DLW Part One - Introduction and Numbers 1-3

Rev. Prescott Rogers has given permission for portions from his book, A Companion to Divine Love and Wisdom (from a college class he taught) to be shared with you.  Just like with all of the excerpts from the Writings that have been shared with you over the years, please know that what little is shared really cannot do justice to the whole.  Hopefully, the quotes are enough to help the reader to find the Lord, in His goodness and truth, and lead the mind and heart to read more. 

These passages go along with the quote shared the other day (DLW 1, 4, 5).  Tomorrow will also be from Companion as there is a fair bit to unpack there from numbers 4-6.  Hopefully, future posts will have both the Writings and the comments from Companion in one.  You can read the quote and skip the rest or read both and have even more to ponder.
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From A Companion to Divine Love and Wisdom,
by Rev. Prescott A. Rogers

DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, PART ONE
God as the Creator and as the Source of Creation

Introduction

The purpose of the first part of Divine Love and Wisdom is to describe and explain God as the Creator and as the source of creation.  For most of Divine Love and Wisdom and the other revelatory works written by Swedenborg the term used to discuss the Divine Being is "Lord."  This is the shorter version of Lord Jesus Christ, since "Lord" encompasses all that Jesus Christ is and means.  True Christian Religion refers to the Lord as God in the title of the first chapter:  "God the Creator."  This designation distinguishes Him from "Lord the Redeemer" and Savior.  The Lord has two major functions or uses--creation and salvation, with redemption being a vital element in salvation.  The two terms for the Divine Being then distinguish these two Divine uses.

There is another reason for the different terms "God" and "Lord."  In general, when Swedenborg is explaining what the Divine Being is, he uses the term "God," and when he is addressing who the Divine Being is, he uses the term "Lord."  As an illustration of this consider George Washington.  His name is who he was.  The first president of the United States is what he was.  Part One of Divine Love and Wisdom not only discusses God as Creator, but there is no section in the Heavenly Doctrines that explains better what He is.  The result is that the term "God" is used throughout Part One, while in the other four parts of Divine Love and Wisdom He is called Lord.  This indicates that once Swedenborg has explained what God is as Creator, he emphasizes who He is as Savior.  Since the purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race, the Lord's primary use is Savior.

. . . In New Church terms the Lord's transcendence is called the Divine essence and so the Divine itself that is associated with "Father."  Immanence had to do with the Divine form and so the Divine Human that is associated with the "Son."  The latter is the visible God that the New Church can and is to worship, but not apart from the Divine essence.  One reason Divine Love and Wisdom is often difficult to understand is that it touches from time to time on the Lord's transcendence, especially in Part One where His essence is discussed.  After Part One, Divine Love and Wisdom focuses more and more on the Lord's immanence in His creation and in salvation, and so the last four parts are usually easier to understand.

Love is a person's life (passages 1-3).

Love is the motivating force with a person and so is the essence of his life.

Further Thoughts

Passages 1-3 end with an analogy between a person's love and the sun's warmth.  Swedenborg often uses analogies in his explanations after he has used experience, reason and authority to present ideas in an analytical manner.  All people learn analytically and analogically, but the vast majority of people learn primarily or better one way or the other.  Analytical learning occurs when what is not known and understood is broken up into knowable parts (analysis literally meaning "breaking into pieces").  The learned parts are then synthesized or brought together, producing understanding.

Analytical learners need the arguments of experience, reason and authority.  Analogical learners need stories, comparisons, and the like (analogy meaning "learning side by side").  Education research has shown that most people (at least in the United States) primarily learn analytically, and the rest primarily learn analogically.  Therefore, it is useful and probably providential that the Heavenly Doctrines, in addition to their mostly analytical content, give us Swedenborg's personal accounts of experiences he had in the spiritual world, and also analogies, metaphors, and similes to appeal to the analogical learners.  (The author's favorite example of this is Swedenborg's comparison between a person who is totally sure that he knows everything and a chimney sweep who looks up a sooty chimney and thinks that is all there is to see.)

DLW 1, 4, 5 - Love and Life

DLW 1

Love is a person's life.
People know that love exists,
but they do not know what love is.
. . . This the wise person may perceive
from considering the following proposition:
If you take away any impulse having to do with love,
can you form any thought?
Or can you perform any action?
Is it not the case
that as the affection belonging to love cools,
in the same measure thought, speech and action cool?
And the warmer the affection grows,
the warmer they grow?

Still, the wise person perceives this
not from any concept that love is a person's life,
but from his empirical observation that it is so.

