed that they could, have . . . beenadmitted. But as the life there is that of love to the Lord and of love toward the neighbor . on cominginto it they began to be distressed. Not being able to breathe in such a sphere . . . they began toperceive the filthiness of their affections, thus to feel infernal torment. In consequence of this theycast themselves headlong down, saying that they desired to be far away, and marveling that this washeaven which to them was hell. . . . They who are in the delight of the affections of evil and falsitycan by no means be among those who are in the delight of the affection of good and truth. Thesedelights are opposite to each other, as are heaven and hell. (AC 3938) To the extent that someoneloves self and the world and looks to self and the world in everything, he alienates himself from theDivine and separates himself from heaven. (HH860)Before the evil are condemned and let down into hell they undergo . . . many states. . . . It is be-lieved that people are at once either condemned or saved, and that this is effected without anyprocess. But the case is otherwise. Justice reigns . . [in the world of spirits] and no one is con-demned until he himself knows, and is inwardly convinced, that he is in evil, and that it is utterlyimpossible for him to be in heaven. His own evils are . . . laid open to him. . .He is also warned to desist from evil. But . . . he cannot do this because of the dominion of evil. . . .Finally condemnation follows and the letting down into hell. This takes place when he comes intothe evil of his life. (AC 7795)In hell as in heaven, there is a form of government. . There is rule, and there is subordination, with-out which society would have no coherence. But the subordinations in heaven are wholly differentfrom the subordinations in hell. In heaven all are like equals, for one loves another as brother lovesbrother. Nevertheless one sets another before himself in proportion as he excels in intelligence andwisdom. The very love of good and truth causes everyone, as it were of himself, to subordinatehimself to those who are superior to him in the wisdom of good and the intelligence of truth. But . . .subordinations in hell are those of despotic authority, and consequently of severity. He who com-mands, rages fiercely against those who do not favor all his commands. Everyone regards another ashis enemy, although outwardly as a friend, for the sake of banding together against the violence ofothers. This banding together is like that of robbers. They who are subordinate continually aspire torule, and also frequently break forth in revolt, and then the conditions there are lamentable. . .There are seventies and cruelties. . . . (AC 7773)

The Origin, Nature, and Proper Destiny of People

Swedenborg has much to say regarding the origin, nature, and proper destiny of people. His philoso-phy of human nature postulates a divinely ordered soul as the essence of each individual human being.Each soul is destined for eternal happiness in heaven. Yet, each soul must first exist within an earthlybody. This combination of soul and body creates a unique human individual capable of receiving lifefrom God.

But a person is no mere animated puppet. He can exercise his freedom to accept or reject theinflowing life and love from the creator. If he chooses to accept he will eventually enter eternalhappiness in heaven. If he refuses to do so he is permitted to do what he pleases and direct himselftoward hell.The soul and body meet in the mind. The mind is the person himself shaped through the formativepower of the soul. Influx from God through heaven flows into the soul and from the soul into themind which in turn activates the body. To live a good life, according to Swedenborg, a person shouldlook to the Lord through service to the neighbor as the proper object of men’s useful pursuits. Such alife of use ends in fulfillment, and such a life, contrary to many religious dogmas, is not difficult tolead. On the other hand a life of evil centers upon the person’s own desires to the detriment of others.Conscience leads people to know what is right, but life includes temptations which may dull theconscience. Every person is prone to error, but each day brings fresh opportunities for the perform-ance of use as long as he lives. People can regenerate no matter what their previous life if they genu-inely repent and subordinate their own nature to divine order. Such regeneration turns people to theirproper destiny - a life of continuing happiness in use to all eternity.

Soul, Mind, and Body

Every individual consists [of] . . . the soul, the mind, and the body. His inmost is the soul . . . hisintermediate . . . the mind . . . and his last . . . the body. All that flows into a person from the Lordflows into his inmost which is the soul, and descends thence into his intermediate, which is themind, and through this into his last, which is the body. (CL 101)The soul acts in and into the body, not through it. The body acts of itself from the soul. The souldoes not act through the body, for the two do not consult and deliberate each with the other, nordoes the soul command or ask the body to do this or that, or to speak from its mouth. Neither doesthe body demand or beg the soul to give or supply anything. Everything that belongs to the soulbelongs also to the body, mutually and interchangeably. (TCR 154) The soul together with the body,although two, make a one. . . . (AC 2005)The soul is the inmost person; consequently, is the person from the head to the foot. (Inv. 13) It is afallacy . . . that the very living part of a person, . . . called the soul, is merely something ethereal, orflamy which is dissipated when the person dies. [It is a further fallacy] that it resides in the heart, orin the brain, or in some part of this, and from thence rules the body as if . . [the body] were a ma-chine. The internal man is in every part of the external man. The eye does not see from itself, northe ear hear from itself, but from the internal man. . . . (AG 5084)Everyone is judged according to the quality of his soul. The soul of a person is his life, for it is thelove of his will, and the love of everyone’s will is entirely according to his reception of the Divinetruth proceeding from the Lord. . . . (AR 871)The soul . . . is the human form. . . . It is the inmost form of all forms of the entire body. . . . In aword, the soul is the individual himself, because it is the inmost person. . . . Its form is the humanform, fully and perfectly, and yet it is not life, but the nearest receptacle of life from God. . . . (CL315)The delight of the soul is from love and wisdom from the Lord. As love is effective . . . throughwisdom, the seat of both is therefore in the effect, and the effect is use. This delight flows into thesoul from the Lord, and descends through the higher and the lower degrees of the mind into all thesenses of the body, and fills itself full in them. (CL 8)All the good a person has thought and done from infancy even to the last of his life, remains [withhim]. In like manner all the evil [remains with him] so that not the least of it completely perishes.Both are inscribed on his book of life . . . and on his nature. . . . From these he has formed for him-

self a life . . . .[or] soul, which after death is of a corresponding quality. (AC 2256)

The Nature of an Individual’s Mind

In every individual, both good and evil, there are two faculties, one of which constitutes the under-standing, and the other the will. . . Through these two faculties . . a person is a human being. (DP285) Someone is not a human being from his face, nor even from his speech, but from understand-ing and will. . . . When he is born he has nothing of understanding and nothing of will. . . . Hisunderstanding and . . . will are formed by degrees from infancy. From this a person becomes ahuman being. . . . The understanding is formed by means of truths, and the will by means of goods,insomuch that his understanding is nothing else than a composition of such things as bear relation totruths, and his will is nothing else than the affection of such things as are called goods. (AC 10298)People are born into no truth, but . . . have . . . to learn . [through] hearing and seeing. By this waytruth has to be insinuated, and implanted in their memory. But so long as the truth is . . . [in theirmemory] only, it is merely memory-knowledge. In order that truth may pervade the person it mustbe called forth thence, and be conveyed more toward the interiors. . . . Unless a person is rational, heis not a human being. Therefore according to the quality and the measure of a person’s rational,such is the quality and the measure of the person. A person cannot possibly be rational unless hepossesses good. The good whereby people surpass the animals, is to love God, and to love theneighbor; all human good is from this. Into this good, truth must be initiated and conjoined, and thisin the rational. Truth is initiated into good and conjoined with it when a person loves God and loveshis neighbor, for then truth enters into good. . . . (AC 3175)People possess a natural mind and a spiritual mind. The natural mind is below, and the spiritualmind above. The natural mind is the mind of a person’s world, and the spiritual mind is the mind ofhis heaven. The natural mind may be called the animal mind, and the spiritual mind the humanmind. People are discriminated from the animal by possessing a spiritual mind. By means of thismind we can be in heaven while still in the world. It is by means of this mind also that we live afterdeath. (Life 86)

Differences between People and Animals

A person is a human being solely from the will and understanding, by which he is distinguishedfrom brutes. In all other respects he is very similar to them. (AC 594) There are in people from theLord two capacities whereby they are distinguished from beasts. One of these is the ability to under-stand what is true and what is good; this is called rationality, and is a capacity of their understand-ing. The other is an ability to do what is . . . good; this is called freedom, and is a capacity of theirwill. People by virtue of their rationality are able to think whatever they please, either with oragainst God, either with or against the neighbor. They are also able to will and to do what theythink. When they see evil and fear punishment, they are able, by virtue of their freedom, to abstainfrom doing it. By virtue of these two capacities man is a human being, and is distinguished frombeasts. People have these two capacities from the Lord, and they are from Him every moment. . . .They [are never] taken away, for if they were, a person’s humanness would perish. In these twocapacities the Lord is with every person, good and evil alike. They are the Lord’s abode in thehuman race. From this it is that all people live forever, both the good and evil. But the Lord’s abodein people is nearer as . . . a person opens the higher degrees [of his mind] for by the opening of thesea person comes into higher degrees of love and wisdom, thus nearer to the Lord. From this it can beseen that as these degrees are opened, a person is in the Lord and the Lord in him. (DLW 240)

The souls of brutes are such that they cannot do otherwise than look downward, thus to earthlythings alone, and therefore can be adjoined solely to such things. They perish together with thebody. The ends are what show the quality of the life which a person has, and the quality of the lifewhich beasts have. People are able to have spiritual and heavenly ends. They may see them, ac-knowledge them, believe them, and be affected with them, whereas beasts can have no other thannatural ends. Thus people are able to be in the Divine sphere of ends and uses which is in heavenand which constitutes heaven. But beasts cannot be in any other sphere than that of earthly ends anduses. (AC 3646)Certain animals seem to have prudence and cunning, connubial love, friendship and seeming char-ity, probity and benevolence, in a word, a morality the same as with people. For example, dogs,from a genius innate in them, know how to act as faithful guards as if from their own nature. Fromthe transpiration of their master’s affection they know as it were his will. They search him out byperceiving the scent of his footsteps and clothes. They know the different quarters and find theirway home, even through pathless regions and dense forests. . . The sensual person concludes that adog has knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. . . . (AE 1198) [But this is not the case.]Let no one believe that a person is a human being from his possession of a natural human face,body, brain, . . . organs and members. All these are common to him with brute animals and thereforethese are what die and become a carcass. A person is a human being from being able to think andwill as a person, and thus to receive what is Divine. . . . By this people distinguish themselves frombeasts and wild animals. In the other life also their quality as a human being is determined by whatthey have received from the Lord and made their own in the life of the body. (AC 4219)

Influx the Key to Life

A person is not life, but an organ recipient of life from God. . (I 13) The life of everyone, whether aperson, spirit or angel flows in solely from the Lord. [He] . . . is essential life, and diffuses Himselfthrough the universal heaven, and even through hell. . . . But the life which flows in is received byeveryone according to his prevailing principle. Good and truth are received as good and truth by thegood. [They] are received as evil and falsity by the wicked, and are even changed into evil andfalsity in them. This is comparatively as the light of the sun, which imparts itself to all objects onthe face of the earth, but is received according to the nature of each object, and becomes a beautifulcolor in beautiful forms, and of an ugly color in ugly forms. This is a mystery in the world, but in theother life nothing is more evident or better known. (AC 2888)From the Lord through the spiritual world into the subjects of the natural world there is a generalinflux and also a particular influx. . . . Animals of every kind are in the order of their nature, andtherefore into them there is general influx. . . They are born into all their faculties, and have no needto be introduced into them by any information. But people are not in their order . . . and thereforethey receive particular influx, that is, there are with them angels and spirits through whom the influxcomes. Unless these were with people, [a person] . . . would rush into every wickedness and wouldplunge in a moment into the deepest hell. (AC 5850)[From this particular influx] people can be elevated above nature, while the animal cannot. Peoplecan think analytically and rationally of the civil and moral things that are within nature, also of thespiritual and celestial things that are above nature. [Indeed] they can be so elevated into wisdom aseven to see God. (DLW 66)In every angel and also in every person there is an inmost or highest degree. . . into which the Divineof the Lord primarily... flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that follow inaccordance with the degrees of order. This inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of

the Lord to the angel or individual, and His veriest dwelling-place in them. It is by virtue of thisinmost or highest that a person is a human being, and is distinguished from irrational animals, forthese do not have it. From this it is that people, unlike the animals, are capable, in respect to all theirinteriors which pertain to their mind and disposition, of being raised up by the Lord to Himself, ofbelieving in the Lord, of being moved by . . . love to the Lord, and thereby beholding Him, and ofreceiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. Also, it is by virtue of this that peoplelive to eternity. (HH 39)

Love, the Essence of Life

A person is wholly such as is the ruling principle of his life. By this he is distinguished from others.According to this is formed his heaven if he is good, and his hell if he is evil. It is his veriest will,and thus the very being of his life, which cannot be changed after death. (AC 8858)There are three universal loves of which, from creation, every person is composed: the love of theneighbor which is also the love of performing uses; the love of the world which is also the love ofpossessing wealth; and the love of self which is also the love of ruling others. The love of theneighbor or the love of performing uses is a spiritual love. The love of the world which is also thelove of possessing wealth is a material love. Love of self or the love of ruling over others is a corpo-real love. A person is human when the love of the neighbor or the love of doing uses makes thehead, and the love of the world makes the body, and the love of self, the feet. But if the love of theworld forms the head, a person is not a human - other than as it were a humpback. When the love ofself makes the head, it is not someone standing on his feet but on his palms, with the head down-wards and the buttocks upwards. (CL 269)Love is the . . . essence of a person’s life, and . . . thought is the . . . existence of his life therefrom.Speech and action therefore, which flow forth from thought, do not flow really from the thought, butfrom the love by the thought. . . . People after death are not their own thought, but are their ownaffection and the thought therefrom. They are their own love and intelligence thence. After deathpeople put off everything that does not accord with their love. They successively put on the face,tone of voice, speech, gesture, and manner of their life’s love. Hence it is that the universal heavenis arranged in order according to all the varieties of the affections of the love of good. The universalhell [is disposed] according to all the affections of the love of evil. (CL 36)

