AC 29 - the person who is being regenerated

AC 29
The person who is being regenerated is at first of such a quality that he supposes the good which he does, and the truth which he speaks, to be from himself, when in reality all good and all truth are from the Lord, so that whosoever supposes them to be from himself has not as yet the life of true faith, which he may afterwards receive; for he cannot as yet believe that they are from the Lord, because he is only in a state of preparation for the reception of the life of faith.

Genesis 4:2-7

Genesis 4:2-7

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the first born of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

AC 14 - "the Lord"

AC (Arcana Coelestia) 14
In the following work, by the name LORD is meant the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, and Him only; and He is called "the Lord" without the addition of other names. Throughout the universal heaven He it is who is acknowledged and adored as the Lord, because He has all sovereign power in the heavens and on earth. He also commanded His disciples so to call Him, saying, "You call Me Lord, and you say well, for I am" (John 13:13).

Canons - He is in the Father, and the Father in Him

The Canons of the New Church - The Holy Spirit, Chap. IV, 6

6. It is known that the soul adjoins to itself a body,
which may serve it for performing uses,
and afterwards it conjoins itself to the body as it serves,
and this even until the soul becomes of the body,
and the body of the soul.
This is what the Lord says,
that He is in the Father, and the Father in Him.

Canons - The Holy Spirit

The Canons of the New Church - The Holy Spirit, Chap. VII

In the degree that any one knows and acknowledges
the Divine Truth which proceeds from the Lord,
in the same degree he knows and acknowledges God;
and in the degree that any one does this Divine Truth,
in the same degree is he in the Lord and the Lord in him.

Canons - equilibrium

The Canons of the New Church - Redemption - Chap. V, 1-3

1. Every person is in the equilibrium which is between heaven and hell,
and thence in the freedom of looking and turning himself either to heaven or to hell.

2. Every man after death comes first into this equilibrium,
and thus into a similar state of life to that in which he was in the world.

3. They who in the world looked and turned themselves to heaven or to hell,
in like manner look and turn themselves after death.

Canons - exinanition?? glorification??

The Canons of the New Church - God the Redeemer Jesus Christ -
Chap. VI, 1-7

1. The Lord had two states; one which was called a state of exinanition, the other glorification.

2. The state of exinanition was also a state of humiliation before the Father;
and the state of glorification was a state of unition with the Father.

3. The Lord, when He was in a state of exinanition, or humiliation,
prayed to the Father as though absent or remote;
and when He was in a state of glorification, or unition,
He spoke with Himself, when with the Father;
altogether as with man there are states of the soul and body,
before and after regeneration.

4. The Lord when He was in Divine Truth separately,
was in a state of exinanition,
since that could be attacked by the hells, or by the devils there,
and be reproached by men;
wherefore the Lord, when He was in that separately,
could be tempted and suffer.

5. But on the other hand,
the Lord, when He was in Divine Good conjointly,
could not be tempted and suffer by devils in hell,
nor by men in the world,
since that could not be approached, still less invaded.

6. The Lord, when in the world, was alternately in these two states.

7. The Lord could not otherwise have become Justice and redemption.

Canons - the Holy Spirit & the Power of the Most High

The Canons of the New Church -
God the Redeemer Jesus Christ - Chap. IV, 5-8

The "Holy Spirit," which came Upon Mary, signifies the Divine Truth;
and the "Power of the Most High," which overshadowed her,
signifies the Divine Good from which that exists.

5. "The Most High," in the Word, is predicated of the Divine good;
wherefore the "power of the Most High' signifies power proceeding from the Divine good.
6. Therefore these two thing, "the Holy Spirit coming upon her,"
and "the power of the Most High overshadowing her," signify both,
namely, Divine Truth and Divine Good,
- this forming the soul, and that the body, - and communication.
7. Consequently, that these two in the Lord recently born were distinct,
as are soul and body, but were afterwards united.
8. In like manner as is done in man, who is born and afterwards is regenerated.

Canons - God, Section VI - "In the beginning..."

The Canons of the New Church - God, Section VI

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and God was the Word.
All things were made by Him -
and the world was made by Him. (John 1:1,3,10)

By "God" is there meant the Divine Good of Love;
and by the Word, which also was God, the Divine Truth of Wisdom.