DLW 4

God alone, thus the Lord,
is love itself, because He is life itself;
and angels and people are recipients of life.
. . . the Lord, who is God of the universe,
is uncreated and infinite,
while people and angels are created and finite;
and because the Lord is uncreated and infinite,
He is the underlying that-which-is or being itself
which is called Jehovah,
and is life itself or life in itself.

From Him who is
uncreated, infinite, being itself and life itself,
no one can be created directly,
because the Divine is one and indivisible.
Rather he must be created
out of elements already created and finite,
so formed that the Divine can be present in them.

Because people and angels are such creations,
they are recipients of life.
Consequently, if anyone allows himself
to be so led astray in his thinking
as to suppose he is not a recipient of life,
but is life,
he cannot be averted from the thought that he is God.

DLW 5

. . . because the Lord is love in its very essence,
or Divine love,
He appears to angels in heaven as the sun,
and that from that sun emanate warmth and light,
the warmth emanating from it being,
in its essence, love,
and the light emanating from it being,
in its essence, wisdom.
Moreover, to the degree
that angels are receptive of that spiritual warmth
and that spiritual light,
to the same degree
they are embodiments of love and wisdom -
not embodiments of love and wisdom of themselves,
but from the Lord.
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DLW - Divine Love and Wisdom

** If you are reading Divine Love and Wisdom,
I have found it very helpful to also be reading
the book by Rev. Prescott A. Rogers called,
A Companion to Divine Love and Wisdom,
Thoughts on the book written by Emanuel Swedenborg.

 

DFAITH 69- Faith Separate From Charity

DFAITH 69

Faith separated from charity is no faith,
because charity is the life of faith:
its soul, and its essence.
And where there is no faith because no charity,
precisely there there is no church.
And therefore the Lord says:

When the Son of man comes
shall He find faith on the earth?
(Luke 18:8)

 

DFAITH 61, 68 - The Goats and the Ram

DFAITH 61

The goat in Daniel 8 and the goats in Matthew 25
mean people whose faith is divorced from charity,
and this can be seen from the fact
that in Daniel the goat is contrasted with a ram,
and the goats in Matthew with sheep —
the ram and the sheep both
meaning people possessing charity.
For in the Word the Lord is called a shepherd
and the church a sheepfold,
and people in the church
are collectively called a flock and individually sheep.
And because sheep are people who possess charity,
therefore goats are people without charity.

DFAITH 68

The goats and sheep in Matthew 25:1-46
mean the very same people
as those meant by the goat and ram in Daniel,
and this is apparent from the fact
that enumerated for the sheep
are a list of charitable works,
and we are told that they did them;
and that enumerated for the goats
is the same list of charitable works,
and we are told that they did not do them,
and who are therefore condemned.
For works are lacking in the case of people
whose faith is divorced from charity,
owing to their denial
that works involve anything
having to do with salvation or the church.
And when charity, which consists in works,
is thus set aside,
faith also founders,
since faith is an expression of charity.
Then, when there is no longer any charity or faith,
damnation results.

DFAITH 55, 60 - The Dragon in Revelation

DFAITH 55

. . . in the course of time
every church falls away
into two general religious principles that are evil,
one springing from the love of rule,
and the other from the conceit of self-intelligence,
and that in the Word
the former is meant and described by "Babylon,"
and the latter by "Philistia."
Now as Revelation
treats of the state of the Christian Church,
especially such as it is at its end,
it therefore treats both generally and specifically
of these two evil religious principles.

DFAITH 60
. . . Revelation 13 treats of the dragon's two beasts,
the first seen coming up out of the sea, in verses 1-10,
and the other one out of the earth, in verses 11-18.
. . . The first beast means faith separated from charity
in respect to confirmations of it
from the natural human self.
The other beast means faith separated from charity
in respect to confirmations of it from the Word,
which also are falsifications of truth.

 

DLIFE 35 - The Universals of Faith Concerning the Lord; DLIFE 36 - The Universals of Faith Regarding Mankind

DLIFE 35

It is said "in the universal idea or form"
because this is what is universal of the Faith,
and what is universal of the Faith
is that which must be in all things of it
both in general and in particular.
-- It is a Universal of the Faith
that God is One in Person and in Essence,
in whom is the Trinity,
and that the Lord is that God.
-- It is a Universal of the Faith
that no mortal could have been saved
unless the Lord had come into the world.
-- It is a Universal of the Faith
that He came into the world
in order to remove hell from mankind,
and He removed it by combats against it
and by victories over it;
thus He subdued it,
and reduced it into order
and under obedience to Himself.
-- It is also a Universal of the Faith
that the Lord came into the world
to glorify the humanity that He assumed in the world,
that is, to unite it to the Divine
from which He originated.
By this He keeps hell subject to Him to eternity,
in order and in obedience to Him.