The Good Life

Good works are all the things someone does, writes, preaches, and even speaks, not from self butfrom the Lord. He acts, writes, preaches, and speaks from the Lord when he is living according tothe laws of his religion. The laws of . . . religion are that one God is to be worshiped, that adulteries,thefts, murders, false witness, must be shunned, thus also frauds, unlawful gains, hatreds, revenge,lies, blasphemies, and many other things that are mentioned not alone in the Decalogue but every-where else in the Word, and are called sins against God and also abominations. When a personshuns these because they are opposed to the Word, and thence opposed to God, and because they arefrom hell, then that person . . . is . . . led by the Lord. So far as he is led by the Lord . . his works[are] good. He is then led to do goods and to speak truths for the sake of goods and for the sake oftruths, and not for the sake of self and the world. Uses are his enjoyments, and truths his delights.Moreover, he is daily taught by the Lord what he must do and what he must say, also what he mustpreach or what he must write. When evils are removed he is continually under the Lord’s guidanceand in enlightenment. Yet he is not led and taught immediately by any dictate, or by any perceptible

inspiration, but by an influx into his spiritual delight, from which he has perception according to thetruths of which his understanding consists. When he acts from this influx, he appears to be acting asif from himself, and yet he acknowledges in heart that it is from the Lord. (AE 825)One person excels another in the capacity to understand and perceive what is honorable in morallife, what is just in civil life, and what is good in spiritual life. The cause of this consists in theelevation of the thought to the things that pertain to heaven, whereby the thought is withdrawn fromthe external things of sense. They who think solely from the things of sense cannot see one whit ofwhat is honorable, just, and good, and therefore they trust to others and speak much from thememory, and thereby appear to themselves wiser than others. But they who are able to think abovethe things of sense . . . possess a greater capacity than others to understand and perceive, and thisaccording to the degree in which they view things from what is interior. (AC 6598)There are some who believe that to live the life that leads to heaven . . . is difficult, because theyhave been told that a person must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called thelusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They understand this to mean that theymust discard worldly things, which consist chiefly in riches and honors . . . [and] that they mustwalk continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life, and must spend their life inprayers and in reading the Word and pious books. Such is their idea of renouncing the world, andliving in the spirit and not in the flesh. . . . [But] those who renounce the world and live in the spiritin this manner acquire a sorrowful life that is not receptive of heavenly joy, since everyone’s lifecontinues the same after death. On the contrary, to receive the life of heaven a a person must . . .live in the world and engage in its business and employments, and by means of a moral and civil life. . . receive the spiritual life. In no other way can the spiritual life be formed in people, or their spirit[be] prepared for heaven. (HH 528)One person can live outwardly exactly as another, can grow rich, keep a plentiful table, dwell in anelegant house and wear fine clothing according to his condition and function, can enjoy delights andgratifications, and engage in worldly affairs for the sake of his occupation and business and for thelife both of the mind and body, provided he inwardly acknowledges the Divine and wishes well tothe neighbor. . . . To enter upon the way to heaven is not so difficult as many believe. The soledifficulty lies in being able to resist the love of self and the world, and to prevent their becomingdominant. . . . [They are] the source of all evils. (HH 359)Both the pious and the impious . . . , the just and the unjust . . . , the good and the evil, alike enjoydignities and possessions, and yet . . . the impious and unjust . . . come into hell, while the pious andjust . . . come into heaven. Dignities and riches, or honors and possessions are both blessings andcurses. [They are] blessings to the good and curses to the evil. . . . In heaven there are both rich andpoor, and both great and small, and in hell also. . . . Dignities and riches were blessings in the worldto those now in heaven, and were curses in the world to those now in hell. . . . They are blessings tothose who do not set their hearts upon them, and curses to those who do set their hearts upon them.To set the heart upon them is to love oneself in them. Not to set the heart upon them is to love usesin them, and not self. (DP 217)

An Evil Life

People were so created that all that they will, think, and do appears to them just as if in themselvesand thus of themselves. Without this appearance people would not be human, for they could notreceive, retain, and . . . appropriate to themselves anything of good and truth, or of love and wisdom.. . . Without this . . . living appearance, people would have no conjunction with God, and thereforeno eternal life. But, if from this appearance, they induces on themselves the belief that they do will,

think, and . . do good of themselves, and not from the Lord . . . they . . turn good into evil withinthem, and . . makes in themselves the origin of evil. This was the sin of Adam. (CL 444)The love from which deeds are done is either heavenly or infernal. . . . What is done from . . . [infer-nal] love, which is the love of self and the world, is done from a person himself, and everything thatis done from a person himself is . . . evil. A person regarded in himself, that is, in regard to what ishis own, is nothing but evil. (HH 484)A human being when born is, among all wild animals and beasts, the vilest creature living. When hegrows up and becomes his own master, if not hindered by outward bonds of the law, and bondswhich he imposes on himself for the purpose of gaining honor and wealth, he would rush into everycrime and not rest until he had subjugated all in the universe, and raked together the wealth of all. . .. [He would not] spare any but those who submitted to be his humble servants. Such is the nature ofevery individual. . . . Let the possibility and power be given, and the bonds be relaxed, and theywould rush on to the extent of their ability . . .[But] the Lord . . . rules over evil in a person and over hell with him. In order that the evil in aperson may be subjugated a person is regenerated by the Lord and endowed with a new will, whichis conscience, through which the Lord alone performs all good. These are points of faith: that peopleare nothing but evil, and that all good is from the Lord. (AC 987)

Conscience

The good and truth that inflow from the Lord actuate [the interior] conscience. . . . The exteriorconscience . . . [is actuated by] . . . what is [morally and civilly] just and equitable. . . . There is alsoan outermost plane which . . appears as conscience, but is not conscience; doing . . . what is just andequitable for the sake of self and the world . . [or] for the sake of one’s own honor or fame . . .[cannot be called true conscience.] These three planes . . . rule people.By means of the interior plane . . . the Lord rules those who have been regenerated. By means of theexterior plane the Lord rules those who have not yet been regenerated, but are being regenerated, ifnot in the life of the body yet, in the other life. But by means of the outermost plane, which [only]appears like conscience . . . the Lord rules all the rest, even the evil. Without [the restraints of thisplane the evil] would rush into all wicked and insane things. (AC 4167)With the regenerate person there is joy when he acts according to conscience, and anxiety when heis forced to do or think contrary to it. It is not so with the unregenerate, for very many such peopledo not know what conscience is, much less what it is to do anything either according or contrary toit, but only what it is to do the things that favor their loves. This is what gives them joy, and whenthey do what is contrary to their loves, this is what gives them anxiety. With the regenerate personthere is a new will and a new understanding, and this new will and new understanding are his con-science. . . . Through this the Lord works the good of charity and the truth of faith. With an unregen-erate person there is not will, but . . . cupidity, and a consequent proneness to every evil. Neither isthere understanding, but mere reasoning and a consequent falling away to every falsity. With the . . .person [of conscience] there is celestial and spiritual life. With the . . . person [lacking conscience]there is only corporeal and worldly life. . . . (AC 977)

Temptations

Temptation is an assault upon the love in which [the] . . .person is, and the temptation is in the samedegree as is the love. If the love is not assaulted, there is no temptation. To destroy any one’s love isto destroy his very life, for the love is the life. (AC 1690)

Temptations . . . are the means by which evils and falsities are broken up and dispersed and bywhich horror of them is induced. . . . Conscience [is] given [and] . . . also strengthened thereby andso the person is regenerated. . . . (AC 1692)There are spiritual temptations, and there are natural temptations. Spiritual temptations belong tothe internal man, but natural ones to the external man. Spiritual temptations sometimes arise with-out natural temptations, sometimes with them. Natural temptations exist when a person suffers as tothe body, as to honors, as to wealth, in a word, as to the natural life, as is the case in diseases, mis-fortunes, persecutions, punishments, and the like. The anxieties which then arise, are what aremeant by “natural temptations.”[However] . . . , these temptations . . . [cannot be called genuine] but griefs. They arise from thewounding of the natural life, which is that of the love of self and of the world. The wicked aresometimes in these griefs, and they grieve and are tormented in proportion to the extent of their loveof self and of the world. . .Spiritual temptations belong to the internal man, and assault his spiritual life. In this case the anxie-ties are not on account of any loss of natural life, but on account of the loss of faith and charity, andconsequently of salvation. These temptations are frequently induced by means of natural tempta-tions, for if when an individual is . . . in disease, grief, the loss of wealth or honor, and the like, hebegins to think about the Lord’s aid then spiritual temptation is conjoined with natural temptation.(AC 8164) But spiritual temptations are little known at this day. Nor are they permitted to such adegree as formerly, because a person is not in the truth of faith, and would therefore succumb. (AC762)Every temptation is attended with some kind of despair and . . . consolation follows. He who istempted is brought into anxieties, which induce a state of despair as to what the end is to be. Thevery combat of temptation is nothing else. He who is sure of victory is not in anxiety, and thereforeis not in temptation. (AC 1787) No one undergoes temptations until he has arrived at adult age. (AC4248)When a person is in temptation he is as it were in hunger for good, and in thirst for truth. Thereforewhen he emerges he draws in good as a hungry person devours food, and receives truth as a thirstyperson imbibes drink. . . . After the obscurity and anxiety of temptations, brightness and gladnessappear. (AC 6829)

Regeneration

It is the unceasing effort of the Lord in His Divine providence to conjoin us to Himself and Himselfto us. This conjunction is what is called reformation and regeneration. By it we have salvation. (DP123)[Many] suppose that we can be regenerated without temptation, and some that we have been regen-erated when we have undergone one temptation. But . . . without temptation no one is regenerated,and . . . many temptations follow on, one after another. . . . Regeneration takes place to the end thatthe life of our old person may die, and the new heavenly life be insinuated. . . . There must . . . be afight, for the life of our old person resists, and is not willing to be extinguished, and the life of thenew man cannot enter except where the life of the old man has been extinguished. . . . There is afight on both sides, and this fight is a fiery one, because it is for life. . . .Very many kinds of evilhave made the delight of our former life. . . . it is impossible for all these evils to be suddenly andsimultaneously mastered, because they cling to us very firmly, having been rooted in parents fromtime immemorial, and consequently are innate in us. [They are also) confirmed in us from ourinfancy through our own actual evils. All these evils are diametrically opposite to the heavenly good

that is to be insinuated, and that is to make the new life. (AC 8403)Temptation is the beginning of regeneration. . . . All regeneration has for its end that we may receivenew life. (AC 848) We are born into evils of every kind, and consequently into falsities of everykind, thus of ourself we are condemned to hell. In order . . . that we may be rescued from hell, wemust be born again of the Lord. This being born again is what is called regeneration. In order . . .that we may be born again, we must first learn truths, and if we are of the church we must learnthem from the Word, or from doctrine derived from the Word. The Word and doctrine from theWord teach what is true and good, and truth and good teach what is false and evil. Unless we knowthese, we cannot possibly be regenerated, for we remain in our evils and their falsities, calling theformer goods, and the latter truths. . . . The knowledges of truth and good must precede, and mustenlighten our understanding. The understanding was given to us in order that it may be enlightenedby means of the knowledges of good and truth, to the end that these may be received by our will,and may become good.Truths become good when we will them, and from willing them do them. . . . Whether you say towill what is good, or to love what is good, it is the same. What we love we will. And whether yousay to understand the truth which is of good, or to believe it, it is also the same. . . . With the regen-erate person love and faith act as a one. This conjunction, or this marriage, is what is called thechurch, and heaven, and also the Lord’s kingdom. In the supreme sense [this conjunction is] theLord with us. (AC 10367)As we are formed, so are we perfected in intelligence and wisdom, and become human. No one ishuman from their natural mind; from that we are rather a beast. We become human through intelli-gence and wisdom from the Lord, and so far as we are intelligent and wise we are a beautiful humanand an angel of heaven. But so far as we reject, suffocate, and pervert the truths and goods of theWord . . . and . . . reject intelligence and wisdom, so far we are a monster and not human, becauseso far we are a devil. . . . (AE 790)God, in accordance with His laws, is able to remit sins to anyone only so far as we, in accordancewith his laws, refrains from them. God is able to regenerate us spiritually only so far as we, inaccordance with his laws regenerate ourselves naturally. God is in an unceasing endeavor to regen-erate us, and thus save us. But this He is unable to accomplish except as we prepare ourselves as areceptacle, and thus level the way and open the door for God. (TCR 73)A person who is being regenerated, is not deprived of the delight of the pleasures of the body andlower mind. He fully enjoys this delight after regeneration, and more fully than before, but in in-verse ratio. Before regeneration, the delight of pleasures was everything of his life. After regenera-tion the good of charity becomes everything of his life, and then the delight of pleasures serves as ameans. . . [or] ultimate plane, in which spiritual good with its happiness and blessedness terminates.(AC 8413)No one can ever say that he is regenerate unless he acknowledges and believes that charity is theprimary thing of his faith, and unless he is affected with love toward the neighbor, and has mercy onhim. (AC 989) Before he is regenerated a person cannot but think of reward; but it is otherwisewhen he has been regenerated. He is then indignant if any one thinks that he benefits his neighborfor the sake of reward, for he feels delight and blessedness in imparting benefits and not in recom-pense. (AC 8002) With the regenerate the internal man has the dominion, the external being obedi-ent and submissive. With the unregenerate the external man rules, the internal being quiescent, as ifit had no existence. The regenerate person knows . . . on reflection, what the internal man is, andwhat the external. Of these the unregenerate person is altogether ignorant, nor can he know themeven if he reflects, since he is unacquainted with the good and truth of faith originating in charity. . .. The regenerate, and . . . the unregenerate person . . . differ from each other like summer and win-

