AC 9841 - Truths of Life; Truths of Faith From Love

AC 9841 [3-4]

That stones on which there is engraving
denote the memory on which truths are inscribed,
has its origin from the representatives in heaven.
When people go forth
who after their decease come into the other life,
and bring with them the truths of faith
in the natural or exterior memory only,
and not in the spiritual or interior memory,
they seem to themselves to wander about
among rocks and in forests.
But when people go forth
who bring with them the truths of faith
in the spiritual memory also,
they seem to themselves to walk among
cultivated hills, and also in gardens.
The reason is that the truths of faith
of the exterior or natural memory
(which are memory-knowledges)
have no life unless they are at the same time
in the interior or spiritual memory;
for the things which are in this latter memory
have been made of life,
because the interior or spiritual memory
is a person's book of life;
and the things which are of life
are represented in heaven
by gardens, olive yards, vineyards,
and by flower-beds and shrubberies;
and the things of charity,
by hills where such things are;
but those things which are not of life
are represented by rocky places and thickets
which are bare and rough.

It shall be briefly told
what are truths of faith from love.
Truths of faith from love
are truths which love dictates,
thus which derive their being from love.
These truths are living,
because the things which are from love are living.
Consequently the truths of faith from love
are those which treat of love to the Lord
and charity toward the neighbor,
for these are the truths which love dictates.
The whole Word is the doctrine of such truths;
for in its spiritual sense
the Word treats solely of things
which belong to the Lord and the neighbor,
thus which belong to
love to the Lord and toward the neighbor.
It is from this that the Word is living.
This is meant by the statement that
"on these two commandments
hang the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 22:34-40);
"the Law and the Prophets"
denote the Word in its whole complex.
But truths of faith from love
are not bare knowledges of such things
with a person in the memory,
and from this in the understanding;
but they are affections of life with him;
for the things which
a person loves and therefore does, are of his life.
There are also truths of faith which do not,
like the former, treat of love;
but which merely confirm these truths more nearly,
or more remotely.
These truths of faith are called secondary truths.
For the truths of faith are like
families and their generations
in succession from one father.
The father of these truths
is the good of love from the Lord
and consequently to Him,
thus it is the Lord;
for whether we say the Lord,
or love from Him and consequently to Him,
it is the same thing;
because love is spiritual conjunction,
and causes Him to be where the love is;
for love causes him who is loved
to be present in itself.