Canons - Order

The Canons of the New Church - God, Section VIII -
a notation at end of the section:

All things proceed according to order. God is order.

Invitation 44 & 45 - correspondences in the Word

Invitation to the New Church 44 & 45

44 - ...when a person is in the natural sense, the angels are in the spiritual sense.

45 - The correspondences by which the Word as to each and all of its parts has been written, possess such power and strength, that it may be called the power and strength of the Divine Omnipotence; for through these correspondences, the natural acts conjointly with the spiritual, and the spiritual with the natural; thus the all of heaven with the all of the world. Thence it is that the two sacraments are correspondences of spiritual and natural things; thence is there strength and power.

Invitation 2 & 5 - our regeneration & the coming of the Lord

Invitation to the New Church 2 & 5

2 - During a person's regeneration, the light of heaven is instilled into natural light, and at the same time the heat of heaven; these two constitute, as it were, the new soul, through which a person is formed by the Lord. This light and heat are instilled through the higher mind, which is called the spiritual mind. By virtue of this instilling, or insertion, a person becomes a new creature, and becomes more enlightened and more intelligent in matters of the church, and consequently in the reading of the Word. This also is the new understanding and the new will. Afterwards the person is led by the Lord through the above light and through the above heat, and from natural becomes spiritual.

5 - ... without the Lord's Advent, no person could have been regenerated, and hence saved; and this is what is meant by "the Lamb taking away the sins of the world."

Marriage 99, 104, 105 - angels loving infants

Marriage (De Conjugio)

99 - Those who love infants, and educate them in heaven...live the most sweet and happy life.

104 - The inmost heaven through which the Lord insinuates conjugial love, consists of those there who are in greater peace than others. Peace in the heavens is comparatively like spring in the world, which delights and vivifies all things; it is celestial delight itself in its essence. The angels who are there are the wisest of all, and from innocence appear to the others like infants; they love infants even more than their fathers and mothers have loved them. They also preside over those who are with young.

105 - Those who have loved infants most tenderly, as such mothers...are there in the most sweet and tranquil life, and in celestial joy more than others.

Marriage 58 - to command in marriage

Marriage (De Conjugio) 58

Concerning the love of commanding in marriages,
that it takes away all love truly conjugial,
since conjugial love is such that the one wills to think and will as the other,
and thus mutually and reciprocally, so neither one commands,
but the Lord; thence is the delight of conjugial love.

Marriage 31 - conjugial love

Marriage (De Conjugio) 31

No one can be in conjugial love unless he be spiritual
by combat against the evils and their falsities,
and unless he acknowledges the Lord and His Divine.

Charity 212 - the church & religion

Charity 212
Where there is no truths of faith, the Church does not exist;
and where there is no good of life, religion does not exist.
The Church and religion make one, like truth and good. And because truth is of faith and good is of charity, they make one as faith and charity do; and, in order that it may be still more clearly understood, they make one as do the understanding and the will. It is well known that it is possible for a man to understand well and all the while not will well, and to understand truths and thence give utterance to them, and yet not from willing them, do them. But when he wills as he understands, and does as he says, then the will and the understanding with him make one. It is similar in the case of the Church and religion. The Church is a Church from its doctrine; and religion is religion from a life in accordance with doctrine. And the doctrine ought to be composed of truths, and the life ought to be made up of goods.

Charity 208 - the 'first of charity'

Charity 208
...the "first" of charity is to look to the Lord and shun evils as sins, which is done by repentance.
...before the Lord can inflow with good, evil must be removed; for influx before that is dangerous, as the good is turned into evil and increases it. The first thing, therefore, is to remove evil, and afterwards to inflow with good, and bring it into operation by means of the man Anyone attempting to do good from the Lord, before evil has been removed by repentance, or without shunning evils as sins, is attempting what is impossible....
Who is loving a person, when he wants to kill him, or hates him? Who is loving the neighbor, when he commits whoredom with someone else's wife? Who is loving the neighbor, when he defrauds him? Who is loving the neighbor, when he slanders him? Who is loving the neighbor, when he covets what belongs to him? Those evils, therefore, must first be removed; and in the measure that they are being removed, the that extent the neighbor is being loved.