ter, and light and darkness. The regenerate is a living, but the unregenerate a dead person. (AC 977)The life before regeneration is according to the precepts of faith, but after regeneration it is accord-ing to the precepts of charity. Before regeneration no one knows from affection what charity is, butonly from doctrine. . . . After regeneration . . . he . . . loves his neighbor, and from the heart willsgood to him. He then lives according to a law that is written on him, for be acts from the affection ofcharity. This state is utterly different from the former state. They who are in the first state are inobscurity in respect to the truths and goods of faith, but they who are in the latter state are relativelyin clearness. (AC 8013)With one who is regenerated the order of life is reversed; from being natural he becomes spiritual. . .. The regenerate person acts from charity. Whatever belongs to his charity he makes to be of hisfaith also. Yet he becomes spiritual only so far as he is in truths. People are regenerated only bymeans of truths and a life in accordance with them. By means of truth we know what life is, and bymeans of life we do the truths, and thus we conjoin good and truth, which is the spiritual marriage inwhich heaven is. (DP 83)People know nothing of how they are being regenerated, and scarcely that they are being regener-ated. But if anyone is desirous to know this, let him merely attend to the ends which he proposes tohimself, and which he rarely discloses to anyone. If the ends are toward good . . . [and] he caresmore for his neighbor and the Lord than for himself, then he is in a state of regeneration. But if theends are toward evil . . . [and] he cares more for himself than for his neighbor and the Lord . . . he isin no state of regeneration. (AC 3570)There is no definite period of time within which a person’s regeneration is completed, so that he cansay, “I am now perfect.” There are illimitable states of evil and falsity with everyone, not onlysimple states but also states in many ways compounded, which must be so far shaken off as nolonger to appear. . . . In some states the person may be said to be more perfect, but in very manyothers not so. Those who have been regenerated in the life of the body and have lived in faith in theLord and in charity toward the neighbor, are continually being perfected in the other life. (AC 894)Everyone, while he is led by any love, and while following whithersoever it carries him, supposeshimself to be free, whereas it is the evil spirits in whose company . . . [or] torrent, he is, that arecarrying him away. This the man supposes to be the greatest freedom, so much so that he believesthat the loss of this state would bring him into a life most wretched, indeed into no life at all. Hebelieves this not merely because he is unaware of the existence of any other life, but also because heis under the impression that no one can come into heaven except through miseries, poverty, and theloss of pleasures. But this impression is false. . . . We never come into a state of [genuine] freedomuntil we have been regenerated, and are led by the Lord through love for what is good and true.When we are in this state, then for the first time can we know and perceive what freedom is, be-cause we then know what life is, and what the true delight of life is, and what happiness is. Beforethis we do not even know what good is, sometimes calling that the greatest good which is the great-est evil. (AC 892)A person’s regeneration in the world is . . . [the] plane for the perfecting of his life to eternity. (AC9334)

Proper Destiny of Mankind

We are born not for the sake of ourselves but for the sake of others . . . , to serve our fellow-citizens,society, our country, the church, and thus the Lord. He who does this provides well for himself toeternity. (TCR 406)There are four periods of life through which people pass from infancy to old age. The first is when a

person acts from others according to instructions, the second, when he acts from himself, under theguidance of the understanding, the third, when the will acts upon the understanding, and the under-standing regulates the will, and the fourth, when he acts from confirmed principle and deliberatepurpose. But these periods of life are the periods of the life of a person’s spirit, not in like manner ofhis body. The body can act morally and speak rationally while its spirit is willing and thinkingopposite things. That this is the nature of the natural man is obvious in the case of pretenders, flat-terers, liars, and hypocrites. These . . . enjoy a double mind . . . divided into two discordant . . .[parts]. It is otherwise with those who will rightly and think rationally, and consequently act rightlyand talk rationally. (TCR 443)To serve the Lord, by doing according to His commandments and thus by obeying Him, is not to bea servant but is to be free. The veriest freedom of people consists in being led of the Lord, becausethe Lord inspires into the very will of a person the good from which he is to act, and though it isfrom the Lord, still it is perceived as if it were from self, thus from freedom. This freedom is pos-sessed by all who are in the Lord, and it is conjoined with inexpressible happiness. (AC 8988)The Lord loves all, and from love wills good to all, and good is use. As the Lord does goods or usesmediately through the angels, and in the world through people, therefore to them that perform usesfaithfully He gives the love of use and its reward which is internal blessedness. This is eternalhappiness. (CL 7) No one enjoys affection or perception like another, they are never the same; norcan such ever be. Moreover, affections may be fructified and perceptions multiplied without end.Knowledge is inexhaustible. . . . (DP 57) People can . . . be perfected in knowledge, intelligence andwisdom to eternity. (CL 134) When . . . [we] are gifted with truths we are perfected in intelligenceand wisdom. When we are perfected in intelligence and wisdom we are blessed with happiness toeternity. (AC 5651)

Nature of the Universe

In Swedenborg’s view the spiritual and natural world form two interrelated parts of one creation. Thetwo result from the outflowing of divinely creative love and wisdom. They are so interdependent thatone cannot survive without the other.Creation looks to one end - a heaven peopled with spiritual beings who first established their eternalindividuality in the natural world. All earths have the same essential purpose and, therefore, endlessvarieties of the human race exist.On any one globe, everything material serves the uses of mankind in order that people in turn maybetter perform uses to other people. Such human service truly promotes the divine purpose in theuniverse.

There is a spiritual world, and also a natural world. . . The spiritual world is where spirits and angelsdwell; the natural world is where people dwell. . . . Natural things represent spiritual things and . . .they correspond. . . . What is natural cannot possibly come forth except from a cause prior to itself.Its cause is from what is spiritual. There is nothing natural which does not thence derive its cause.Natural forms are effects, nor can they appear as causes, still less as causes of causes, or beginnings.They receive their forms according to the use in the place where they are. . . . All natural thingsrepresent . . . the spiritual things to which they correspond. . (AC 2990-91) All things in the worldpresent some idea of the Lord’s kingdom, consequently of things celestial and spiritual. (AC 1409)God is love itself and wisdom itself. The affections of His love and the perceptions of His wisdomare infinite. All things that appear on earth are correspondences [of divine love and wisdom]. This isthe origin of birds, beasts, forest trees, fruit trees, crops and harvests, herbs and grasses. God is not

extended, and yet He is present throughout all extension, thus throughout the universe from its firststo its lasts. He being thus omnipresent, there are . . . correspondences of the affections of His loveand wisdom in the whole natural world. . . . [In] the spiritual world, there are like correspondenceswith those who are receiving affections and perceptions from God. . . [In the spiritual] world suchthings are created by God from moment to moment in accordance with the affections of the angels.In [the natural] world they were created in like manner in the beginning. But it was provided thatthey should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another, and creation be thuscontinued. In [the spiritual] world creation is from moment to moment, and in [the natural] contin-ued by propagation, because the atmospheres and earths of . . . [one] are spiritual, and the atmos-phere and earths of [the other] . natural. Natural things were created to clothe spiritual things as skinclothes the bodies of people and animals, as outer and inner barks clothe the trunks and branches oftrees, the several membranes clothe the brain, tunics the nerves, and the inner coats their fibers, andso on. (TCR 78)The created universe is a connected work, from love by wisdom. (I 5) All things in the world werecreated after the image of things that are in heaven, because natural things come forth from spiritualthings as effects from their causes. . . . Universal nature is a theater representative of the Lord’skingdom. (AC 8812)The relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. Degrees are of twokinds, those that are continuous and those that are not. Continuous degrees are related like thedegrees of the waning of light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decreaseof vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmospherefrom bottom to top. . . . On the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but discrete, are distin-guished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what is produced.. . . In each thing and all things in the whole world . . . there are such degrees of producing andcompounding. . . . (HH 38) Things which are in an interior degree are more perfect than those whichare in an exterior degree, and there is no likeness between them except through correspondences.(AC 10181)So full of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom is the universe in greatest and least, and in first and lastthings, that it may be said to be Divine Love and Divine Wisdom in an image. There is such corre-spondence of each and every thing that takes form in the created universe with each and everythingof an individual, that a person may be said to be a sort of universe. There is a correspondence of hisaffections, and thence of his thoughts, with all things of the animal kingdom, of his will, and thenceof his understanding, with all things of the vegetable kingdom, and of his outmost life with all thingsof the mineral kingdom.In . . . [the spiritual world] there are all things that take form in the natural world in its three king-doms, and they are correspondences of affections and thoughts. . . . (DLW 52)Previous to creation God was love itself and wisdom itself and the union of these two in the effort toaccomplish uses. Love and wisdom apart from use are only fleeting matters of reason, which flyaway if not applied to use. The first two, separated from the third, are like birds flying above a greatocean, which are at length exhausted by flying, and fall down and are drowned. The universe wascreated by God to give existence to uses . . . [And] maybe called a theater of uses. As people are thechief end of creation . . . each and all things belonging to order were brought together and concen-trated in us, to the end that through us God might accomplish primary uses. Love and wisdom apartfrom . . . use, may be likened to the sun’s heat and light which, if they did not operate upon people,animals, and vegetables, would be worthless things. By influx into and operation upon these theybecome real. (TCR 67)Creation commenced from the supreme or inmost, because from the Divine, and proceeded to

ultimates or extremes. . The ultimate of creation is the natural world, including the terraqueousglobe, with all things on it. When these were finished, then people were created, and into them werecollated all things of Divine order from firsts to lasts. . . . (LJ 9)There are many earths with inhabitants upon them. . . . Planets, some of which surpass this earth inmagnitude, are not empty masses, created only to course about the sun, and give light to one earth.Their use must be of greater eminence than this. He who believes, as everyone ought to believe, thatthe Divine created the universe for no other end than that the human race may arise, and a heaventherefrom . . . cannot but believe that there are people wherever there is any earth. The planetswhich are visible to our eyes, being within the boundaries of this solar system, are earths. . . . Theyare bodies of earthy material, because they reflect the sun’s light. Also . . they, like our earth, re-volve around the sun, and thereby make years and seasons of the year - spring, summer, autumn, andwinter - with variation according to climate. Likewise . . . they revolve upon their own axes like ourearth, and thereby make days and times of the day - morning, noon, evening, and night. . . . (AC6697)Each and all things of the universe were created by God. Hence the universe, with each and every-thing pertaining to it, is called in the Word the work of the hands of Jehovah. There are those whomaintain that the world, with everything it includes, was created out of nothing, and of that nothingan idea of absolute nothingness is entertained. From absolute nothingness, however, nothing is orcan be made. This is an established truth. The universe, therefore, which is God’s image and conse-quently full of God, could be created only in God from God. God is Esse itself, and from Esse mustbe whatever is. To create what is, from nothing which is not, is an utter contradiction. Still thatwhich is created in God from God, is not continuous from Him. God is Esse in itself, and in createdthings there is not any Esse in itself. If there were in created things any Esse in itself, this would becontinuous from God, and that which is Continuous from God is God. (DLW 55)There are two suns through which all things were created by the Lord, the sun of the spiritual worldand the sun of the natural world. . . . The universe and all things thereof were created by the Lord,the sun of the spiritual world serving as a medium, because that sun is the first proceeding of DivineLove and Divine Wisdom, and from Divine Love and Divine Wisdom all things are. In everythingcreated, greatest as well as least, there are . . . end, cause and effect. A created thing in which thesethree are not, is impossible. (DLW 153-54)The spiritual universe cannot exist without a natural universe wherein it can work out its effect anduses, so . . . a sun was created from which all natural things proceed, and through which in likemanner, by means of heat and light, . . . atmospheres were created. . . . By means of these atmos-pheres the terraqueous globe was created where people, beasts, fishes, trees, shrubs, and herbs wereformed of earthly substances, composed of soil, stones, and minerals. This is a very general outlineof creation and its progress. It would require many volumes to explain the particular and mostparticular things of it; yet all things point to the conclusion that God did not create the universe outof nothing, for . . . out of nothing, nothing comes. He created it by means of the sun of the angelicheaven, which is from His very Esse, and is therefore nothing but love joined with wisdom. That theuniverse, by which is meant both the spiritual world and the natural world, was created from theDivine love by means of the Divine wisdom is attested and proved by each thing and all things in it.(TCR 76)The end of all things of creation is that there can be an eternal conjunction of the Creator with thecreated universe. This is not possible unless there are subjects wherein His Divine can be as inItself, thus in which it can dwell and abide. . These subjects are people, who are able as of them-selves to elevate and conjoin themselves [to heaven]. . . . By means of this conjunction, the Lord ispresent in every work created by Him. (DLW 170)

All things that have been created in the world have been created for the use, . . . benefit, and . . .delight of people, some more nearly, some more remotely. Since . . . these things have been createdfor the sake of people, it follows that they are for the Lord’s service, who is . . . life with mankind.(DW xii) The world is a complex of uses existing in a successive order, looking to the human racefrom which is the angelic heaven as its end. . . How wonderful it is that the insignificant silkwormshould clothe with silk and magnificently adorn both women and men, from queens and kings tomaidservants and menservants, and that a petty insect like the bee should supply wax for the taperswhich make temples and palaces brilliant. (TCR 13) All things in the universe . . . are procreatedand formed from use, in use, and for use. (CL 183)People are the means by which the natural world and the spiritual world are conjoined. People arethe medium of conjunction, because in them there is a natural world and there is a spiritual world.To the extent that a person is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction, but to the extent that a aperson is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. (HH 112)He who knows not the arcana of heaven, may believe that angels subsist without people and peoplewithout angels. But . . no angel or spirit subsists without mankind, and no person without spirits andangels. There is a mutual and reciprocal conjunction. . . . The human race and the angelic heavenmake one, and mutually and reciprocally subsist from each other, and thus . . . the one cannot betaken away from the other. (LJ 9)Almost all who pass from this world into the other life suppose that hell is the same for everyone,and that heaven is the same for everyone. And yet in both there are endless diversities and varieties,and neither the heaven nor the hell of one person is ever exactly like another. . . . Everyone isformed by the harmony of many components, and . . . such as is the harmony, such is the one. . . .Thus every society in the heavens forms a one, and so do all the societies together [form] . . . theuniversal heaven, and this from the Lord alone, through love. (AC 457)In the created universe no two things can be found that are identical. . . . [Nor can] two effects . . .be found that are identical among things . . . in the world. . . . In human faces . . . throughout theentire world there can be found no one face that is precisely like . . . another, nor can there be toeternity. This infinite variety would be impossible except from an infinity in God the Creator. (TCR32)

Divine Providence

The subject of divine influence in human affairs has been debated by philosophers and theologiansthrough the centuries. Swedenborg, in keeping with the explicit character of his writings, goes toconsiderable length to spell out the details of the workings of Divine providence. For him, providenceworks in every general and particular happening. All events, no matter how minute, contribute to theeternal welfare of mankind.But since people would feel himself to be nothing if they perceived the workings of providence inadvance, the Lord provides that people do not see these workings “in the face” but merely sense them“in the back” after time has gone by. If people live prudent lifes yet do not place confidence in theirown prudence they will merge themselves with the stream of providence. Their life, while it will bemarked by the normal ebb and flow of human events will generally be directed well. Still they are freeto direct themselves otherwise, for the laws of providence provide always for a person’s continualfreedom. In Swedenborg’s view of life, an all-wise providence looks constantly to allowing eachindividual the power to seek his own happiness.

