TCR 80 - thinking

TCR 80

. . . thinking sensually . . . blocks any ideas
from a more inward mode of thinking.

The Lord Is Hope

Out of the depth I cry to You, O Lord;
O Lord, hear my voice.
Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness;
therefore You are feared.

I wait for the Lord,
my soul waits,
and in His Word I put my hope.
. . . for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with Him is full redemption.

(Psalm 130:1-5,7)

TCR 78 - God's creations

TCR 78 [3]

God is love itself and wisdom itself,
and His love contains infinite affections,
and His wisdom infinite perceptions;
all the things to be seen upon earth
are correspondences of these affections and perceptions.
This is the origin of birds and animals,
trees and shrubs, crops and grain, plants and grasses.
For God has no extension,
but is everywhere in space;
so He fills the universe from first to last.
Because He is omnipresent,
there are such correspondences
of the affections of His love and wisdom
throughout the natural world.

His Statutes Last Forever

Hear my voice in accordance with Your love;
preserve my life, O Lord, according to Your laws.
Those who devise wicked schemes are near,
but they are far from Your law.
Yet You are near, O Lord,
and all Your commands are true.
Long ago I learned from Your statutes
that You established them to last forever.

(Psalm 119:149-152)

TCR 73 - the order of order

TCR 73 [2]

The omnipotent God created the world
from the order within Him,
that is, into the order in which He is,
and in accordance with which He rules;
and He impressed upon the universe
and each and all things of it its own order,
upon mankind his order,
upon the beast its order,
upon bird and fish and worm,
and every tree and even every blade of grass,
upon each its own order.

. . . The laws of order enjoined upon a person are,
that he should acquire for himself truths from the Word,
and reflect upon them naturally,
and as far as he can, rationally,
and thus acquire for himself a natural faith.

The laws of order on the part of God then are,
that He will draw near
and fill these truths with His Divine light,
and thus fill the person's natural faith
(which is mere knowledge and persuasion)
with a Divine essence.
In this and in no other way can faith become saving.
It is the same with charity.

Teach Me, O Lord

Teach me, O Lord, to follow Your decrees;
then I will keep them to the end.
Give me understanding,
and I will keep Your law
and obey it with all my heart.
Direct me in the path of Your commands,
for there I find delight.
Turn my heart toward Your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to Your Word.
Fulfill Your promise to Your servant,
so that You may be feared.
Take away the disgrace I dread,
for Your laws are good.
How I long for Your precepts!
Preserve my life in Your righteousness.

(Psalm 119:33-40)

TCR 71 - a few of the laws of order

TCR 71 [2,3]

God is Order itself.

He created man from order according to order
and to be subject to order.

A consequential law of order is therefore
that a person ought to enter into faith
by means of truths from the Word,
and into charity by means of good deeds,
and so reform and regenerate himself.

It is a law of order
that a person should by his own efforts and ability
cleanse himself from sins,
and not stand idly confident of his inability to act,
waiting for God to wipe away his sins in an instant.

It is also a law of order that a person
should love God with all his soul and all his heart,
and his neighbor as himself . . ..

It is a law of order too
that a person should by his efforts and ability
acquire for himself faith
by means of truths from the Word,
while believing that not a grain of faith
comes from himself,
but from God;
and that a person should by his efforts and ability
aim to justify himself,
but he is to believe
that not a jot of justification comes from himself,
but from God.

Holy and Awesome Is His Name

Praise the Lord.

I will extol the Lord with all my heart
in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

Great are the works of the Lord;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.
Glorious and majestic are His deeds,
and His righteousness endures forever.
He has caused His wonder to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
He provides for for those who fear Him;
He remembers His covenant forever.
He has shown His people the power of His works,
giving them the lands of other nations.
The works of His hands are faithful and just;
all His precepts are trustworthy.
They are steadfast forever and ever,
done in faithfulness and uprightness.
He provided redemption for His people;
He ordained His covenant forever --
holy and awesome is His name.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all who follow His precepts have good understanding.
To Him belongs eternal praise.

(Psalm 111)

TCR 59 - light

TCR 59
. . . in the Word,
every time light is mentioned,
wisdom is meant.