Charity 202 - the Lord brings forth good

Charity 202
The Lord can bring forth good through any man, and He can turn the evil that an evil man brings forth into good. He can rouse an evil man to do good from selfish and worldly consideration; but in that case the Lord does not inflow into the evil of the man himself, but round about it into the surrounding things in him, thus into his external, by means of which the man wants to appear like a good man. That good, therefore, is good so far as the surface goes, but intrinsically is evil. With hypocrites, it is like gilded dung, so that scarcely anyone thinks it to be other than pure gold; nevertheless, if it is brought near to a sensitive nostril, the smell of the dung in it is perceived.

Charity 172 - service

Charity 172
... for everyone,
in whatever position of responsibility he is,
is obliged to serve;
even a king ought to serve the Lord.
And in so far as anyone serves faithfully,
he is loved and led by the Lord.
And in the measure that anyone looks to the Lord
and shuns evils as sins,
he serves freely and not under compulsion.

Charity 167 - hidden things of charity

Charity 167
No one can know the hidden things of charity in himself,
because he does not see them:
but the Lord sees them.

Charity 102 - Life is God & inflows into a person

Charity 102
... because Life is God,
the Divine cannot be appropriated to a person, who is finite and created,
but it can inflow into, and be adjoined to, a receptacle;
just as the eye is not light in itself, but can receive light,
and as the ear is not hearing in itself, but is the receptacle for it.

Charity 52 & 54 - genuine charity

Charity 52 & 54
He who loves a neighbor from genuine charity finds out what sort of person he is, and does good to him with discrimination, in accordance with the quality of his good.

Genuine charity itself is prudent and wise. The other charity is spurious, because it is of the will or of good only, and not at the same time of the understanding, or of truth.

Charity 2 - looking to the Lord

Charity 2
In so far as anyone does not look to the Lord
and shun evils because they are sins, he remains in them.

All evils are innately delightful, because man is born into the love of self, and that love delights in all the things that are of his proprium, that is, the things that he wills and thinks. Unless these inbred delights are subdued, everyone remains in them until death; and they are not subdued unless they are regarded as sweet poisons that kill, or as flowers beautiful in appearance but inwardly toxic, that is, unless the delights of the evils are regarded as being fatal, and this until they become undelightful.

AE - AC Holy Spirit - the union of Body & Soul

AE - The Athanasian Creed - The Holy Spirit

Through temptations man becomes spiritual and is conjoined to heaven. But the Lord through temptations conjoined His Human to the Divine itself which was in Him, and so He became God as to the Human.

He was united to His Divine by successive steps...and He was united through temptations and victories. Full unition was accomplished by the passion of the cross.

There is one God; and this is acknowledged in all the world.
The soul induces likeness in the body, and the body is but the external form of its own soul.
The Divine itself, and the Divine love, was His soul; it could not be otherwise than the Body should be like it.

AE - AC 201 - the Lord & the hells

AE - Athanasian Creed 201
That the Lord is God who alone is to be worshiped, is manifest from this, --that the hells are filled with the most bitter hatred against the Lord; not so against the Father, who also some hells call the Creator of the universe, from the habit of speaking that was formed in the world, and this without hatred; but all the hells are against the Lord; they are not willing, neither are they able, to name Him, and to all of them it is most delightful to torment those who adore the Lord, and this enjoyment of theirs is extreme.

AE - AC 121 - the Divine

AE - The Athanasian Creed 121

The Divine cannot be in any other body than its own;
thus it must be Divine.

AE - AC 92 - His Coming

AE - The Athanasian Creed 92

If the Lord had not now executed the Last Judgment (and this is His Coming),
No one in the church could have been saved any longer;
for all are in falsities, and all the Word has been falsified....
It is because of this that the Lord has now revealed the spiritual sense
as truth of doctrine;
as was done also in His Coming when He assumed the Human.

For those who want more of an explanation,
this is explained more fully in no. 112, which is in Comments.

AE - AC 46 - the Divine body and soul

AE - The Athanasian Creed - 46

The soul of the Lord was the Divine itself...
consequently, it is plain that His soul was His own Divine itself.
And whereas the body is not the man without the soul,
(indeed, whatever belongs to the body, even to its least particle,
lives from the soul,)
consequently such as the soul is, such is the body;
and the body is formed to the likeness of the soul....
And so they (Christians) make three parts in the Lord,
when yet there are two, the Divine and the Human;
and these two are one only Person;
and as soul and body make one man,
so the Divine and the Human is one Christ....