The activity of Divine providence to save mankind begins at birth and continues to the close of lifeand afterwards to eternity. . . . A heaven from people is the very purpose of the creation of the

universe. This purpose in its operation and progress is the Divine providence for the salvation ofpeople. All which is external to people and available to them for use is a secondary end in creation. .. . [Yet] . . . all [material things] constantly proceed according to laws of divine order fixed at thefirst of creation. [Since this is the case with the material world] how can the primary end, which isthe salvation of the human race, fail to proceed constantly according to laws of its order, which arethe laws of Divine providence?Observe just a fruit tree. It springs up first as a slender shoot from a tiny seed, grows gradually into astalk, spreads branches which become covered with leaves, and then puts forth flowers and bearsfruit in which it deposits fresh seed to provide for its perpetuation. This is also true of every shruband of every herb of the field. Do not each and all things in tree or shrub proceed constantly andwonderfully from purpose to purpose according to the laws of their order of things? Why would notthe supreme end, a heaven from the human race, proceed in similar fashion? Can there be anythingin its progress which does not proceed with all constancy according to the laws of Divine provi-dence? There is a correspondence of a person’s life with the growth of a tree. . . . (DP 332)The Divine omnipotence is in order, and . . . its government, which is called Providence, is in ac-cordance with order. It acts continually and to eternity in accordance with the laws of order. [Itcannot] . . . act against them or change them one iota, because order, with all its laws, is [God]Himself. (TCR 73)The Divine providence is Divine order with primary regard to the salvation of people. There is noorder possible without laws, for laws are what constitute order, and every law derives from orderthat it is order. . . . [As] God is order so is He the Law of His order. The same . . . [can] be said ofthe Divine providence, that as the Lord is His providence He is also the law of His providence. . . .The Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His providence, for to act contrary to them would be toact contrary to Himself. Again, there can be no operation except upon a subject and upon it throughmeans. . . . The subject of the Divine providence is people. The means are the Divine truths wherebypeople gain wisdom and the Divine good whereby they gain love. The Divine providence throughthese means works out its end, which is the salvation of people. . . . The operation of the Divineprovidence for the salvation of people begins at birth and continues until the end of life and after-wards to eternity. (DP 331)Unless a person were led every moment and fraction of a moment by the Lord he would depart fromthe way of reformation and would perish. Every change and variation of the state of the human mindproduces some change and variation in the series of things present, and consequently in the thingsthat follow. . . It is like an arrow shot from a bow, which, if it should depart in the least at its startfrom the line of aim, would at a distance of a thousand paces or more go far wide of the mark. Sowould it be if the Lord did not lead the states of human minds every least moment. This the Lorddoes in accordance with the laws of His Divine providence. It is in accordance with these laws thatit should appear to a person that he leads himself. How he leads himself is foreseen by the Lord withan unceasing adaptation. (DP 202)The Lord’s Divine providence is universal because it is in particulars, and . . . particular because it isuniversal. The Lord acts from inmosts and from outmosts simultaneously. . . . In this and in no otherway can all things and each thing be held together in connection. Intermediates are connected inunbroken series from inmosts even to outmosts, and in outmosts they are together. In the outmostthere is a simultaneous presence of all things from the first. . . . (DP 124)[God] from Himself governs order, not as is supposed in the universal only, but also in the veriestsingulars, for the universal comes from these. To speak of the universal, and to separate from it thesingulars, would be nothing else than to speak of a whole in which there are no parts, and thereforeto speak of a something in which there is nothing. To say the Lord’s Providence is universal, and is

not a Providence of the veriest singulars is to say what is utterly false. . . . To provide and govern inthe universal, and not in the veriest singulars, is to provide and govern absolutely nothing. This istrue philosophically, and yet wonderful to say, philosophers themselves, even those who soar thehighest, apprehend the matter differently. . . . (AC 1919)Unless the Lord’s Providence was in the veriest singulars, it would be impossible for anyone to besaved, or indeed to live, for life is from the Lord, and all the moments of life have a series of conse-quences to eternity. (AC 6490) The Divine foresight and providence are in everything, even the veryleast. Unless this was so . . . the human race would perish. (AC 5122)The Lord foresees . . . all things in both general and particular, and provides and disposes therefore,but some things from permission, some from sufferance, some from leave, some from good pleas-ure, some from will. (AC 1755)The Divine Providence differs from all other leading and guidance in the fact that Providence con-tinually regards what is eternal, and continually leads unto salvation . . . through various states,sometimes glad, sometimes sorrowful, which the person cannot possibly comprehend. Still they areall profitable to his eternal life. (AC 8560) When the Lord is with any one, He leads him, and pro-vides that all things which happen, whether sad or joyful, befall him for good. This is the Divineprovidence. (AC 6303)The Divine providence proceeds so secretly that people can see scarcely a trace of it, and yet it isactive in the most minute particulars relating to us from infancy to old age in the world, and after-wards to eternity. In each one of these it is the eternal that is regarded. As the Divine wisdom is initself nothing but an end, so providence acts from an end, in an end, and to an end. The end is thatwe may become wisdom and . . . love, and thus a dwelling place and an image of the Divine life.(AE 1135)It is the constant aim of Divine providence to unite good to truth and truth to good in people, for sothey are united to the Lord. (DP 21) The Lord’s Divine providence continually operates in order thattruth may be united in a person with good and good with truth, because that union is the church andheaven. That union is in the Lord and in all that proceeds from Him. From that union, heaven andthe church are called a marriage, and the kingdom of God is likened in the Word to a marriage. (DP21)It is a law of Divine providence that people shall act from freedom according to reason. (DP 71) TheLord leads everyone by means of his affections, and thus bends him by a tacit providence, for Heleads him through freedom, (AC 4364) It is a [further] law of . . . providence that people shall notperceive or feel any of the activity of [the] Divine . . . , and yet should know and acknowledgeprovidence. (DP 175) The Lord by His providence continually leads people in freedom, and thefreedom always appears to a person to be that which is his own. To lead people in freedom in oppo-sition to themselves, is like raising a heavy and resisting weight from the earth by means of screws,through the power of which the weight and resistance are not felt. It is [also] like someone in com-pany of an enemy who intends to kill him, which at the time he does not know. A friend leads himaway by unknown paths, and afterwards discloses his enemy’s intention. (DP 211)The Lord . . . foresaw that it would be impossible for any good to be rooted in a person except in hisfreedom, for whatever is not rooted in freedom is dissipated on the first approach of evil and temp-tation. The Lord also [foresaw] that a person of himself, or from his freedom, would incline towardthe deepest hell. Therefore the Lord provides that if a person should not suffer himself to be led infreedom to heaven, he may still be bent toward a milder hell. If he should suffer himself to be led infreedom to good, he may be led to heaven. This shows what foresight means, and what providence,and that what is foreseen is thus provided. . . . Every smallest moment of a person’s life involves aseries of consequences extending to eternity, each moment being as a new beginning to those which

follow. . . . As the Lord foresaw from eternity what would be a person’s quality . . . to eternity, . . .His providence is in the veriest singulars, and . . . governs and bends the individual . . . by a con-tinual moderating of his freedom. (AC 3854)People would run counter to God, and also deny Him, if they clearly saw the workings of . . . Divineprovidence, because people are in the enjoyment of self-love. That enjoyment constitutes their verylife. . . . If . . . anyone had a perception of being continually led away from his enjoyment he wouldbe enraged as against one who wished to destroy his life, and would regard him as an enemy. Toprevent this the Lord does not manifestly appear in His Divine providence, but by it He leads peopleas silently as a hidden current or favoring tide bears a vessel. (DP 186)It is granted people to see the Divine providence in the back and not in the face [and] also to see itin a spiritual state and not in their natural state. To see the Divine providence in the back and not inthe face is to see it after it occurs and not before. To see it from a spiritual, and not from a naturalstate, is to see it from heaven and not from the world. (DP 187)It is a law of Divine providence that people shall not be compelled by external means to think andwill, thus to believe and love what pertains to religion, but rather to bring themselves and at timescompel themselves to do so. (DP 129) No one is reformed by miracles and signs . . . nor by visionsor . . . communication with the dead, for they coerce. (DP 130, 134) If we perceived or felt theactivity of Divine providence we would not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anythingappear to be our own doing. It would be the same if we foreknew events. . . . We would thus haveno selfhood and nothing could be imputed to us. In which case it would not matter if we did good orevil, and it would be immaterial whether we believed in God or were under the persuasion of hell.In a word, we would not be a human being. . . . We would have no liberty to act according to reasonand there would be no appearance of self-activity if we perceived or felt the activity of Divineprovidence, for if we did we would also be led by it. The Lord leads everyone by His Divine provi-dence and we only seemingly lead ourselves. . . . If, therefore, people had a lively perception orsense of being led, they would not be conscious of living life and would be moved to make soundsand act much like a graven image. If they were still conscious of living they would be led like onebound in manacles and fetters or like a yoked animal. Who does not see that people would have nofreedom then? And without freedom he would be without reason, for one thinks from and in free-dom. Whatever he does not so think seems to him to be not from himself but from someone else.Indeed if you consider this interiorly you will perceive that he would not possess thought, still lessreason. and hence would not be a human being.If . . . he knew the effect or the eventuality by divine prediction, his reason would become inactiveand with it his love. . . It is reason’s very enjoyment to envision with love the effect in thought, notafter it is attained but before it is, not in the present but as future. So a person has what is calledhope, which rises and declines in the reason as he beholds or awaits the event. The enjoyment isfulfilled in the event and then is forgotten along with thought about the event. The same thing wouldoccur with an event that was foreknown. The human mind dwells always in the trine called end,cause and effect. If one of these is lacking, the mind is not possessed of its life. An affection of thewill is the initiating end. The thought of the understanding is the efficient cause. Bodily action,utterance or external sensation is the effect from the end by means of the thought. . . . The humanmind is not possessed of its life when it is only in an affection of the will and in naught besides, orwhen it is only in an effect. The mind has no life from one of these separately, therefore, but fromthe three together. The life of the mind would diminish and depart if an event were foretold. (DI’176-178)As a knowledge of future events takes away the human itself, which is to act from freedom in ac-cordance with reason, a knowledge of the future is granted to no one. Nevertheless, everyone is

permitted to form conclusions about the future from the reason. In this the reason with all thatpertains to it is in its proper life. This is why we are not permitted to know what our lot will be afterdeath, or to know about any event until we are in it. If we knew this we would cease to think fromour interior self how we must act or must live in order to come into it. We would simply think fromour exterior self that we were coming into it. Such a state closes the interiors of our mind, in whichthe two faculties of our life, liberty and rationality, have their chief seat. (DP 179)Unless it seemed to us that we live of ourselves and thus think and will, speak and act of ourselves,we would not be human. Consequently, unless we could in our own prudence make the dispositionof all pertaining to our function and life, we could not be led and guided by Divine providence. Wewould be like someone who has his hands hanging limp, his mouth open, his eyes shut, holding hisbreath in expectation of influx. We would divest ourselves of the human which we have from theperception and sensation that we think, will, speak and act as if it were of ourselves. (DP 210)All power, prudence, intelligence, and wisdom are from the Lord. (AC 2694) [The] subject [ofDivine providence] falls with difficulty into the idea of anyone, and least of all into the idea of thosewho trust in their own prudence. They attribute to themselves all things that happen prosperously forthem. The rest they ascribe to fortune, or chance, and few to the Divine Providence. Thus theyattribute the things that happen to dead causes, and not to the living cause. (AC 8717) [Yet] rela-tively to the Divine Providence a person’s own sagacity is like . . [a] speck of dust in comparisonwith the universal atmosphere . . . which is relatively nothing and falls to the ground. . . Those whoattribute all things to their own sagacity are like those who wander in dark forests, not knowing theway out. . . . (AC 6485)Good from the Lord is with those who love the Lord above all things and the neighbor as them-selves. But good from people is with those who love themselves above all things and despise theneighbor in comparison with themselves. These are they who have care for the morrow, becausethey trust in themselves. The former are they who have no care for the morrow, because they trust inthe Lord. They who trust in the Lord continually receive good from Him. Whatsoever happens tothem whether it appears to be prosperous or not prosperous, is still good, because it conduces as ameans to their eternal happiness. But they who trust in themselves are continually drawing evil uponthemselves. Whatever happens to them, even if it appears to be prosperous and happy, is neverthe-less evil, and consequently conduces as a means to their eternal unhappiness. (AC 8480)They who are in the stream of Providence are . . . carried along toward everything that is happy,whatever may be the appearance of the means. Those are in the stream of Providence who put theirtrust in the Divine and attribute all things to Him. Those are not in the stream of Providence whotrust in themselves alone and attribute all things to themselves, because they are in the opposite, forthey take away Providence from the Divine, and claim it for themselves.In so far as anyone is in the stream of Providence, so far he is in a state of peace. In so far as any oneis in a state of peace from the good of faith, so far he is in the Divine Providence. These alone knowand believe that the Divine Providence of the Lord is in everything both in general and in particular,nay, is in the most minute things of all, and that the Divine Providence regards what is eternal. Butthey who are in the opposite are scarcely willing to hear Providence mentioned, for they ascribeeverything to their own sagacity. What they do not ascribe to this they ascribe to fortune or chance[and] some to fate, which they do not educe from the Divine, but from nature. They call thosesimple who do not attribute all things to themselves or to nature. (AC 8478)