And inasmuch as neither of these mighty works
could have been accomplished
except by means of temptations
even to the last of them,
which was the passion of the cross,
He therefore underwent even this temptation.
These are the Universals of the Christian Faith
concerning the Lord.

DLIFE 36

The Universal of the Christian Faith
on the part of mankind
is to believe in the Lord,
for through believing in Him
there is effected conjunction with Him,
by which comes salvation.
To believe in Him is to have confidence
that He will save,
and as no one can have this confidence
except one who lives right,
therefore this also is meant by believing in Him.

DFAITH 33 - The Necessary Storehouse

DFAITH 33

. . . the knowledges of truth and good
are not really things of faith
until the person is in charity,
but that they are the storehouse of material
out of which the faith of charity can be formed.
With a regenerate person
the knowledges of truth become truths,
and so do the knowledges of good,
for the knowledge of good is in the understanding,
and the affection of good in the will,
and what is in the understanding is called truth,
and what is in the will is called good.

DFAITH 20-21, 22-23 - The Neighbor

DFAITH 20-21, 22-23

Because charity is love for the neighbor,
we must say what the neighbor is.

In the natural sense,
the neighbor is mankind collectively and individually.
Mankind collectively is the church,
the country, and society.
And mankind individually
is one’s fellow countryman,
who in the Word is called brother and companion.

In the spiritual sense, however,
the neighbor is goodness,
and because useful endeavor is good,
the neighbor in the spiritual sense is useful endeavor.

It must be acknowledged by everyone
that useful endeavor is the spiritual neighbor.
For who loves someone only for his person?
Rather he loves him for what he has in him,
which makes him the kind of person he is,
thus for his character;
for this is the real person.

This character that makes a person loveable
is useful endeavor,
and it is called good.
This is accordingly the neighbor.

Because the Word at its heart is spiritual,
therefore loving useful endeavor
is what it is to love the neighbor
in its spiritual sense.

DFAITH 21

Yet it is one thing to love the neighbor
for the good or use he may be to us,
and another to love the neighbor
for the good or use we may be to him.
To love the neighbor
for the good or use he may be to us
is something an evil person can do;
but to love the neighbor
for the good or use we may be to him
is something only a good person can do.
For it is the goodness in him
that prompts a good person to love good,
or the affection for useful endeavor in him
that prompts him to love useful endeavor.

DFAITH 22

Properly speaking,
love is love toward the Lord,
and love for the neighbor is charity.
It is impossible for a person
to have love toward the Lord
unless he possesses charity.
It is in charity
that the Lord conjoins himself with a person.

Because faith in its essence is charity,
it follows that no one can have faith in the Lord
unless he possesses charity.
It is charity operating through faith
that brings about conjunction —
charity occasioning a conjunction
of the Lord with a person,
and faith a conjunction
of the person with the Lord.

DFAITH 23

In brief: 
In proportion as any one shuns evils as sins,
and looks to the Lord,
in the same proportion he is in charity,
and therefore in the same proportion he is in faith.

 

DFAITH 13, 19 - Faith and Charity

DFAITH 13

We have already said what faith is,
and will now say what charity is.
In its first origin or beginning
charity is an affection for goodness;
and because goodness loves truth,
it produces an affection for truth,
and through that affection
an acknowledgment of truth, which is faith.
Through this progression
the affection for goodness finds expression
and becomes charity.

This is the progression of charity from its origin,
that is, from an affection for goodness,
through faith, which is an acknowledgment of truth,
to its end, which is charity.
The final end is the doing.

It is apparent from this
how love, namely an affection for goodness,
produces faith,
which is the same as an acknowledgment of truth,
and through that faith produces charity,
which is the same as an act of love through faith.

DFAITH 19

The relation of charity and faith in a person
is like that of the motions of the heart
called its systole and diastole,
and of the motion of the lungs called respiration.
There is also
a complete correspondence of these organs
with a person’s will and intellect,
and so with charity and faith.
Consequently the will and its affection
are also meant in the Word by the heart,
and the intellect and its thought by the soul,
and also by the spirit.