AE - AC 7 - the Divine Human was Divine order

AE - Athanasian Creed 7
...the Divine clothed itself with the Human,
according to Divine order,
from firsts to lasts:
and therefore in the Divine Human was Divine order:
consequently, that thus it fills all things,
or is omnipresent everywhere.

AE - The Angelic Idea - the Divine proceeding

AE - The Angelic Idea

The Divine proceeding that is nearest to the Lord appears before the angels as a sun; this appears to their sight fiery and flaming; this is so because the Divine proceeding is the Divine love and the Divine wisdom, and these so appear at a distance. (The angels add that the Divine proceeding is what the ancients represented by golden or shining and pure circles about the head of God, which modern painters still retain from the ancient idea.)

AE - DW XII (1) - what is spiritual

AE - Divine Wisdom XII (1)
What is spiritual can derive its essence from no other source
than the Divine love and the Divine wisdom,
for to love and to be wise is spiritual....

AE - DW XI - W&F 1 - a candle

AE - Divine Wisdom XI - Wisdom & Faith 1

...charity must give being to faith,
and faith must so teach;
moreover, charity must enlighten and faith must see;
consequently, if charity and faith are separated,
man has neither the one nor the other;
as when you take away a candle
you take away the light also, and there is thick darkness.

AE - DW - Love & Charity, Wisdom & Faith

AE - Divine Wisdom XI

LOVE AND CHARITY
1. The love of uses is charity.
2. The Lord is the source (a quo), and the neighbor is the object (ad quem).
3. Love to the Lord exists in charity, because in use.
4. Use is to perform one's office, and to do one's work
rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly.
5. There are general uses which are also uses of charity.
6. Uses become uses of charity only with one who fights against evils,
which are from hell;
7. Since these are contrary to love to the Lord,
and contrary to charity towards the neighbor.
8. Uses that have one's own good for their first and last end
are not uses of charity.

WISDOM AND FAITH
1. Faith is nothing else than truth.
2. Truth becomes truth when it is perceived and loved,
and it is called faith when it is known and thought.
3. The truths of faith look on one hand to the Lord,
on the other to the neighbor.
4. In brief, how the Lord is to be approached
that conjunction may be effected,
and how afterwards the Lord performs uses through man.
5. Both of these are taught by truths, spiritual, moral, and civil.
6. Faith is to know and think them; charity is to will and do them.
7. Therefore when the Divine love of the Lord exists with man in charity,
which to to will and do truths,
the Divine wisdom of the Lord exists with man in faith,
which is to know and think truths.
8. The conjunction of charity and faith is reciprocal.

AE - DW X - What is the Divine Wisdom?

AE - Divine Wisdom X [2]
The Divine wisdom is what is called the Divine providence,
and what is called also Divine order,
and Divine truths are called the laws of the Divine providence,
which have been treated of as above;
they are also called the laws of Divine order.
These laws on the one side have regard to the Lord,
and on the other to man,
and on both sides to conjunction.
The Divine love has for its object to lead and to bring man to itself;
and the Divine wisdom has for its object to teach man the way in which he must go that he may come into conjunction with the Lord. This way the Lord teaches in the Word, and particularly in the Decalogue; and on this account the two tables of the Decalogue were written by the finger of the Lord Himself, one of which has regard to the Lord and the other to man, and both to conjunction.

AE - DW - the spirit of a man

AE - Divine Wisdom - VII 92) [4]
The spirit of a man is not a substance that is separate from his viscera, organs, and members, but it cleaves to them in close conjunction; for the spiritual goes along with every fiber of these from outermosts to innermosts; and thus with every fiber and filament of the heart and lungs; consequently, when the bond between man's body and spirit is loosed, the spirit is in a form like that in which the man was before; there is only a separation of spiritual substance from material. For this reason the spirit has a heart and lungs the same as the man in the world, and also speech; and there can be no sense or motions or speech without heart and lungs. Spirits also have atmospheres, but spiritual. How greatly, then, are those deceived who assign to the soul a special seat somewhere in the brain or in the heart, for the soul of man, which is to live after death, is his spirit.