The Divine

In Swedenborg’s view of life, the power of the Divine permeates every aspect of human existence.Preceding selections chosen for this presentation of the teachings of Swedenborg clearly show that nosubject, from the simple to the most abstract, can be presented without reference to the omnipotence,omniscience, and omnipresence of God.The passages which follow deal with some of the more difficult aspects of the concept of the Divine.Philosophers and theologians have often disagreed on such topics as the virgin birth, the glorification,the trinity, and the nature of God’s influx into the lives of people. Swedenborg avoids none of thesedifficult subjects and says, moreover, that proper understanding of the Divine must accompanyindividual and collective human progress.Religious leaders sometimes refer to these and related subjects as “mysteries of faith.” The decline ofreligious conviction in the twentieth-century world of science has doubtless been partly due to hesi-tancy and confusion surrounding these mysteries of faith.Yet as Emerson once said, “The religion which fears science dishonors God and commits suicide.”29

Swedenborg would agree. The entire spread of his theological teachings supports his contention thatGod’s new revelation permits all who so desire to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith.On no subject is this more evident than in Swedenborg’s commentaries on the Divine.

In the created universe nothing lives except God-Man, that is, the Lord. Neither is anything movedexcept by life from Him, nor has being except through the sun from Him. It is a truth, that in Godwe live, and move, and have our being. (DLW 301) The first of the church is the knowledge thatthere is a God, and that He is to be worshiped. His first quality to be known is that He created theuniverse, and that the created universe subsists from Him. (AC 6879)The idea of God constitutes the inmost of thought with all who have religion, for all things of reli-gion and all things of worship look to God. Since God, universally and in particular, is in all thingsof religion and of worship, without a proper idea of God no communication with the heavens ispossible. . . . In the spiritual world every nation has its place allotted in accordance with its people’sidea of God. In this idea, and in no other, is the idea of the Lord. A person’s state of life after deathis according to the idea of God in which he has become confirmed. . The denial of God, and, in theChristian world, the denial of the Divinity of the Lord, constitutes hell. (DLW 13)Interiorly . . . the idea of God enters into all things of the church, religion, and worship. Theologicalmatters have their residence above all others in the human mind, and the idea of God is in the su-preme place there. If this be false, all beneath it, in consequence of the principle from whence theyflow, must likewise be false or falsified. That which is supreme, being also the inmost, constitutesthe very essence of all that is derived from it. . . . (BE 40)God alone is Substance . . . itself, and therefore Esse itself. . . . From this source alone is the forma-tion of things. Many have seen this, because reason causes them to see it. Yet they have not dared toconfirm it, fearing lest they might thereby be led to think that the created universe is God, becausefrom God, or that nature is from itself, and consequently that the inmost of nature is what is calledGod. . . . Although many have seen that the formation of all things is from God alone and Out of hisEsse, yet they have not dared to go beyond their first thought on the subject, lest their understandingshould become entangled in a so-called Gordian knot, beyond the possibility of release. Such releasewould be impossible, because their thought of God, and of the creation of the universe by God, hasbeen in accordance with time and space, which are properties of nature. From nature no one canhave any perception of God and of the creation of the universe. But everyone whose understandingis in any interior light can have a perception of nature and of its creation out of God, because God is

not in time and space. . . . The Divine is not in space; the Divine apart from space fills all the spacesof the universe; . . . the Divine apart from time is in all time. . . . Although God has created theuniverse and all things thereof out of Himself, yet there is nothing whatever in the created universethat is God. (DLW 283)God is everywhere, within an individual as well as without. . . . (DLW 130) There is a universal[Divine] influx into the souls of people . . . [with the result that] in every person there is an internaldictate that there is a God and that He is one. (TCR 8-9)The eternity of God is not an eternity of time. As there was no time before the world was created, itis utterly vain to think about God in such [a] way. Moreover . . . the Divine from eternity . . . ab-stracted from all time, does not involve days, years, or ages but to God all these are present. . . . Goddid not create the world in time, but . . . times were introduced by God with creation. (TCR 31) Godin all time is without time, and in all space is without space. But nature in all time is in time, and inall space is in space. Nature is from God, not from eternity but in time . . . and at the same time withits space. (CL 328)Thought about one God opens heaven to a person, since there is but one God. On the other handthought about many gods closes heaven, since the idea of many gods destroys the idea of one God.Thought about the true God opens heaven, since heaven and everything belonging to it is from thetrue God. On the other hand thought about a false God closes heaven, since no other than the trueGod is acknowledged in heaven. Thought about God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Enlighteneropens heaven, for this is the trinity of the one and true God. Again, thought about God infinite,eternal, uncreate, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient opens heaven, for these are attributes ofthe essence of the one and true God. On the other hand thought about a living man as God, of a deadman as God, or of an idol as God closes heaven because they are not omniscient, omnipresent,omnipotent, uncreate, eternal and infinite. Creation . . . [and] redemption [were not] wrought bythem, nor is there enlightenment by them. (AE 1097)The individual who worships one God in whom is a Divine trinity, and who is thus one Person,becomes more and more a living and angelic person. [On the other hand] he who confirms himselfin a belief in a plurality of Gods from believing in a plurality of persons, gradually becomes like astatue with moveable joints, within which Satan stands and speaks through its artificial mouth.(TCR 23)In the Lord is the Trinity - the Divine Itself, the Divine Human, and the proceeding Divine Holy -and these are a One. (AC 3061) Before the world was created this Trinity was not. But after crea-tion, when God became incarnate, it was provided and brought about, and then in the Lord God theRedeemer and Savior Jesus Christ. In the Christian church . . . a Divine trinity existing before thecreation of the world is acknowledged. [Many Christians believe] that Jehovah God begat a Sonfrom eternity, and that the Holy Spirit then went forth from both, and that each of these three is byHimself or Singly God because each is one person subsisting of Himself. But as this is incomprehen-sible to all reason it is called a mystery, which can be penetrated only in this way - that these threehave one Divine essence, by which is meant eternity, immensity, omnipotence, and thus an equalDivinity, glory, and majesty. But . . . this trinity is a trinity of three Gods, and therefore in no sense aDivine trinity. . . . (TCR 170)A trinity of Persons was unknown in the Apostolic Church [but]. . . . At length people began to . . .[confuse the trinity]. This crime was committed by Anus and his followers. On this account a coun-cil was convoked by Constantine the Great at Nice, a city in Bithynia. In order to overthrow thepernicious heresy of Anus it was devised, decided upon, and ratified by the members of the councilthat there were from eternity three Divine persons, a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit, to each one ofwhom belonged personality, existence, and subsistence, by Himself and in Himself. [This council

also decided] that the second person, or the son, came down and took on a Human and wroughtredemption, and therefore His Human by a hypostatic union possesses Divinity, and through thatunion He has close relationship with God the Father. From that time heaps of abominable heresiesabout God and the person of Christ began to spring up from the earth. Antichrists began to rear theirheads and to divide God into three persons, and the Lord the Savior into two, thus destroying thetemple set up by the Lord through the apostles. . . . [Finally] not one stone was left upon another thatwas not thrown down. (TCR 174)That no other trinity than a trinity of Gods was understood by the members of the Nicene Council,from which the Athanasian Creed came forth like a posthumous birth, any one can see who reads itwith his eyes open. Not only was the trinity understood by them to be a trinity of Gods, it was sounderstood by the whole Christian world as well, for the reason that the whole Christian worldderives all its knowledge of God from that source, and everyone clings to a belief in its words. Iappeal to everyone, layman and clergyman, to titled masters and professors, consecrated bishops andarchbishops, purple-robed cardinals, and even the Roman pontiff himself, whether in the Christianworld today the trinity is understood to be anything else than a trinity of Gods. Let everyone of themconsult with himself and speak from the things that are in his mind. From the words of this univer-sally accepted doctrine respecting God this is as manifest and clear as water in a crystal goblet.[This doctrine also makes clear] that there are three persons, each one of whom is God and Lord,and further that according to Christian verity each person singly ought to be confessed or acknowl-edged to be God and Lord. But . . . the Catholic or Christian religion . . . forbids the saying or nam-ing three Gods and Lords. Thus verity and religion, or verity and faith, are not one thing but twothings, each contrary to the other. But lest all this should be exposed to ridicule before the wholeworld . . . [the council] added that there are not three Gods and Lords, but one God and Lord, forwho would not laugh at the idea of three Gods? Still does not everyone see the contradiction in thisaddition? (TCR 172)They who . . . come from the Christian Church into the other life have nearly all an idea of the Lordas being like any other man, not only separate from the Divine . . . but also separate from Jehovah,and what is more, separate even from the holy that proceeds from Him. They do indeed say “oneGod,” but still they think of three. They actually divide the Divine among three, for they distinguishit into persons, calling each God, and attribute to each a distinct property. Consequently it is said ofChristians in the other life that they worship three gods, because they think of three, however muchthey may say one. (AC 5256)The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three essentials of the one God, like soul, body, and opera-tion in a person. It seems to the human mind as if these three essentials are three persons. But . . .[be it] understood that the Divine of the Father, which constitutes the soul, and the Divine of theSon, which constitutes the body and the Divine of the Holy Spirit or the proceeding Divine, whichconstitutes the operation, are the three essentials of the one God. . . . God the Father is His Divine,the Son from the Father is His Divine, and the Holy Spirit from both is His Divine. As these are onein essence and one in mind they constitute one God. . . .From the trinity in every individual . . . who can fail to perceive the trinity in the Lord? In everyperson there is soul, body, and operation; so also in the Lord. . . . In the Lord the trinity is Divine,but in people it is human. (TCR 168-69) These three essentials, namely, soul, body, and operation,both were and are in the Lord God the Savior. His soul was from Jehovah the Father. . . . The Sonwhom Mary brought forth is the body to that Divine soul. In the mother’s womb nothing is furnishedexcept the body that has been conceived arid derived from the soul. . . . Operations constitute thethird essential, since these proceed from soul and body together, and what proceeds is of the sameessence as that which produces it. The three essentials, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Lord are

one, like soul, body and operation in a person. . . . (TCR 167)The essence of God consists of two things, love and wisdom. The essence of His love consists ofthree things, namely, to love others outside of Himself, to desire to be one with them and fromHimself to render them blessed. Because love and wisdom in God make one . . . the same threethings constitute the essence of His wisdom. Love desires these three things, and wisdom bringsthem forth. (TCR 43)By means of the truth proceeding from Himself the Lord directs all things down to the veriestsingulars, not as a king in the world, but as God in heaven and in the universe. A king in the worldexercises only a care over the whole, and his princes and officers a particular care. It is otherwisewith God, for God sees all things, and knows all things from eternity, and provides all things toeternity, and from Himself holds all things in their order. . . . The Lord has not only a care over thewhole, but also a particular and individual care of all things. . . . His disposing is immediate throughthe truth Divine from Himself, and is also mediate through heaven. (AC 8717)The influx which is from the Lord is the good of heavenly love, thus of love toward the neighbor. Inthis love the Lord is present, for He loves the universal human race, and desires to eternally saveevery member of it. As the good of this love is from Himself, He Himself is in it. He is present withthe individual who is in the good of this love. (AC 6495)All that proceeds from the Lord instantly pervades the universe. As it goes forth through degrees,and by continual mediations, it . . . passes on not only to animals but also beyond, to vegetables andminerals. (CL 397) The Lord’s presence is unceasing with everyone, both the evil and the good.Without His presence no one lives. But His coming is only to those who receive Him, who are suchas believe on Him and keep His commandments. The Lord’s unceasing presence causes people tobecome rational, and gives them the ability to become spiritual. (TCR 774)The salvation of mankind is the continuous operation of the Lord with people from the first ofinfancy even to the last of their life. This is a work purely Divine, and can never be given to anyoneelse. It is so Divine that it is at once the work of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Ourreformation and regeneration, thus our salvation, are all of the Lord’s Divine Providence. . . . (AR798)The Lord alone is to be worshiped. He who does not know how the case is with the worship of theLord, may believe that the Lord loves to be worshiped, and desires glory from us, just like wewould, who in order to be honored ourselves would give others what they ask for. He who so be-lieves has no knowledge of what love is, and still less of what love Divine is. Love Divine consistsin desiring worship and glory, not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of people and their salva-tion. He who worships the Lord and gives glory to the Lord is in humiliation. What is his own de-parts from the person who is in humiliation. In so far as this departs, so far the Divine is received.What is a person’s own, because it is evil and false, is that which alone obstructs the Divine. This isthe glory of the Lord, and the worship of Him is for the sake of this end. Glory for the sake of self isfrom the love of self. Heavenly love differs from the love of self as heaven differs from hell, andinfinitely more does the Divine love differ from it. (AC 10646)External worship . . . correspond[s] to internal when that which is the essential is in the worship.This essential is the adoration of the Lord from the heart. [This] . . . is by no means possible unlessthere is charity, or love to the neighbor. In charity or love toward the neighbor the Lord is present,and then He can be adored from the heart. Thus the adoration is from the Lord, for the Lord gives allthe ability and all the being in the adoration. It follows that such as is the charity in an individual,such is his adoration or worship. All worship is adoration, because the adoration of the Lord must bein it for it to be worship. (AC 1150)Everyone acknowledges God and is conjoined with Him according to the goodness of his life. All