He Wraps Himself in Light

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

O Lord my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty.
He wraps himself in light
as with a garment;
He stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of His upper chambers
on their waters.
He makes the clouds His chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.

(Psalm 104:1-3)

TCR 50 - wisdom

TCR 50

The fact that God's omnipotence,
omniscience and omnipresence arise
through the wisdom of His love
is what is meant by the following passage from John:
 
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
All things were made through Him,
and without Him was nothing made which was made.
In Him was life,
and the life was the light of men;
and the world was made through Him;
and the Word was made flesh.
(John 1:1, 3, 4, 10, 14)

'Word' here means Divine Truth,
or, what comes to the same thing,
the Divine Wisdom.
That is why it is also called life and light;
for these are nothing but wisdom.

For the Lord Is the Great God

Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?
Unless the Lord had given me help,
I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.
When I said, "My foot is slipping,"
Your love, O Lord, supported me.
When anxiety was great within me,
Your consolation brought joy to my soul.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before Him with thanksgiving
and extol Him with music and song.
For the Lord is the great God,
and the great King above all gods.
In His hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to Him.
The sea is His, for He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
for He is our God
and we are the people of His pasture,
the flock under His care.

(Psalm 94:16-19; 95:1-7)

TCR 43 - the essence of God; TCR 48 - an image & likeness

TCR 43
The essence of God consists of two things,
love and wisdom;
while the essence of His love consists of three things,
namely, to love others outside of Himself,
to desire to be one with them,
and from Himself to render them blessed.
And because love and wisdom in God make one,
. . . the same three things
constitute the essence of His wisdom;
and love desires these three things,
and wisdom brings them forth. 


TCR 48 [7]
A person is a receptacle of God,
and a receptacle of God is an image of God;
and as God is love itself and wisdom itself,
a person is a receptacle of these;
and the receptacle becomes an image of God
in the measure in which it receives.
And a person is a likeness of God
from his feeling that the things that are from God
are in him as his own;
and yet from that likeness
he is only so far an image of God
as he acknowledges that love and wisdom,
or good and truth,
are not his own in him,
and are not from him,
but are solely in God,
and consequently from God.

The Lord Reigns

The Lord reigns,
He is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength.
The world is firmly established;
it cannot be moved.
Your throne was established long ago;
You are from all eternity.
The seas have lifted up, O Lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers on the sea -
the Lord on high is mighty.

Your statutes stand firm;
holiness adorns Your house for endless days,
O Lord.

(Psalm 93)

TCR 40 - the perils of thinking from the senses

TCR 40 [2]

Let everyone therefore beware of convincing himself
that he owes his life to himself,
or his intelligence, belief, love, perception of truth
or his willing and doing good.
In so far as he convinces himself of these ideas,
so far does he cast down
his mind earthwards from heaven,
and from being spiritual becomes natural,
influenced by the senses and the body.
For he thus shuts off the higher regions of his mind,
so that he becomes blinded to everything
which relates to God, heaven and the church.
Everything he may then think, reason and say
is mere foolishness, because he is in darkness;
yet at the same time he becomes confident
that these are the products of wisdom.
For when the higher regions of the mind,
the abode of the true light of life, are shut off,
the region of the mind below these,
which is illuminated only by the faint glimmer of the world,
is opened up.
This glimmer,
unsupported by the light of the higher regions,
is a misleading illumination,
in which falsities look like truths,
and truths like falsities;
reasoning from falsities looks like wisdom,
and from truths like madness.
Then a person believes himself to have
the keenness of sight of an eagle,
though he can see no more of wisdom
than a bat in daytime.

Righteousness Goes Before Him

I will listen to what God the Lord will say;
he promises peace to His people, His saints -
but let them not return to folly.
Surely His salvation is near those who fear Him,
that His glory may dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before Him
and prepares the way for His steps.

(Psalm 85:8-13)

TCR 27, 31 - time and space

TCR 27
There are two properties peculiar to the natural world
which make everything in it finite.
One is space, the other time.
Because that world was created by God,
and spatial distances and periods of time
were created along with it
and serve to define it,
their two starting-points,
immensity and eternity,
need to be discussed.
For the immensity of God relates to space,
and His eternity to time,
while His infinity embraces both immensity and eternity.