. . . So great is the analogy
between the heart and charity,
and between the lungs and faith,
that in the spiritual world
the character of someone’s faith
is discerned simply from his breathing,
and the character of his charity
from the beating of his heart.
For just like people,
angels and spirits depend for their life
on a heart and respiration.
That is why they feel, think, act and speak
like people in the world. 

 

DFAITH 1-2, 12 - Faith is an Internal Acknowledgment of Truth

DFAITH 1-2

Faith today is taken to mean no more
than the thought that a thing is so
because it is something the church teaches,
and because it is not evident to the intellect.
For we are told, "Believe and do not doubt."
If we reply, "I do not understand,"
we are told that that is why it should be believed.

Faith today is therefore a faith in the unknown
and may be termed a blind faith.
Moreover, because it is one person’s assertion
received by another,
it is an inherited faith.
We will see in what follows
that that is not a spiritual faith.

Real faith is nothing else
than an acknowledgment that a thing is so
because it is true.
For someone who possesses a real faith
thinks and says,
"This is true. Therefore I believe it."
For faith is a faith in the truth,
and truth is the object of faith.

DFAITH 12

If someone thinks to himself or says to another,
"Who is capable
of an internal acknowledgment of truth
so as to have faith in it? I am not,"
I say to him,
"This is how:
Refrain from evils as being sins
and turn to the Lord,
and you will have as much as you desire."
___________
DLIFE = The Doctrine of Faith

 

DLIFE 111, 114 - Shunning Evils as Sins Against the Lord Is Essential to Charity

DLIFE 111

. . . an ungodly person is able to shun evils as injurious,
bit only a Christian can shun them as sins.

DLIFE 114

To what we have said I will add the following:

1. Christian charity for everyone
is to perform his function faithfully.
For in so doing,
if he refrains from evils as being sinful,
he daily does good,
and he himself becomes
his own useful part in the general body.
For thus he also promotes the welfare of the whole,
and of each of its members in particular.

2. All other works are not properly works of charity,
but are either its signs, or its benefactions, or its duties.

 

DLIFE 102 - Receive and Return

DLIFE 102

The Lord loves people and wills to dwell with them,
but He cannot love them and dwell with them
unless He is received and loved in return.
This and nothing else brings about conjunction.
It was for this reason
that the Lord gave mankind freedom and reason —
the freedom to think and will as though of oneself,
and the reason to do so rationally.
It is impossible to love someone
and be conjoined with him
without any reciprocity on his part,
and neither is it possible to enter into someone
and dwell with him without any receptivity in him.

Since the receptivity and reciprocity in a person
come from the Lord, therefore the Lord says,

Abide in Me, and I in you.
(John 15:4)

He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.
(John 15:5)

At that day you will know that . . .
you (are) in Me, and I in you.
(John 14:20)

That the Lord is present in
the truths and goods that a person receives
and has in him is something He also teaches:

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . ..
If you keep My commandments,
you will abide in My love . . ..
(John 15:7, 10)

He who has My commandments and keeps them,
it is he who loves Me.
And . . . I will love him . . .
and make (My) abode with him.
(John 14:21, 23)

Thus the Lord dwells in what is from Him in a person,
and the person dwells in what He has from the Lord,
thus dwelling in the Lord.

 

DLIFE 96-98 - Battling the Hells

DLIFE 96-98

A person who battles against evils
cannot but battle as though on his own,
for someone who does not do so
as though on his own
does not do battle.
Rather he stands like a robot,
seeing nothing and doing nothing,
and is continually prompted by evil
to think in favor of it
and not in opposition to it.

However, it must still be rightly known
that the Lord alone
battles against the evils in a person,
that it only appears to the person
that he struggles on his own,
and that the Lord wills it to appear so to him,
since without that appearance
there would be no battle,
thus no reformation.

This battle is not severe
except in the case of people
who have given full rein to their urges
and have indulged in them deliberately,
and in the case of people, too,
who have willfully rejected
the sanctities of the Word and the church.

But for others the battle is not severe.
Let them resist evils in intention
just once a week or twice a month,
and they will perceive a change.

The Christian Church is called a church militant,
and it cannot be said to be militant
except against the devil,
thus against whatever emanates from hell.
Hell is the devil.
And the battle is the temptation or trial
that a person of the church undergoes.

DLIFE 87, 88-89, 90 - Two Opposites: Lying and Speaking Truth

DLIFE 87

To "bear false witness," in the natural sense,
means not only to play the false witness,
but also to lie, and to defame.
In the spiritual sense, to "bear false witness"
means to declare some false thing to be true
or some evil thing good,
and to persuade others that it is so;
and the converse.
And in the highest sense,
to "bear false witness" means
to blaspheme the Lord and the Word.