AE - DW III [3] - the co-operation between love & wisdom

AE - Divine Wisdom III [3]

... love in a state of peace and tranquility co-operates with wisdom,
and wisdom with love, and produces and forms...

AE - DW II - an image & likeness of the Lord

AE - Divine Wisdom - II
As there are two things in the Lord,
love and wisdom,
and these two proceed from Him,
and as man was created to be a likeness and an image of the Lord,
a likeness trough love,
and an image through wisdom,
so two receptacles were created with man,
one for love and the other for wisdom;
the receptacle of live is what is called the will,
and the receptacle of wisdom is what is called the understanding.

AE - DL XVII - acquiring the spiritual affection of use

AE - Divine Love - XVII
Every person has eternal life according to his affection of use, for the reason that affection is the person himself; consequently, such as the affection is, such is the person.

[5] The spiritual affection of use is both internal and external, and it is external or natural to the same extent that it is spiritual; for what is spiritual flows into what is natural, and arranges it in correspondence, thus into an image of itself.

Spiritual affection is acquired by shunning evils because they are sins; which is done by means of combat against them. The evils that a person must shun are all set forth written in the Decalogue. So far as person fights against them because they are sins, he becomes a spiritual affection, and thus he performs uses from spiritual life....

In this way one's spiritual mind is opened, through which the Lord enters into his natural mind and arranges it for performing spiritual uses which appear like natural uses. To these and no others is it granted by the Lord to love Him above all things and the neighbor as oneself.

If a person, by means of combat against evils as sins, has acquired anything spiritual in the world, be it ever so small, he is saved, and afterwards his uses grow like a grain of mustard seed into a tree.

AE - DL XIII - love to the Lord & the neighbor

AE Divine Love XIII

To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake.
To love the neighbor means to do uses to the church, to one's country, to human society, and to the fellow-citizen.
To be in the Lord means to be a use.
And to be a man means to perform uses to the neighbor from the Lord for the Lord's sake.

AE - DL XI - There are degrees of affections and uses.

AE - Divine Love XI

There are continuous degrees and discrete degrees. Both of these are in every form in the spiritual world and in the natural world. All are acquainted with continuous degrees; few however, have any knowledge of discrete degrees....
Continuous degrees, which all know about, are like the degrees from light to shade, from heat to cold, from rarity to density....
[2] But discrete degrees are wholly different. These do not advance in one plane to the sides around, but from highest to lowest; and for this reason they are called descending degrees.

AE - DL VIII - creation & use

AE - DL VIII

...from creation nothing is found on the earth that is not for use.

AE - DL IV - form of love

AE - The Divine Love IV

...form of love is a form of use;
for the subjects of love are uses,
because love wills to do goods,
and goods are nothing else than uses;
and since the Divine love infinitely transcends,
its form is a form of use in its whole complex.

AE 1226 - a life of use

AE 1226 [6]
A life from a love of uses is a life of love
of the public good and of love to the neighbor,
and also a life of love to the Lord,
for the Lord performs uses to man through man,
consequently a life of the love of uses is the spiritual Divine life,
and everyone who loves a good use and does it from a love for it,
is loved by the Lord,
and is received with joy by the angels of heaven.

AE 1223 - "For the fine linen is ... "

AE 1223
For the fine linen is the just deeds of the saints,
signifies that by means of truths from the Word
those who believe in the Lord have goods of life.

This is evident from the signification of "fine linen",
as being truths from the Word;
also from the signification of "saints",
as being those who are in truths from good from the Lord.

AE 1215 - fallacy is seeing appearance and not essence

AE 1215 [4]
...for a fallacy is an inversion of order;
it is the judgment of the eye,
not of the mind;
it is a conclusion from the appearance of a thing,
not from its essence.

...it is an eternal truth that influx is spiritual and not physical,
that is, influx is from the soul, which is spiritual,
into the body, which is natural,
or from the spiritual world into the natural world;
also that as the Divine from itself
and through that which proceeds from itself
created all things,
so it sustains all things...