who know something of religion can know God; from information or from the memory they canalso speak about God.. . Some may also think about Him from the understanding. But this onlybrings about presence, if a person does not live rightly, for despite it all he can turn away from Godand towards hell, and this takes place if he lives wickedly. Only those who live rightly can acknowl-edge God with the heart. These the Lord turns away from hell and towards Himself according to thegoodness of their life. (DP 326)The more nearly a person is conjoined with the Lord the wiser he becomes. . . . The more nearly aperson is conjoined with the Lord the happier he becomes. . . . The more nearly a person is con-joined with the Lord the more distinctly does he seem to himself as if he were his own, and the moreclearly does he recognize that he is the Lord’s. (DP 34, 37, 42)He that is led by the devil performs uses for the sake of self and the world. But he that is led by theLord performs uses for the sake of the Lord and heaven. All who shun evils as sins perform usesfrom the Lord, while all who do not shun evils as sins perform uses from the devil, since evil is thedevil, and use or good is the Lord. In this and in no other way is the difference recognized. In exter-nal form they appear alike, but in internal form they are wholly unlike. One is like gold withinwhich is dross, the other is like gold with pure gold within. One is like artificial fruit, which inexternal form appears like fruit from a tree, although it is colored wax containing within it dust orbitumen, while the other is like excellent fruit, pleasing in taste and smell, and containing seedswithin. (PP 215)No one can see God otherwise than from such things as are in himself. He who is in hatred sees Himfrom hatred. He who is in unmercifulness sees Him in unmercifulness. On the other hand, they whoare in charity and mercy see Him from, and thus in, charity and mercy. (AC 8819)To the individual who acknowledges that all things of his life are from the Lord, the Lord gives thedelight and blessedness of His love, so far as the person acknowledges this and performs uses. Whena person, by acknowledgment and by faith from love, as if from himself, ascribes to the Lord allthings of his life, the Lord in turn ascribes to a person the good of His life, which carries with itevery happiness and every blessedness. [He] also enables him to feel and perceive interiorly andexquisitely this good to be in himself as if it were his own, and the more exquisitely in proportion asa person from the heart wills that which he acknowledges by faith. The perception is then recipro-cal, for the perception that He is in a person and the person is in Him is grateful to the Lord, and theperception that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him is gratifying to the individual. Such is the unionof the Lord with people and of people with the Lord by means of love. (AE 1138)

The Two Advent’s

Few today, even among practicing Christians, find it easy to accept the idea that God came on earth inthe person of Christ. Moreover, the virgin birth of Jesus has been a major religious hurdle for nonbe-lievers, most of whom reject the idea out of hand. Swedenborg believed that Christ indeed was Godon earth. He further states that only such a divine advent could have restrained the then rising powerof evil in the world. Therefore, Swedenborgian theology rests upon acceptance of the central tenet ofChristianity.But the most unusual aspect of his view centers in Swedenborg’s quiet assurance that he was used asthe means by which God revealed Himself to mankind a second time. Unlike the first advent, whichrequired God’s personal presence, the second coming could be made through the human mind ofEmanuel Swedenborg. By the eighteenth century, the race had evolved to the point where a rationalexplanation of divine revelation was both possible and necessary. This claim has doubtless been thechief obstacle to a wider acceptance of Swedenborg’s theology. The somewhat questioning faith ofthe nineteenth century has given way to the widespread skepticism of the twentieth. In such a climate,

the Swedenborgian concept of two divine advents evokes scant support.Yet Emanuel Swedenborg’s sincere belief in his startling claim can scarcely be questioned and thetestimony of those who have studied Swedenborg, whether they became converts to his faith or not,indicates that his writings cannot be lightly dismissed. Further understanding of his second-adventclaim expands the meaning which Swedenborg has given to the divine nature of the coming of Jesus.

Jehovah God came down and took upon Him the Human for the purpose of reducing to order allthings in heaven and all things in the church. At that time the power of . . . hell prevailed over thepower of heaven, and upon earth the power of evil over that of good. In consequence a total damna-tion stood threatening at the door. This impending damnation Jehovah God removed by means ofHis Human, thus redeeming angels and people. . . . Without the Lord’s coming no one could havebeen saved. (TCR 121)The hells had increased to such a height because at the time when the Lord came into the world thewhole earth had completely alienated itself from God by idolatries and magic. The church whichhad existed among the children of Israel and afterwards with the Jews, had been utterly destroyed bythe falsification and adulteration of the Word. All these, both Jews and Gentiles, had, after death,streamed into the world of spirits, where at length their number was so increased and multiplied thatthey could be driven out only by a descent of God Himself and . . . [by] the strength of His Divinearm. (TCR 121)By a life of evil and consequent persuasions of falsity, the human race had become altogether per-verted. The lower things with mankind then began to dominate over the higher - natural things overthe spiritual - so that . . . the Lord could no longer flow in through heaven, and reduce them intoorder. There was a consequent necessity for the coming of the Lord into the world, that thereby Hemight put on the human, make it Divine, and by it restore order so that the universal heaven mighthave relation to Him as the Only Man and .correspond to Him alone. (AC 3637)About the time of the Lord’s coming the infernals would have occupied a large part of heaven. Bycoming into the world and making the Human in Himself Divine, the Lord . . . expel[led] them andcast them down into the hells, and thus deliver[ed] heaven from them, and . . . [gave] it for an inher-itance to those who would be of His spiritual kingdom. (AC 6306) Unless the Lord had come intothe world and opened the interior things of the Word, the communication with the heavens bymeans of the Word would have been broken. Then the human race on this earth would have per-ished, for people can think no truth and do no good except . . . through heaven from the Lord. TheWord . . . opens heaven. (AC 10276)[Many believe] . . . that the Father sent the Son to suffer the hardest things even to the death of thecross, and thus that by looking upon the passion and merit of the Son, He has mercy upon the humanrace. But . . . Jehovah does not have mercy by any looking upon the Son, for He is mercy itself. Thearcanum of the Lord’s coming into the world is that He united in Himself the Divine to the Humanand the Human to the Divine. [This] could not be done except through the most grievous things oftemptations. . . . By that union it became possible for salvation to reach the human race, in which nocelestial and spiritual, or even natural good any longer remained. . . . (AC 2854)Jehovah God could have entered upon and have accomplished such a work only by means of HisHuman. . . . One who is invisible cannot shake hands or converse with another until he becomesvisible. An angel or spirit could not interact with a a person, even if standing close to his body andbefore his face. Neither can any one’s soul converse with another or act with another except bymeans of his body. The sun with its light and heat can enter into people, beast or tree only by firstentering the air and operating through it. [It] can enter into a fish only by means of the water, sinceit must act through [the] element in which the subject resides. No one can scale a fish without a

knife, pluck a crow without fingers, or descend to the bottom of a lake without a diving-bell. In aword, any one thing must be adapted to another before it can communicate with it or operate with . .. or against it.The passion of the cross was the last temptation which the Lord . . . endured, and was the meanswhereby His Human was glorified. [His Human] . . . was united with the Divine of the Father; but itwas not redemption. There are two things for which the Lord came into the world and by means ofwhich He saved people and angels, namely, redemption and the glorification of His Human. Thesetwo are distinct from each other, yet in reference to salvation they make one. . . . The work of re-demption was . . . a combat against the hells, a subjugation of the hells and restoration of order inthe heavens.But glorification is the uniting of the Lord’s Human with the Divine of His Father. This was effectedgradually, and was completed through the passion of the cross. Everyone on his part ought to drawnear to God. As far as a person does draw near, God on His part enters into him. It is the same aswith a temple which first must be built. This is done by the hands of people. Afterwards it must bededicated, and finally prayer must be made for God to be present and there unite Himself with thechurch. The union itself was made complete through the passion of the cross, because that was thelast temptation endured by the Lord in the world. It is by means of temptations that conjunction iseffected. In temptations, apparently, a person is left to himself alone, although he is not. God is thenmost nearly present in a person’s inmosts and sustains him. When a person conquers in temptationhe is inmostly conjoined with God, as, in temptation, the Lord was inmostly united to God HisFather. . (TCR 126-27)It was not in respect to His Divine but in respect to His Human that the Lord suffered. Thereby aninmost and thus a complete union was effected. . . . These two things, redemption and the passion ofthe cross, must be seen to be distinct. Otherwise the human mind, like a vessel, strikes upon sand-banks or rocks and is lost, with pilot, captain, and crew together. It errs in all things pertaining tosalvation by the Lord. Without an idea of these two things as distinct, a person is as if in a dream,and sees imaginary things, and from these draws conclusions, supposing them to be real when yetthey are fantastic. . . . But although redemption and the passion of the cross are two distinct things,yet in reference to salvation they make one. It was by union with His Father, which was completedthrough the passion of the cross, that the Lord became the Redeemer to eternity. (TCR 126-27)[Many believe] . . . that the Lord as to His Human not only was, but still is, the son of Mary. But inthis the Christian world is under a delusion. It is true that He was the son of Mary, but not that Hestill is. By the acts of redemption He put off the human from the mother and put on a Human fromthe Father. This is why the Human of the Lord is Divine, and in Him God is Man and Man is God.(TCR 102)That there was with the Lord hereditary evil from the mother may cause surprise. . . . [Yet] nohuman being can possibly be born of another human being without thence deriving evil. But thehereditary evil derived from the father is one thing, and that from the mother is another. The heredi-tary evil from the father is more internal, and remains to eternity. It can not possibly be eradicated.But the Lord had not such evil, because He was born of Jehovah the Father, and thus as to internalswas Divine or Jehovah. The hereditary evil from the mother is of the external man. This did existwith the Lord.The Lord, born as are other people, . . . had infirmities as have other people. He derived hereditaryevil from the mother . . .[and] underwent temptation. No one can possibly be tempted who has noevil. It is the evil in an individual which tempts, and through which he is tempted. The Lord wastempted, and underwent temptations a thousandfold more grievous than anyone can ever endure. . . .(AC 1573)

In brief, the Lord from His earliest childhood up to the last hour of His life in the world, was as-saulted by all the hells, against which He continually fought, and subjugated and overcame them.This [was done] solely from love toward the whole human race. Because this love was not humanbut Divine, and because such as is the greatness of the love, such is that of the temptation, it may beseen how grievous the combats were, and how great the ferocity on the part of the hells. (AC 1690)The Lord glorified His Human . . . [and] united it to the Divine of the Father, . . . [or] to the Divinewhich was in Him from conception. [This was done] for the sake of rendering it possible for thehuman race to be united to God the Father in Him and through Him. (AR 618) When the Lord wasin the world He was in two states, called the state of exinanition and the state of glorification. Theprior state, which was the state of exinanition, is described in the Word in many places, especially inthe Psalms of David and also in the Prophets, and particularly in Isaiah (Chapter Liii.) where it issaid: - That He emptied His soul even unto death (verse 12). [This was a state of progress towardunion.] This same state was His state of humiliation before the Father; for in it He prayed to theFather. He says that He does the Father’s will, and ascribes to the Father all that He did and said.That he prayed to the Father is evident from . . . Matt. 26: 39, 44; Mark 1: 35; 6: 46; 14: 32-39; Luke5: 16; 6: 12; 22: 41- 44, John 27: 9, 15, 20. That He did the Father’s will [may be seen] in John 4:34; 5: 30. That He ascribed to the Father all that He did and said [appears in] John 8: 26-28; 12: 49,50; 14: 10. He even cried out upon the cross: - My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?(Matt. 27: 46; Mark 15: 34) Moreover, except for this state He could not have been crucified.But the state of glorification is . . . the state of union. He was in that state when He was transfiguredbefore His three disciples and also when He wrought miracles, and whenever He said that the Fatherand He are one, that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, and that all things of the Father areHis. When the union was complete . . . He had “power over all flesh” (John 17: 2), and “all power inheaven and on earth” (Matt. 28: 18), besides other things.These two states, of exinanition and of glorification, belonged to the Lord because there is no otherpossible way of attaining to union, this being in accordance with Divine order, which is immutable.The Divine order is that a person should set himself in order for the reception of God and preparehimself to be a receptacle and abode into which God may enter and in which, as in His temple, Godmay dwell. From himself a person must do this and yet must acknowledge that it is from God. Thishe must acknowledge because he does not feel the presence and operation of God, although God inclosest presence operates all the good of love and all the truth of faith in a person. Everyone . . mustprogress in accordance with this order, if from being natural he is to become spiritual.In like manner it was necessary for the Lord to progress, in order to make Divine His natural human.This is why He prayed to the Father, did the Father’s will, ascribed to Him all that He did and said,and why He exclaimed upon the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” In thisstate God seems to be absent. But after this state comes another, which is the state of conjunctionwith God, in which state a person acts as before, but now from God. But he does not now need, asbefore, to ascribe to God every good that he wills and does, and every truth that he thinks andspeaks, because this is written upon his heart, and thus is inwardly in all his actions and words. Inlike manner did the Lord unite Himself to His Father, and the Father to Himself. In a word, Heglorified His Human . . . [or] made it Divine, in the same manner in which He regenerates a person,[and] makes him spiritual. (TCR 104-5)Redemption itself was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and by meansof these a preparation for a new spiritual church. . . . At this day [1770] also the Lord is effecting aredemption, which began in 1757, together with a final judgment which was then accomplished.This redemption has been going on up to the present time, and for the reason that at this day is thesecond coming of the Lord. A new church is now to be established. This could not be done without