DLIFE 88-89

As lying and the truth are two opposite things,
it follows that in proportion as anyone
shuns lying as sin,
in the same proportion he loves the truth.

In proportion as anyone loves the truth,
in the same proportion he desires to know it,
and in the same proportion
is affected at heart when he finds it.
No one else comes into wisdom.
And in proportion as anyone loves to do the truth,
in the same proportion he is sensible of
the pleasantness of the light in which the truth is.

DLIFE 90

It is apparent from this
that the Word’s truth cannot take root in people
who do not care about the truth,
or in people who love truth outwardly but not inwardly,
or in people caught up in lusts for evil.
But it does take root in people whose lusts for evil
have been dispersed by the Lord.
In their case the seed, or rather truth,
takes root in their spiritual mind . . ..

DLIFE 80, 81, 82, 86 - Stealing Is Opposite to Sincerity

DLIFE 80

To "steal," in the natural sense,
means not only to commit theft and robbery,
but also to defraud,
and under some pretext take from another his goods.
But in the spiritual sense to "steal"
means to deprive another
of his truths of faith and his goods of charity.
And in the highest sense to "steal"
means to take away from the Lord that which is His,
and attribute it to one's self,
and thus to claim
righteousness and merit for one's self.
These are the "thefts of every kind."

DLIFE 81

The evil of theft enters more deeply into a person
than any other evil,
because it is conjoined with cunning and deceit;
and cunning and deceit insinuate themselves
even into the spiritual mind of a person
in which is his thought with understanding.

DLIFE 82

That in proportion as anyone shuns theft as a sin,
in the same proportion he loves sincerity,
is because theft is also fraud,
and fraud and sincerity are two opposite things,
so that in proportion as anyone is not in theft
in the same proportion he is in sincerity.

DLIFE 86 [4]

So long as a person does not shun evils as sins,
the lusts of evils block up the interiors
of the natural mind on the part of the will,
being like a thick veil there,
and like a black cloud beneath the spiritual mind,
and they prevent its being opened.
On the other hand, 
the moment a person shuns evils as sins,
the Lord inflows from heaven,
takes away the veil, dispels the cloud,
opens the spiritual mind,
and so introduces the person into heaven.

 

DLIFE 74, 75, 76 - Can someone be in adultery and still love marriage?

DLIFE 74

To "commit adultery,"  . . .
means in the natural sense,
not only to commit whoredom,
but also to do obscene things,
to speak lascivious things,
and to think about filthy things.
But in the spiritual sense to "commit adultery"
means to adulterate the goods of the Word,
and to falsify its truths.
In the highest sense to "commit adultery" means
to deny the divinity of the Lord,
and to profane the Word.
These are the "adulteries of every kind."

DLIFE 75

That in proportion as anyone shuns adultery,
in the same proportion he loves marriage;
or what is the same,
in proportion as anyone shuns
the lasciviousness of adultery,
in the same proportion he loves
the chastity of marriage,
is because the lasciviousness of adultery
and the chastity of marriage
are two opposite things,
and therefore
in proportion as anyone is not in the one,
he is in the other.

DLIFE 76

No one can know
the nature of the chastity of marriage
except the person who shuns as a sin
the lasciviousness of adultery.
For a person may know that in which he is,
but cannot know that in which he is not.
. . . The truth is
that the lasciviousness of adultery
and the chastity of marriage
stand toward each other
exactly as do hell and heaven,
and that the lasciviousness of adultery
makes hell in a person,
and the chastity of marriage makes heaven.

DLIFE 67, 72 - Refraining From Murder and Doing Good Work

Insofar as Someone Refrains
from Every Form of Murder as a Sin,
So Far He Has Love for the Neighbor

DLIFE 67

By every form of murder
we mean also every instance of enmity,
hatred and vengeance with a longing to kill,
for murder lies concealed within these,
like fire in wood under the ashes.
Nor is the fire of hell anything else.
It is owing to this
that we speak of someone’s seething with hatred
or burning for revenge.
These forms of murder
are murder in the natural sense.

By murder in the spiritual sense, then,
we mean all the ways
of killing or destroying people’s souls,
which are various and many.
And by murder in the highest sense
we mean hatred of the Lord.

These three kinds of murder go together
and are inseparable.
For someone who wishes
the death of a person’s body in the world,
after death wishes the death of his soul.
He also wishes the death of the Lord,
for he burns with anger at Him
and wishes to blot out His name.