TCR 31 [2]
The angels in heaven understand
by the immensity of God
the Divinity as to Its Being (Esse),
and by His eternity
the Divinity as to Its Coming-into-Being (Existere);
they understand also
by immensity the Divinity as to Love
and by eternity the Divinity as to Wisdom.
This is because the angels banish 
space and time from their ideas of the Divinity, 
and this is the result.
But because human beings are incapable of thinking
except by means of ideas formed from
spatial and temporal concepts,
they cannot form any idea 
of the immensity of God before space existed 
or His eternity before time existed.
In fact,
when the human mind wishes to form such an idea,
. . . in the attempt to penetrate these mysteries,
it can easily become deranged,
and thus be led to deny the existence of God.

Remember

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago.
I will meditate on all Your works
and consider all your mighty deeds.

(Psalm 77:11-12)

TCR 25 - infinitely the same

TCR 25 [3]

. . . the Divine Being, which is in itself God,
is the same;
not the same in a simple way,
but infinitely the same,
that is, the same from eternity to eternity.
He is the same everywhere,
the same with each person and in each person;
but all the changes and differences occur
in the person who receives Him,
and it is his state which causes this.

The Lord Is My Refuge

When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before You.

Yet I am always with You;
You hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with Your counsel,
and afterward You will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And earth has nothing I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Those who are far from You will perish;
You destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
But as for me,
it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

(Psalm 73:21-28)

TCR 22 - God is present with every person

TCR 22 [2]

. . . God is present near at hand with every person,
for God is in him with His essence.
 For this reason He is near at hand to those who love Him,
and those who love Him
are those who live according to His commandments
and believe in Him;
these people as it were see Him.
What is faith but one's spirit seeing that it is so?
And what is it to live according to His commandments
but to acknowledge Him in practice
as the source of salvation and everlasting life?

May the peoples praise You, O God

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make His face shine upon us,
Selah,
that Your ways may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise You, O God;
may all the peoples praise You.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for You rule the peoples justly
and guide the nations of the earth.
Selah.
May be peoples praise You, O God;
may all the peoples praise You.

Then the land will yield its harvest,
and God, our God, will bless us.
God will bless us,
and all the ends of the earth will fear Him.

(Psalm 67)

TCR 13 - one end in view

TCR 13
. . . the universe is a single unit
coherently organized from beginning to end,
because God had one end in view in creating it,
to create from the human race
a heaven of angels.
The means to this end
are all the things of which the world is composed;
for he who wills the end,
wills also the means.

. . . The Divine Love cannot have any other end in view
than from His Divine
to make human beings eternally blessed;
and His Divine Wisdom cannot produce anything
but services designed to fulfill that end.
By considering the world from this universal point of view
every wise person can grasp
that the Creator of the universe is one,
and that His essence is Love and Wisdom.
Consequently there is no detail in it
which does not conceal services
either nearly or distantly designed
to benefit human beings.

The Lord Sustains the Righteous

But I call to God,
and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and He hears my voice.
He ransoms me unharmed
from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.
God, who is enthroned forever,
will hear them and afflict them
men who never change their ways
and have no fear of God. 
-- Selah

My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.
His speech is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord
and He will sustain you;
He will never let the righteous fall.

(Psalm 55:16-22)

TCR 11 - belief and knowledge

TCR 11 [3]

Belief in God 
comes into a person by the front door,
that is, from the soul
into the higher regions of the understanding.
But knowledge about God 
comes in by the back door,
because it is absorbed by the understanding
from the revelation of the Word
by means of the bodily senses.
The two paths leading in
meet in the midst of the understanding;
there, natural belief,
which is merely a strongly held opinion,
becomes spiritual,
that is to say, a real acknowledgment.
So the human understanding
is like an exchange where currencies are changed.

Put Your Hope in God

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed with in?

Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

(Psalm 42:5, repeated 42:11)

TCR 2, 3 - believe in the Lord

TCR 2, 3

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah,
came into the world to subdue the hells
and to glorify His Human.
Without this no mortal could have been saved,
and those are saved who believe in Him.

It is a universal point of faith
on the part of a person
to believe in the Lord,
and this is the way to salvation.
Believing in Him
means having confidence that He is the Savior;
and since only those who lead good lives
can have such confidence,
this too is meant by believing in Him.