a previous subjugation of the hells and a restoration of order in the heavens. (TCR 115)[The Lord’s] second coming . . . is foretold through the Apocalypse, and in Matthew (24: 3, 30);Mark (13: 26), Luke (21: 27), Acts (1: 11), and elsewhere. . . . At the Lord’s first coming . . . [the]increase of the hells was the work of idolaters, magicians, and falsifiers of the Word. At His secondcoming it was the work of so-called Christians, both those who had imbibed naturalism, and thosewho had falsified the Word by confirmations of their fabulous faith in three Divine persons frometernity, and in the passion of the Lord as itself constituting redemption. . . (TCR 121)This second coming of the Lord is not a coming in person, but in the Word, which is from Him, andis Himself. (TCR 776) Because real Christianity is beginning to dawn, and a New Church meant bythe New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, is now being established by the Lord, wherein God the Fa-ther, Son, and Holy Spirit are acknowledged as one because in one Person, it has pleased the Lord toreveal the spiritual sense of the Word. (TCR 700)This second coming of the Lord is effected by means of a man to whom the Lord has manifestedHimself in person, and whom He has filled with His spirit, that He may teach the doctrines of theNew Church from the Lord by means of the Word. . He . . . [does] this by means of a man, who isable not only to receive these doctrines in his understanding but also to publish them by the press.The Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to this office. He afterwardopened the eyes of my spirit, . . . introduced me into the spiritual world, . . . granted me to see theheavens and the hells, . . to talk with angels and spirits, and this . . . continuously for several years. .. . From the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines ofthat church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word. (TCR 779)

Epilogue

The twentieth century cannot be said to be a religious era. While churches continue to enroll mem-bers, the number of nonbelievers increases far more rapidly. While some theologians - a Barth, aNiebuhr, a Pope Paul - gain worldwide acclaim, theological seminaries fall steadily behind seculargraduate schools in both the quantity and quality of their student bodies. While fundamentalist sectscontinue to insist upon a literal interpretation of the Bible, the vast majority of persons within andwithout the ranks of organized religion doubt the divine origin of biblical teachings and debate theexistence of God himself.The contradiction known as “Christian atheism” receives scholarly attention as the base of a newtheology. Christianity seems to be dissolving in a sea of confused skepticism. William Hamiltonfinds the modern theologian “alienated from the Bible, just as he is alienated from God and thechurch.”30 Apart from some psalmist poetry, a few, clear prophetic calls and some of the teachingsof Jesus, the Bible speaks with many tongues few of which appeal to the modern intellect. ThomasJ. Altizer argues that Christianity faces the “most profound crisis” of its existence because “God hasdied in our time, in our history, in our existence.” He concludes that “affirmation of the traditionalforms of faith” are mere escapes from the “brute realities of history.”31 In sum, as the same theolo-gian puts it, “On all sides theologians agree that we are now in some sense living in a post-Christianage.”32

Over the centuries, dogmas have grown up which encumber modern Christianity like a host ofbarnacles on a ship long at sea. Confusions abound over the nature of God the Father, the personal-

ity of Jesus, the place of the Holy Ghost, the workings of the Trinity, the possibility of the VirginBirth, the quality of the good life, the means by which sins are identified and forgiven, the processof death, the form and existence of life in another world. In an earlier time, perhaps a century and ahalf ago, few of the basic questions of life were raised by the average person. However, the intellec-tual currents of the nineteenth century - Darwinian evolution, Marxian materialism, Freudian psy-choanalytic theories - plus the impact of science and technology, undermined the basic assumptionsof the fundamentalist view of life. As recently as 1925, the old theology still found some support.But when William Jennings Bryan suffered the humiliating ridicule administered by ClarenceDarrow in the Scopes trial, literalist interpretations of the Bible ceased to have meaning and organ-ized religion has remained on the defensive ever since.Swedenborg would not be surprised at the religious trends of the modern era. Many of his adversejudgments on traditional Christianity sound remarkably current. For those interested, he sorts out thepolytheistic tangle of orthodox concepts of God, the process by which Christ’s human was madedivine, the idea that heaven and hell are not places but states, the causal relationship between thespiritual and natural worlds, the meaning of the Bible in both its exterior and interior messages.Readers will differ in their understanding of what he has to tell them. But few of those genuinelysearching for a more meaningful explanation of life, will fail to be impressed by the scope andpower of this eighteenth-century thinker’s attempt to “enter intellectually into the mysteries offaith.”33

AppendixAbbreviations

The standard American edition of Swedenborg’s theological writings is the thirty-volume set pub-lished by the Swedenborg Foundation, 320 N. Church Street, West Chester, PA 19380. TheSwedenborg Society, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH, England, also issues a standardedition from a somewhat different translation.Abbreviations used in the present volume are as follows:AC Arcana CoelestiaAE Apocalypse ExplainedAR Apocalypse RevealedBE Brief (Summary) ExpositionC Doctrine of CharityCan Canons of the New ChurchCL Conjugial LoveCor CoronisD.LoceDivine LoveDLW Divine Love and WisdomDP Divine ProvidenceD.Wis, Divine WisdomDoct. Lord Doctrine of the LordHH Heaven and HellI Interaction of the Soul and the BodyInv. Invitation to the New ChurchLJ Last JudgmentLJ Post. Last Judgment PosthumousLife Doctrine of LifeNJHD New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly DoctrineSS Doctrine of the Sacred ScriptureTCR True Christian ReligionWord Word of the Lord from Experience

All number references in the text refer to paragraphs, not pages, in conformity with Swedenborg’sown numbering system.

The Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg34

The casual reader may find Swedenborg’s theological writings to be somewhat overpowering. Thestandard American edition, published and distributed by the Swedenborg Foundation of West Ches-ter, PA, encompasses thirty volumes. The longest volume contains some 754 pages and the shortest293 pages. Most of the volumes are over 500 pages and average more than a quarter of a million

words per volume.This collection contains more than forty titles which vary in size from fragments and short pam-phlets to multivolume studies. These works are set off from Swedenborg’s earlier writings by identi-fication with his theological period, characterized by his accounts of transcendent spiritual experi-ences.The theological writings are seen best through type grouping rather than through listing in chrono-logical order. Dates refer to the years during which the study was written and not the years of firstpublication.

I. Bible Commentaries

(1) Arcana Coelestia: Or Heavenly Mysteries, 1747-1758, 12 vols.** 35

This study makes up more than a third of the total bulk of Swedenborg’s theological writings. Thebooks of Genesis and Exodus receive detailed phrase-by-phrase commentary, but reference is fre-quently made to many other books of both the Old and New Testaments. Swedenborg asserts that heexpounds the internal sense of the Bible accounts. The familiar Bible stories of the origin and earlydevelopment of mankind reveal, through what Swedenborg describes as the language of correspond-ences, basic divine teachings on such subjects as the life after death, relationships between thespiritual and natural worlds, human nature, marriage, regeneration, and religion. The historicalaccounts of the Old Testament have long proved to be difficult subjects for biblical scholars. Theyare obviously representative in nature but what do they represent? Swedenborg unfolds an impres-sive picture of a divine consistency through the entire sweep of Bible history.(2) Apocalypse Explained, 1757-1759, 6 vols.This work is a systematic exposition of the internal meaning of the book of Revelation. The natureof the Divine, the order of the heavens and the union of the Divine with the created world throughnew revelation emerge as the key teachings of this work. Like the Arcana, the Apocalypse Ex-plained sets forth internal meanings of many passages in the Bible in books other than Genesis.Exodus or Revelation, which are the only three books of the Bible which receive detailed, system-atic comment.(3) Apocalypse Revealed, 1764-1766, 2 volsThis commentary also supplies a consecutive exposition of the internal meaning of the book ofRevelation. However, it is much shorter, while covering the full length of Revelation including thefinal three chapters which the longer work does not treat. Apocalypse Explained seems to be anuncompleted, earlier rendition of the teachings presented in more concise form in ApocalypseRevealed. Apocalypse Revealed places stress on the effects of divine influx for the establishment ofa new Christian church on earth.

II. Teachings on Life

(1) Doctrine of Life, 1761-1763, 58 pp. **Doctrine of Life is the first of several basic studies on the proper relationship between people onearth. This work emphasizes the view that people can evolve toward a spiritual life after death onlyfrom the Lord, although the person acts as if of himself. Swedenborg argues for a correct under-standing of the teachings of the Decalogue. As people shun the evils listed in the Decalogue theycome into the opposite goods and thus turns themselves towards heaven.(2) Doctrine of Charity, 1764, 70 pp.This brief work questions the traditional, pietistic view of good works and speaks for a life of use tothe neighbor and to God. Through use to the neighbor - the faithful execution of the details of one’s

daily occupation coupled with thoughtful care for one’s family - one exercises charity in a broad,true sense.(3) Conjugial Love, 1767-1768, 525 pp.**The full title of this unusual work is The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love afterWhich Follow the Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love. The book treats of marriageand sex-morality and also of various perversions of marriage. Swedenborg asserts that true conjugiallove descends from the Lord into all humans. The male and female receive and apply this lovedifferently, the two receptions complementing each other. In a proper marriage husband and wifetogether learn the fullness of love through looking to the Lord and shunning selfishness. The de-lights of marriage are presented as the height of human delight. These delights include raisingchildren by which means the race is continued and heaven peopled.Conjugial Love is a high-minded work, but not an abstruse one. Many practical matters of therelationship between the sexes such as courtship, betrothal, jealousy, temptation, disaffection,sensuality, prudence, and courtesy are dealt with. This is a book of guidelines for spiritual livingwith much rational appeal. Eternal ideas are advocated as the only proper starting point for a happymarriage life, although problems posed by the power of the sensual are not ignored. The family, asthe basic unit of society, receives stress in Conjugial Love.

III. Works of Systematic Theology

(1) True Christian Religion, 1769-1771, 2 vols.**This study culminated Swedenborg’s many theological inquiries. Its subtitle, “Universal Theologyof the New Heaven and the New Church,” summarizes the Swedenborgian teaching that the Lordhas again vivified His church through newly revealed truths which have re-established harmony inthe spiritual world and engendered a new faith on earth. Aspects of theology, philosophy, and reli-gious ethics are all included in True Christian Religion.(2) Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763, 292pp.**In this work Swedenborg discusses the process of Creation. There are five basic subjects, the natureof God, the creation of the universe, the relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds, thediscrete and continuous degrees through which the two worlds function, and the form of the humanmind. Thus the work may properly be termed the metaphysics of Swedenborg’s theological writings.(3) Divine Providence, 1763-1764, 376 pp **This study picks up the basic themes of Divine Love and Wisdom and relates them to the humanindividual as the highest end of creation. The Lord governs his creation through Divine providence.To be in full harmony with Divine providence, the human will and the human understanding mustbe in accord with the order of creation. Providence looks to the preservation of this order althoughhuman free will may violate it. Students of Swedenborg’s theology believe that Divine Love andWisdom and Divine Providence are interrelated works which should be read consecutively.(4) New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, 1757-1758, 205 pp.**In this commentary, Swedenborg presents summaries of a number of doctrines developed in greaterlength in other theological writings. Many references to numbers in the Arcana make this a work tobe used in connection with the twelve-volume study.(5) Summary Exposition, 1768-1769, 103 pp. **This work is sometimes printed with the title “Brief Exposition.” It contrasts the teachings of Ro-man Catholicism, Protestantism, and Swedenborgianism. The contrast underscores basic differencesand argues for the establishment of a new faith. The work may be more important in Swedenborgiantheology than is sometimes realized. According to Swedenborg, the Lord commanded him to in-

scribe the book with the words “This Book is the [Second] Advent of the Lord.”(6) Interaction of the Soul and the Body, 1769, 38 pp. **This metaphysical tract discusses the relationship between the spiritual and the natural and themeans by which they are interconnected. Spiritual influx from the Lord interconnects the humansoul and body. The work also attempts to make the discrete differences between the spiritual andnatural worlds understandable.(7) White Horse, 1757-1758, 26 pp.**This work deals largely with the subject of divine revelation and a person’s need for it. Its titlecomes from Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation,36 the internal sense of which is discussed.(8) Doctrine of the Lord, 1761-1763, pp. **This important study presents teachings on the nature of the Lord. It explains the workings of thedivine trinity. It sets forth the fundamental Swedenborgian doctrine of God as a divinely humanperson, who ministers to the human race as both revealer and redeemer.(9) Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, 1761-1763, 94 pp. **In this work Swedenborg supplies support for the idea that the Christian Bible presents the word ofGod on earth, that it has an internal or spiritual sense, and that its teachings are necessary to main-tain human life.(10) Doctrine of Faith, 1761-1763, 58 pp. **Contrary to the common concept, “faith” to Swedenborg does not mean believing that which is notunderstood. Genuine faith is presented as an internal acknowledgment or perception of truth which,in the stream of providence, cannot properly be separated from charity. Faith alone and salvation byfaith are pointedly rejected.