AE 1210 - "To praise God"

AE 1210
"To praise God" signifies confession and worship,
because the Lord has no wish to be praised and glorified
from any love of Himself,
but only from His love for man,
for man must needs praise and glorify the Lord,
that is, give praise and glory to Him,
when he acknowledges in heart that there is nothing of good in himself,
and that he can do nothing of himself,
and on the other hand, that all good is from the Lord,
and that the Lord can do all things.
When man is in this acknowledgment,
he puts aside what is his own,
which belongs to the love of self,
and opens all things of his mind,
and thus gives room for the Divine to flow in with good and with power.
This is why it is necessary for man to be in humiliation before the Lord,
and why humiliation can be from no other source
than self-acknowledgment and acknowledgment of the Lord,
according to which reception is effected.

AE 1206 - "falling down before God"

AE 1206
... by creation there are gestures corresponding to every affection, and a man falls into them spontaneously when he comes into the affection, provided he has not learned to counterfeit affections that are foreign to him; while one who has learned so to do takes on gestures from himself by which he depicts affections of the heart, although they do not belong at all to his heart. Such can fall down before God, but it is a purely counterfeit act. This has been said to make known that "falling down before God" means to act from inmost affection, which is called humiliation of heart; this precedes worship, which is an act of the lips.

AE 1199 - For true and just are His judgments

AE 1199
For true and just are his judgments,
signifies that the laws of the Divine providence,
and all the works of the Lord,
are of the Divine wisdom and the Divine love.

AE 1198 - Salvation, glory, honor, power

AE 1198
Salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God
signifies eternal life is from the Lord
through the Divine truth and the Divine good from His Divine omnipotence.
This is evident from the signification of salvation, as being eternal life;
also from the signification of "glory and honor,"
as being the Lord's Divine truth and Divine good;
also from the signification of "power,"
as being, in reference to the Lord, omnipotence;
and as the Lord is called in the Word "Jehovah" and "Lord"
from the Divine good,
and "God" from the Divine truth,
and Divine good and truth are signified by "glory and honor,"
so it is said, "the Lord our God".
In the sense of the letter, "salvation, glory, honor, and power," are mentioned separately, but in the spiritual sense they are joined into one meaning, which is, that eternal life is from the Lord through the Divine truth and the Divine good from the Divine omnipotence. The same is true of many other passages of the Word. Sometimes mere names of countries and cities are enumerated, that appear disconnected in the sense of the letter, but in the spiritual sense they combine into one continuous sense.

AE 1194 - being useful

AE 1194 [2]
Man was created to perform uses, and this is to love the neighbor, so all who come into heaven, however many there are, must do uses. All the delight and blessedness of these is according to uses and the love of uses. Heavenly joy is from no other source. He who believe that such joy is possible in idleness is much deceived.

AE 1190 & AE 1193 - uses

AE 1190 [2]
To love wisdom is to love uses that are true uses,
and to love knowledge is to love the cognitions of good and truth
for the sake of such uses.
When uses are loved more than self and the world,
and the cognitions of good and truth are loved for the sake of uses,
uses have the first place and eminence and wealth the second place....

AE 1193 [2]
To love uses is nothing else than to love the neighbor,
for use in the spiritual sense is the neighbor.
This can be seen from the fact that everyone loves another
not because of his face and body,
but from his will and understanding....
And as a person is loved or not loved for these reasons,
it follows that the neighbor is that from which every one is a person,
and that is his spiritual.


cognitions - thoughts or beliefs

AE 1184 - going astray

AE 1185 [2]
...by the Divine providence man is led only to such things as do not lead astray and as are serviceable to eternal life; for all things of the Divine providence with man look to what is eternal, since the life which is God, from which man is man, is eternal.... I have seen the eminent and the rich in the heavens and I have seen them in the hells; therefore, as has been said, when eminence and riches to not lead astray, they are from God, but when they do, they are from hell.