DLIFE 72

When a person is no longer in the evil of murder,
but in the good of love toward the neighbor,
whatever he does is a good of this love,
and therefore it is a good work.

 

DLIFE 66 - Unless We Acknowledge the Lord

DLIFE 66

For no one can refrain from evils as being sins
unless he acknowledges the Lord and turns to Him,
and unless he fights against evils
and so puts away his urges to do them.
 

DLIFE 53, 56 , 57 - The Ten Commandments Teaches What Evils Are Sins

DLIFE 53

What nation, in the whole world,
does not know that it is evil to steal,
to commit adultery, to kill and to bear false witness?
If they did not know this,
and if they did not pass laws
to guard against anyone’s doing these things,
it would be the end of them,
for any society, republic or kingdom
would collapse without these laws.

Who can suppose that the Israelite nation was,
more than any other nation,
so stupid as not to know that these acts are evil?
One may wonder, therefore,
why these laws, universally known the world over,
were promulgated
from Mount Sinai by Jehovah Himself,
accompanied by so great a miracle.

But listen, they were promulgated
with so great a miracle
in order for people to know
that these laws were not only civil and moral laws,
but also spiritual laws,
and that to disobey them
was not only to do evil
to one’s fellow citizen and community,
but was also to sin against God.
By being promulgated
by Jehovah from Mount Sinai, therefore,
these laws became laws of religion.
For it is plain that whatever Jehovah God commands,
He intends to be a commandment of religion,
and that it must be obeyed for His sake,
and for the sake of people’s salvation.

DLIFE 56

Such great power and such great holiness
resided in that law for the further reason
that it embraced everything having to do with religion.
For it consisted of two tablets,
one of which contained everything on the part of God,
and the other everything on the part of humankind.
The precepts of that law were therefore
called the Ten Commandments,
called so because
the number ten symbolizes everything.

DLIFE 57

Since that law is the means
of the Lord’s conjunction with a person,
and of a person with the Lord,
it is called a covenant and a testimony —
a covenant because it conjoins,
and a testimony because it testifies.
For a covenant symbolizes a conjunction,
and a testimony symbolizes a testification
of that conjunction.

For that reason there were two tablets,
one for the Lord, the other for people.
Conjunction is brought about by the Lord,
but only when someone keeps the commandments
written on the tablet for people.
For the Lord is continually present and acting,
and wishes to enter in,
but a person must open the way,
using the freedom to do so
that he has from the Lord.
For the Lord says:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and dine with him,
and he with Me.
(Revelation 3:20)

 

DLIFE 52 - Faith and Life: Thinking and Doing

DLIFE 52

. . . no one has in him a grain of truth
more than the goodness in him,
thus not a grain of faith more than the life he lives.
Thought
that something is so
may exist in the intellect,
but it is without the acknowledgment
that constitutes faith
unless it is consented to in the will.
Thus faith and life go together at every step.

It is now apparent from this
that insofar as someone refrains
from evils as being sins,
so far he has faith and is spiritual.

 

DLIFE 32, 33, 39, 31 - Loving Truths and Goods Requires Shunning Evils As Sins

DLIFE 32

There are two universals that proceed from the Lord:
Divine good, and Divine truth.
Divine good is of His Divine love,
and Divine truth is of His Divine wisdom.
In the Lord these two are a one,
and therefore they proceed from Him as a one,
but they are not received as a one
by angels in the heavens, or by people on earth.

DLIFE 33

As good and truth are a one in the Lord,
and proceed as a one from Him,
it follows that good loves truth and truth loves good,
and they will to be a one.
It is the same with their opposites:
evil loves falsity, and falsity loves evil,
and these will to be a one.

DLIFE 39

. . .  truths are the means by which
the goodness of love finds expression
and becomes real;
consequently, that good loves truths
in order to exist.
In the Word, therefore,
to do truth means to give goodness expression.

DLIFE 41

From all that has been said
it is now evident that he who shuns evils as sins,
loves truths and longs for them;
and that the more he shuns them,
so much the more love and longing does he feel,
because so much the more he is in good.
The result is
that he comes into the heavenly marriage,
which is the marriage of good and truth,
in which is heaven,
and in which must be the church.

DLIFE 18, 19-20, 21, 27, 31 - Shunning Evils

DLIFE18

In proportion as a person shuns evils as sins,
in the same proportion he does goods,
not from himself but from the Lord.