IV. Topical Studies

(1) Heaven and Hell, 1757-1758, 455 pp. **This three-part work has probably attracted more attention than any other single volume fromSwedenborg’s (quill) pen. The middle section which should, perhaps, be read first, treats of theworld of spirits which is a transitory state between this world and heaven or hell. The human soulawakes in the world of spirits after death and there prepares for final entrance into either heaven orhell depending upon the quality of the life which the person lived in the natural world. Each indi-vidual determines his own fate by the free choices he makes during his natural life.The first part of Heaven and Hell describes the life of angels in heaven. Swedenborg’s presentationcontains much detail regarding the structure, organization, form and nature of heaven, as well as theheavenly mode of life. This emerges not as an ethereal existence of clouds and harps, but a life ofuse between real persons motivated by similar loves.The last section of the book describes hell as the perfect perversion of heaven and heavenly life.Yet, as revolting as are some of the descriptions, Swedenborg states that spirits who go there do sobecause their selfish loves, formed during their life on earth, cause them to find the unselfish love ofheaven oppressive. They are, furthermore, as adjusted in their life in hell as it is possible for them tobe and perform uses there although from compulsion rather than from desire.(2) Last Judgment, 1757-1758, 83 pp. **This book speaks against the concept of a divine judgment during some future rising of the dead.Instead, each individual after death, goes through a personal last judgment in the world of spirits. Inaddition, the entire world of spirits, according to Swedenborg’s account, underwent a last judgmentin the year 1757. Both spiritual and natural reorderings resulted.

(3) Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment, 1763, 43 pp. **This is a further exposition of the nature of the spiritual world and the judgment effected there in1757. It restates some of the material in the larger work titled Last Judgment noted above.(4) Earths in the Universe, 1756-1758, 105 pp. **Science still debates the question of life on other worlds but Swedenborg had no doubts that thehuman race was endlessly varied. He says that all terrestrial bodies were created to support humanlife of some kind and describes the life of spirits from a number of planets other than earth. Hebelieves that the most characteristic aspect of divine creation - infinite variety - is carried out in thevarieties of human existence. Each individual soul and earth is distinct from all others and each hasa proper place in the plan of creation.

V. Lesser Works

For purposes of presenting the entire list of Swedenborg’s theological writings the following lesserworks should be included. Quotations for this book have been selected primarily from the majorworks discussed above, but some comments from the writings listed below were also used.

(1) Summary Exposition of the Prophets and Psalms, 1759-1760, 311pp.This work presents the internal sense of these books of the Bible in outline form. Its condensednature renders it difficult to read, but students of Swedenborg’s theological writings find it useful inconjunction with other works of a more expositional type.(2) Divine Love, 1762-1763, 36 pp.This study explores the nature of love, which is said to be the very life of mankind. The Lord as thesource transmits love to all of creation which receives it and turns it into forms of use or perverts itfor evil purposes.(3) Divine Wisdom, 1763, 76 pp.In this commentary, Swedenborg focuses on people and the manner in which the human mindreceives love and wisdom from the Lord. He describes the will and the understanding and the vari-ous manifestations of these twin essentials of creation. This and the preceding work deal with thedeepest questions of life and are so complementary that they should be read together as a unit ofthought. Indeed, they have sometimes been published together under the title “Doctrine of Uses.”They are not to be confused with the larger work Divine Love and Wisdom discussed above, al-though they cover similar ground and may have been prepared as an early draft for it.(4) Canons of the New Church, 1769, 58 pp.The Canons here discussed contain the basic theology of the new faith mostly in outline form. Theyare similar in topical coverage to the opening chapters of True Christian Religion.(5) Invitation to the New Church, 1771, 22 pp.This short statement, apparently intended as an appendix to True Christian Religion centers oneternal truths which have been lost or distorted down through the centuries. People of good will arecalled to join in establishing a New Church on earth.(6) Athanasian Creed, 1760, 63pp.The creed of Athanasius and its implications for both the Christian and the New Church receiveattention. The creed while ambiguous, may be taken to mean a trinity of person and not of persons;which interpretation makes the creed true. The history of the creed in the Christian church, however,suggests that wrong conclusions have been drawn from it.(7) Coronis, 1771, 83pp.Also called the “Appendix to True Christian Religion,” Coronis treats of the history of mankind

with emphasis on the nature of the several religions which have characterized various civilizations.(8) Word of the Lord From Experience, 1761, 59pp.This incomplete work discusses the structure and organization of the Bible and the vital relationshipbetween written divine revelation and true religion. Some Swedenborg scholars regard it as a pre-liminary draft of Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture noted above.(9) Last Judgment (Posthumous), 1762, 102 pp.These extended notes describe events in the spiritual world which Swedenborg claims to havewitnessed. National groups and individual leaders receive comment.(10) On the Spiritual World, 1762, 36 pp.These miscellaneous comments on persons and national groups depict the spiritual world as quitesimilar to the natural in some geographical senses.(11) Concerning Marriage, 1767, 33 pp.This precursor to Conjugial Love, discussed above, contains some points not included in the largerstudy.(12) Spiritual Diary, 1747-1765, 5 vols.Swedenborg kept a journal of experiences during the years of his theological period. Accounts ofthe nature and inhabitants of the spiritual world run throughout this multivolume record. However,the diary also contains many comments on religious doctrines and principles, most of which aredeveloped more fully in other works, particularly the Arcana. The diary apparently servedSwedenborg as a storehouse of thoughts and impressions from which he drew in preparing hispublished works, in a manner similar to the way in which Emerson and others have made use ofpersonal journals.

VI. FragmentsThe following fragments also belong in the list of Swedenborg’s theological writings: (1) The Lord,1760, 11 pp.; (2) Precepts of the Decalogue, 1762, 4 pp.; (3) Conversations With Angels, 1766, 4pp.; (4) Five Memorable Relations, 1766, 10 pp.; (5) Indices of a Work on Conjugial Love, 1767, 5pp.; (6) Egyptian Hieroglyphics, 1769, 5 pp.; (7) Sketch of the Doctrine of the New Church, 1769, 6pp.; (8) Memorabilia for the True Christian Religion, 1770, 22. pp.; (9) A Sketch of the Ecclesiasti-cal History of the New Church, 1771, 2 pp.; (10) Nine Questions [on the Trinity], 1771, 6 pp.; (11)Consummation of the Age, 1771,7 pp.

A complete catalog of Swedenborg’s works and current price list will be sent free on request:SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION, INC.320 N. Church Street,West Chester, PA 19380.

Bibliographical Note

The Swedenborg Epic by Cyriel O. Sigstedt (New York: Bookman, 1952, 517 pp.) supplies the bestbiographical survey. Written from a pro-Swedenborg perspective, it is nevertheless scholarly, com-prehensive, and readable.Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic by Signe Toksvig (New Haven: Yale University Press,1948, 389 pp.) provides consistently critical insights by a scholarly skeptic.A Life of Swedenborg by George Trobridge (London: Warne & Co., 1912, 337 pp.), while older andless scholarly, has enjoyed wider circulation than either Sigstedt or Toksvig and still gives a rela-

tively accurate overview of Swedenborg’s life and works.

B. L. Tafel’s three volumes of Documents Concerning the Life and Character of EmanuelSwedenborg (London: Swedenborg Society, 1875-77) bring together a wide variety of primarysource material both by and about Swedenborg. Few of these documents have been published else-where and, in any case, most of the originals are in Latin or Swedish.

No comprehensive history of the various Swedenborgian sects has been written, but MargueriteBeck Block’s New Church in the New World (New York: Holt, 1932, 464 pp.) provides a perceptivesummary of major portions of the New Church story. Probably twothirds of Swedenborg’s followershave been residents of the Western hemisphere.

John Faulkner Potts created an indispensable tool for Swedenborg scholarship during a lifetime ofeffort in support of Swedenborg studies. His five-volume Swedenborg Concordance (London:Swedenborg Society, 1888 and 1948) makes it possible to approach the thirty-volume corpus ofSwedenborg’s theology from a variety of subject headings. Without this Concordance an almostunlimited amount of time would be required to survey even a few of Swedenborg’s teachings.

The comprehensive Bibliography of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg by James Hyde (London:Swedenborg Society, 1906, 742 pp.) is also useful, as is Arthur H. Searle’s General Index toSwedenborg’s Scripture Quotations (London: Swedenborg Society, 1954, 321 pp.)

Samuel M. Warren prepared the best of many previous Sweden-borg studies under the title A Com-pendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (London: Swedenborg Society, 1875-1954, 776 pp.) Those who find the volume in hand interesting may want to consult Warren forfurther insights. B. F. Barrett’s twelve brief volumes of The Swedenborg Library (Germantown, Pa.:Swedenborg Publishing Association, 1875-1881) illustrate Swedenborg’s teachings under majorsubject headings and employ felicitous translations. The editing and comment are particularlyeffective but, unfortunately, the volumes have long been out of print. Warren, Barrett and virtuallyeveryone of the some twenty other Swedenborgian compendiums were prepared essentially for useby persons already familiar with Swedenborg’s writings. Hopefully this new study will have a widerappeal.

Notes and References

1. Swedenborg's writings and various collateral materials are distributed by The SwedenborgFoundation, 320 N. Church Street, West Chester, PA 19380.2. R. W. Emerson, Representative Men (Boston: Houghton Muffin Co., 1980), pp. 102 - 103.3. Henry James Sr., Society the Redeemed Form of Man (Boston: Houghton Muffin Co., 1879),p. 138. Henry James Sr. also wrote: ". . . if intellectual power is to be measured by the measure oftruth possessed it would seem unaffectedly ludicrous, to any one acquainted with his writings, thatany other person in the intellectual history of the race should be named . . in the same day withhim."4. Interview in the New York American, October 7, 1911. See also Markham's hand-written notein the flyleaf of his copy of Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, Markham Collection, Wagner CollegeLibrary, Staten Island.5. Helen Keller, My Religion (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1968), pp. 17, 27, 28, 33.6. Letter to C. A. Beyer, November 14, 1769, in R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg(Swedenborg Society, London, 1875), II, 279 - 80.7. Swedenborg was a lad only eleven years old but entering upon university work at such an agewas not unusual for the time.8. Cyriel 0. Sigstedt, The Swedenborg Epic (New York: Bookman, 1952),p. 11.9. Tafel, Documents, 1, 511-15.10. George Gaylord Simpson and William S. Beck, Life (New York: Harcourt, 1965) pp. 827 - 28.11. In 1910, in celebration of its 100th anniversary, and the 200th anniversary of Swedenborg'sfirst trip to London, England, the Swedenborg Society of London sponsored an InternationalSwedenborg Congress. King Gustav V of Sweden was the honorary patron and delegates came fromall over the world. Swedenborg's contributions in science, philosophy and theology were treated inmore than forty scholarly papers by a variety of learned persons. The scientific papers were deliv-ered by some eminent twentieth-century scholars. See Transactions of the International SwedenborgCongress. (London: Swedenborg Society, 1912), 373 pp.12. O. M. Ramström, "Swedenhorg on the Cerebral Cortex as the Seat of Physical Activity,"International Swedenborg Congress, p. 56.13. Sigstedt, Swedenborg Epic, pp. 116-17, and footnotes 170 and 569.14. Swedenborg. The Animal Kingdom (Newbery: London, 1843; Reprinted Swedenborg Scien-tific Association: Bryn Athyn, Pa. 1960, I, 15.)15. Swedenborg's account as related to Carl Robsabm, a Stockholm banker and friend of theSwedenborg family. Tafel, Documents, I, 35-36.16. The contents of the individual theological works by Swedenborg are summarized in the Ap-pendix to this study.17. The many similar accounts of this incident and the two succeeding ones are synthesized andcited in Sigstedt, Swedenborg Epic, pp. 269-82.18. Testimony of Arvid Ferelius, Tafel, Documents, II, 560.19. The best account of the Gothenburg heresy trial is found in Sigstedt, Swedenborg Epic, chap.41.20. Tafel, Documents, I, 38-39.21. Johan Christian Cuno as quoted in Sigstedt, Swedenborg Epic, p. 415.

23. Tafel, Documents, II, 579-80, 557-58.24. Tafel, Documents, II, 578, 568-69.25. Arthur Conan Doyle, History of Spiritualism (New York: Doubleday, l926),p.22.26. Numbers do not refer to pages but to the subject paragraphs of Swedenborg's numberingsystem.27. Swedenborg consistently uses "Word" to refer to a somewhat shortened version of the Bible.In his view the Word of God was given to mankind in the Bible excepting only certain books whichdo not contain divine teachings throughout.28. Swedenborg's use of the spelling "conjugial" in preference to the more common "conjugal" isconsistent throughout his theological writings. Doubtless he sought to underscore his belief in thedistinctive quality of his teachings on marriage love.29. Bliss Perry, ed., Heart of Emerson's Journals (New York: Dover Publ, 1958), p. 48.30. William Hamilton, "Thursday's Child," in Radical Theology and the Death of God, pp. 89-90.31. Thomas J. Altizer, "Theology and the Death of God," Ibid., p. 95.32. Ibid., p. 9.33. Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion, No. 508.34. These comments on Swedenborg's theological writings owe much to the longer summary byWm. Cairns Henderson, New Church Life, Jan. - Oct., 1967, and to the excellent statement by FrankS. Rose, New Church Life, Oct. 1968, pp. 467 - 68, which argues for a somewhat different arrange-ment.35. Double-starred works were published by Swedenborg and the rest posthumously.38. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was calledFaithful and True, and in righteousness doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire,and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. Andthe armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white andclean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and heshall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath ofAlmighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, ANDLORD OF LORDS." Book of Revelation, Chapter 19, Verses 11 - 16