Trust in the Lord

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord
and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret - it leads only to evil.
For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the Lord
will inherit the land.

(Psalm 37:1-9)

ISB 16 - three angelic heavens, three degrees of the human mind

ISB 16 [5-6]
. . . there are three angelic heavens:
a highest, which is also called the third heaven,
where are the angels of the highest degree;
a middle, which is also called the second heaven,
where are the angels of the middle degree;
and a lowest, which is also called the first heaven,
where are the angels of the lowest degree.
Those heavens are also distinguished
according to the degrees of wisdom and love.
Those who are in the lowest heaven
are in the love of knowing truths and goods;
those who are in the middle heaven
are in the love of understanding them;
and those who are in the highest heaven
are in the love of being wise,
that is, of living according to those things
which they know and understand.

Since the angelic heavens
are distinguished into three degrees,
therefore the human mind
is also distinguished into three degrees,
because the human mind is an image of heaven,
that is, it is a heaven in the least form.
So it is that a person can become an angel
of one of those three heavens,
and this is effected according to his reception
of wisdom and love from the Lord:
an angel of the lowest heaven
if he receives only the love of knowing truths and goods;
an angel of the middle heaven
if he receives the love of understanding them;
and an angel of the highest heaven
if he receives the love of being wise,
that is, of living according to them.

Rejoice and Sing

Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord's unfailing love
surrounds the man who trust in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!

(Psalm 32:10-11)

ISB 11 – Our Garment

ISB 11

. . . the spiritual clothes itself with the natural,
as a person clothes himself with a garment.
. . . the body grows old like a garment;
but not the soul,
because this is a spiritual substance,
which has nothing with common
with the changes of nature . . .

Wait

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

(Psalm 27:13-14)

ISB 2 -order is truth but not hypothetical truth; ISB - 8 - influx from God

ISB 2
 All that which is from order is truth,
and truth manifests itself by the light implanted in it,
even in the shade of reason,
in which hypotheses are.
But there are three things
that involve this hypothesis in shade;
ignorance of what the soul is,
ignorance of what the spiritual is,
and ignorance of what influx is;
therefore these three must first be unfolded
before reason sees the truth itself.
For hypothetical truth is not truth itself,
but only a conjecture of truth.
It is as a picture on the wall seen at night
by the light of the stars,
on which the mind induces various forms
according to its fancy.
It is otherwise 
when the light of the sun after the dawn
shines upon it . . ..

ISB 8 [5]
. . . the good of love and the truth of wisdom
flow from God into the soul of man conjointly,
that is, united into one,
but that they are divided by a person in their progression,
and are conjoined only with those
who suffer themselves to be led by God . . ..

Taking Refuge in God

Keep me safe, O God,
for in You I take refuge.

You have made known to me the path of life;
You will fill me with joy in Your presence,
with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

(Psalm 16:1,11)

BE 120 - a holy truth

BE 120

. . . in the Lord God, the Savior Jesus Christ,
there is a Divine Trinity
which is the Originating Divine, called the Father,
the Divine Human which is the Son,
and the Divine Proceeding which is the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus Christ dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 
(Colossians 2:9)
 

Thus, there is One God in the Church.

Loving the Lord

But let all who take refuge in You be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread Your protection over them,
That those who love Your name
may rejoice in You.
For surely, O Lord, You bless the righteous;
You surround them with Your favor
as with a shield.

(Psalm 5:11-12)

BE 116 - the universal of faith is what must enter into each and all things

BE 116

It is a universal of faith,
that God is one in essence and Person,
in whom is the Trinity,
and that the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ is He.
It is a universal of faith,
that no mortal could have been saved,
unless the Lord had come into the world.
It is a universal of faith,
that He came into the world to remove hell from man,
and He removed it by combats against it,
and by victories over it;
thus He subdued it,
and reduced it to order,
and under obedience to Himself.
It is a universal of faith,
that He came into the world to glorify the Human
which He assumed in the world,
that is, to unite it with the Divine from which it was;
thus, having subdued hell,
He keeps it in order
and under obedience to Himself to eternity.
Inasmuch as both these could only be effected
by means of temptations admitted into His Human,
even to the last,
which was the passion of the cross,
therefore He endured that.
These are the universals of faith concerning the Lord.