Who does not or may not know
that evils stand in the way
of the Lord's entrance to a person?
For evil is hell, and the Lord is heaven,
and hell and heaven are opposites.
In proportion therefore as a person is in the one,
in the same proportion he cannot be in the other.
For the one acts against the other and destroys it.

DLIFE 19-20

. . . 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 to good he turns away from evil.

We have said that a person is kept in freedom
to turn himself one way or the other.
It is not from himself
that every man has this freedom,
but he has it from the Lord,
and this is why he is said to be kept in it.

DLIFE 21

It is plainly evident from all this
that in proportion as a person shuns evils,
in the same proportion
is he with the Lord and in the Lord;
and that in proportion as he is in the Lord,
in the same proportion he does goods,
not from self but from Him.
From this results the general law:
In proportion as any one shuns evils,
in the same proportion he does goods.

DLIFE 27

. . . knowledges are in the highest degree necessary,
because they teach how a person is to act;
and when he acts them,
then they are alive in him,
and not till then.

DLIFE 31

That no person can from himself
do what is really good, is the truth.
But so to use this truth
as to do away with all the good of charity
that is done by a person who shuns evils as sins
is a great wickedness,
for it is diametrically contrary to the Word,
which commands that a person shall do.
It is contrary to the commandments
of love to God and love toward the neighbor
on which the Law and the Prophets hang,
and it is to flout and undermine everything of religion.
For everyone knows
that religion is to do what is good,
and that everyone will be judged
according to his deeds.
Every person is so constituted as to be able
(by the Lord's power, if he begs for it)
to shun evils as of himself;
and that which he afterwards does
is good from the Lord.

 

DLIFE 9, 12, 13 - No One Can - of Himself - Do Good That Is Good

DLIFE 9

No one has previously known
whether the good he does
originates from himself or from God,
because the church has separated faith from charity,
and goodness is an expression of charity.
A person gives to the poor, donates to the needy,
contributes to churches and shelters,
looks out for the welfare
of his church, country, and fellow citizens,
regularly goes to church,
devoutly listens then and prays,
reads the Word and books of piety,
and thinks about salvation;
and this without knowing
whether he does these things of himself or from God.
He can do these very things from God,
or he can do them of himself.
If he does them from God, they are good.
If he does them of himself, they are not good.
In fact, we encounter goods of this kind,
done by people of themselves,
which are clearly evil,
such as hypocritical goods,
which are deceptive and fraudulent.

DLIFE 12

Good may be
civic good, moral good, or spiritual good.
Civic good is the good that a person does
in conformity with civil law.
It is by means of this good
and in the measure of it
that a person is a citizen in the natural world.

Moral good is the good that a person does
in conformity with rational law.
It is by means of this good
and in the measure of it
that a person is human.

Spiritual good is the good that a person does
in conformity with spiritual law.
It is by means of this good
and in the measure of it
that a person is a citizen in the spiritual world.

These goods form a series in the following sequence:
spiritual good is the highest good;
moral good is an intermediate good;
and civic good is the lowest good.

A person possessing spiritual goodness
is a moral person and also a civic one.
On the other hand,
a person without any spiritual goodness
may appear to be a moral and civic person,
but in fact he is not.

DLIFE 13

The essence of goodness
can only originate from Him
who is goodness itself.
Cast your thought in every direction, think hard,
and ask yourself what makes goodness good,
and you will see that it is what it has at its core,
that something is good
which has in it the essence of goodness,
consequently that that goodness is good
which originates from goodness itself,
thus from God.
And therefore that any goodness
not originating from God,
but from man, is not good.

 

DLIFE 1, 8 - All Religion Is of the Life, and the Life of Religion Is To Is To Do That Which Is Good

DLIFE 1

Every person who has religion
knows and acknowledges
that he who leads a good life is saved,
and that he who leads an evil life is damned;
for he knows and acknowledges
that the person who lives right thinks right,
not only about God but also about his neighbor;
but not so the person whose life is evil.
The life of a person is his love,
and that which he loves
he not only likes to be doing,
but also likes to be thinking.
The reason therefore why we say
that the life is to do that which is good
is that doing what is good acts as a one
with thinking what is good,
for if in a person
these two things do not act as a one,
they are not of his life.