The universal of Christian faith on a person's part is,
that he should believe in the Lord,
for by believing in Him conjunction with Him is effected,
and by conjunction salvation.
To believe in Him is to have confidence that He will save;
and because none can have such confidence
but he who lives well,
therefore this is also meant by believing in Him.

From the Lord Comes Deliverance

I lie down and sleep;
I wake again,
because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear the tens of thousands
drawn up against me on every side.

From the Lord comes deliverance.
May you blessing be on your people.
Selah

(Psalm 3:5-6,8)

BE 111 - only through regeneration can the Lord lead us to good

BE 111

. . . a person is led into good
through regeneration by the Lord.
. . . there is regeneration,
and unless one is regenerated,
he cannot enter into heaven.

The precepts of regeneration are . . . :
-- That evils ought to be shunned,
because they are of the devil and from the devil;
-- that goods ought to be done,

because they are of God and from God;
-- and that the Lord is to be approached,
that He may lead us so to do.

. . . good cannot be implanted
but in proportion as evil is removed;
. . . so long as anyone is in evil,
he is averse to good . . ..

King Josiah

Josiah was eight years old when he became king,

and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.
His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah;
she was from Bozkath.
He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord

and walked in the ways of his father David,

not turning aside to the right or to the left.

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary,

“I have found the Book of the Law

In the temple of the Lord.”

he gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law,

he tore his robes.

Neither before nor after Josiah

was there a king like him

who turned to the Lord as he did –

with all his heart and with all his soul

and with all his strength,

in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

(2 Kings 22:1-2,8,11; 23:25)

BE 96 - the essentials of the church; BE 103 - the old & new can't be together

BE 96
The essentials of the church,
which conjoin themselves with a faith in one God,
are charity, good works, repentance,
and a life according to the Divine laws;
and because these together with faith
affect and move the will and thought of a person,
they conjoin a person with the Lord,
and the Lord with the person.

BE 103
The reason why the faith of the New Church
cannot by any means
be together with the faith of the former or present church,
is, because they do not agree together in one third,
no, nor even in one tenth part.
The faith of the former church
is described in Revelation (chapter 12) by "the dragon,"
but the faith of the New Church by
"the woman encompassed with the sun,
having upon her head a crown of twelve stars,
whom the dragon pursued,
and at whom he cast water as a flood,
that he might swallow her up,".
These two cannot be together in one city,
much less in one house,
consequently they cannot be together in one mind;
and if they should be together,
the unavoidable consequence must be,
that the woman would be continually exposed
to the anger and insanity of the dragon,
and in fear lest he should devour her son;
for it is said in Revelation, that:

The dragon stood before the woman
who was ready to be delivered,
in order to devour her offspring,
and the woman,
after she had brought forth,
fled into the wilderness.
(Revelation 12:1, 4, 6, 14-17)

Isaiah Gives a Message to Hezekiah

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah:
"This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:

"This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:

"This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Once more a remnant of the house of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this."

(2 Kings 19:20,29-31)

BE 92 - two things which form heaven in a person

BE 92
There are two things which form heaven in a person,
namely, the truths of faith and the goods of charity;
the truths of faith
effect the presence of the Lord,
and show the way to heaven,
and the goods of charity
effect conjunction with the Lord,
and introduce into heaven.
And everyone there is introduced into light
according to his affection of truth,
and into heat according to his affection of good.
The affection of truth is faith in its essence,
and the affection of good (is) charity in its essence,
and that the marriage of them both . . ..
The church and heaven make one.

The End of Elisha's Life

Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died.

Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him.

“My father!  My father!” he cried.

“The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so.

“Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel.

When he had taken it Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

“Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it.

“Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot.

“The Lord’s arrow of victory, the victory over Aram!”
Elisha declared.

“You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

The he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them.

Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.”

He struck it three times and stopped.

The man of God was angry with him and said,

“You should have struck the ground five or six times;
then you would have defeated Aram 

and completely destroyed it.

But now you will defeat it only three times.”

Elisha died and was buried.

(2 Kings 13:14-20)