DLIFE 8

The reason why all religion is of the life,
is that after death everyone is his own life,
for the life stays the same
as it had been in this world,
and undergoes no change.
For an evil life cannot be converted into a good one,
nor a good life into an evil one,
because they are opposites,
and conversion into what is opposite is extinction.
And, being opposites,
a good life is called Life,
and an evil one Death.
This is why religion is of life,
and why its life is to do what is good.
__________

DLIFE = The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem

 

SS 115 - Without His Word

SS 115

. . . without the Word
no one would possess spiritual intelligence,
which consists in having knowledge of a God,
of heaven and hell,
and of a life after death;
nor would know anything whatever about the Lord,
about faith in Him and love to him,
nor anything about redemption,
by means of which nevertheless comes salvation.
As the Lord also says to His disciples:

Without Me you can do nothing.
(John 15:5)

A man can receive nothing
except it be given him from heaven.
(John 3:27)

 

SS 104, 105 - Why It Only Takes a Few

SS 104

There can be no conjunction with heaven
unless somewhere on earth
there is a church where the Word is,
and where by it the Lord is known;
for the Lord is the God of heaven and earth,
and apart from Him there is no salvation.
It is sufficient
that there be a church where the Word is,
even if it consists of comparatively few,
for even in that case
the Lord is present by its means in the whole world,
for by its means heaven
is conjoined with the human race.

SS 105 [1-2]

But in what way the presence and conjunction
of the Lord and heaven
exist in all lands by means of the Word
shall now be told.
Before the Lord
the universal heaven is like one person,
and so is the church.
. . . In this person,
the church where the Word is read
and the Lord thereby known,
is as the heart and lungs;
the celestial kingdom as the heart,
and the spiritual kingdom as the lungs.

As the heart and lungs
are the two founts of life in the human body,
and all the rest of the organs and viscera subsist
and have life from them,
so also do all people in the world
subsist and have life
from the conjunction of the Lord and heaven
with the church through the Word —
all those who have any religion,
who worship one God and live rightly,
who are therefore included in that grand humanity,
and who relate to its organs and viscera
surrounding the thoracic cavity
which contains the heart and lungs.
For the Word in the church,
even if possessed by relatively few,
is life to all the rest
from the Lord through heaven,
as the organs and viscera of the entire body
have life from the heart and lungs.
They also have a similar communication.

 

SS 102 - The Words Used Before the Current One

SS 102

I have been told by angels of heaven
that there was among the ancients
a Word written entirely by correspondences,
but that it had been lost,
and they said that it is still preserved,
and is in use in that heaven
where those ancient people dwell
who had possessed it in this world.
The ancients who still use that Word in heaven
came partly from the land of Canaan
and the neighboring countries,
such as Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia,
Chaldea, Assyria, and Egypt,
and also from Sidon, Tyre, and Nineveh.
The inhabitants of all these kingdoms
were in representative worship,
and consequently
in the knowledge of correspondences.
The wisdom of that time
was derived from this knowledge,
and by its means they had an interior perception,
and a communication with the heavens.
Those who had an interior acquaintance
with the correspondences of that Word
were called wise and intelligent,
and later, diviners and magi.
But as that Word was full of correspondences
which only in a remote way
signified celestial and spiritual things,
and consequently began to be falsified by many,
of the Lord's Divine Providence
it disappeared in course of time,
and at length was utterly lost,
and another Word, written by correspondences
less remote than the other,
was given by means of prophets
among the sons of Israel.
Yet many names of places in the land of Canaan
and in the surrounding countries
were retained in this Word
with significations like those they had
in the Ancient Word.
It was for this reason
that Abram was commanded to go into that land,
and that his descendants, from Jacob,
were brought into it.

-- Swedenborg's Opinion --

While Swedenborg was working on
True Christian Religion,
he wrote Beyer on April 12, 1770
in reference to the Minutes of the Goteborg Consistory:

"There they call this Swedenborgianism,
but for my part, true Christianity."

 

SS 99 - After the Lord Was Born, the Church Changed

SS 99

The state of the church was completely changed
by the Lord's becoming the Word in ultimates.
All the churches that had existed before His advent
were representative churches
and could see Divine truth in the shade only;
but after the Lord's coming into the world
a church was instituted by Him
that saw Divine truth in the light.
The difference is like that
between evening and morning,
and the state of the church before His advent
is also called "the evening,"
and that of the church after it "the morning."
Before His coming into the world
the Lord was indeed present
with the people of the church,
but mediately through heaven,
whereas since His coming into the world
He is present with them immediately,
for in the world He put on the Divine Natural,
in which He is present with people.
The glorification of the Lord
is the glorification of His Human
that He assumed in the world,
and the Lord's glorified Human is the Divine Natural.