AE 1175 - the Lord leads a person by their affections

AE 1175 [4]
Why a person is led by the Lord by means of affections and not by means of thoughts shall now be told. When a person is led by the Lord by means of affections, he can be led according to all the laws of His Divine providence, but not if he should be led by means of thoughts. Affections do not become evident to man, but thoughts do; also affections produce thoughts, but thoughts do not produce affections; there is an appearance that they do, but it is a fallacy. And when affections produce thoughts, they produce all things of a person, because these constitute his life. Moreover, this is known in the world. If you hold a person in his affection, you hold him bound, and lead him wherever you please, and a single reason is then stronger than a thousand. But if you do not hold a person in his affection, reasons are of no avail, for his affection, when not in harmony with them (reasons), and either perverts them or rejects them or extinguishes them. It would be similar if the Lord should lead a person by means of thoughts immediately, and not by means of affections. Again, when a person is led by the Lord by means of affections, it seems to the person as if he thought freely as if of himself, and spoke freely and acted freely as if of himself. And this is why the Lord does not teach a person immediately, but mediately by means of the Word, and by means of conversations and intercourse with others; for from these things man thinks free as if of himself.

AE 1174 - as of self

AE 1174 [2]
... it is according to a law of the Divine providence that man shall go whithersoever his affection wills....
And yet the Lord leads him as if by the hand, permitting and withholding as far as man is willing to follow in freedom....

[3]
This the Lord does without the man's knowing it, because if man knew it he would disturb the continuity of that process by leading himself. It is enough for man to learn truths from the Word, and by means of truths to know what good is, and from truths and goods what evils and falsities are, in order that he may be affected by truths and goods, and not be affected by falsities and evils.

AE 1166 - Divine omnipotence, Divine omniscience, Divine providence

AE 1166 [2]
The Lord alone resists the evils with man by Himself and not through any angels of heaven, because to resist evils with man is a work o f Divine omnipotence, Divine omniscience, and Divine providence.

It is a work of Divine omnipotence, because to resist one evil is to resit many, and even to resist the hells. For every evil is joined with innumerable other evils, and they cling together like the hells with each other; for as evils make one so do the hells, and as the hells make one so do evils, and no one but the Lord is able to resit the hells so united.

It is a work of Divine omniscience, because the Lord alone knows what man is and what his evils are, and what their connection is with other evils, thus in what order they must be removed that man may be inwardly or radically cured.

It is a work of Divine providence, that nothing may be done contrary to the laws of order, and that what is done may promote man's eternal good; for Divine omnipotence, Divine omniscience, and Divine providence have respect in every least particular to what is eternal.

[3]
All this makes clear that no angel is able to resist the evils with man, but the Lord only. The Lord carries on this work in man both immediately from Himself, and mediately through heaven, and yet in such a way that no angel knows anything about it.

AE 1160 - the profanation of what is holy

AE 1160 [3]
Moreover, the Lord by His Divine providence guards with the greatest care against this kind of profanation; and lest this exist, He separates the holy things with man from those that are not holy, and stores up the holy things in the interiors of his mind, and raises them up to Himself; while the things not holy He stores up in the exteriors, and turns them to the world. Thus holy things can be separated from the unholy, and thus man can be saved. But this cannot be done when goods and evils are mixed together.

AE 1159 - a law of order relating to reformation which is a law of providence

AE 1159 [5]
... man is not let into the truths of faith and the goods of love except so far as he can be withheld from evils and held in goods even to the end of life, and that it is better for a man to be permanently evil than that he be good and afterwards evil, for thus he becomes profane. It is for this reason that the Lord, who provides all things and foresees all things, hides the operations of His providence....

AE 1153 - the operation of the Divine Providence

AE 1153 [6]
Man does not perceive the operation of the Divine providence within himself, because that would take away his freedom, and thus his ability to think as if of himself, and with it every delight of life; thus man would be like an automaton, in which there is no reciprocal, and consequently no conjunction; also he would be a slave and not free. The Divine providence moves so secretly that scarcely a trace of it is seen, although it acts upon the most minute things of man's thought and will, which regard his eternal state....

[7]
If a man should learn anything of these arcana, he could not be withheld from leading himself; and in this he would be continually led from heaven into hell, while the Lord's leading is continually from hell towards heaven. For from himself man constantly acts against order, while the Lord acts constantly according to order; for man, from the nature derived from his parents, is in the love of self and the love of the world, and consequently perceives from a feeling of delight everything belonging to those loves as good; nevertheless, those loves as ends must be removed; and this is done by the Lord in infinite ways, that appear like a labyrinth even before the angels of the third heaven.

[8]
All this makes clear that man would find no help at all in knowing anything about this from sense or perception, but it would do him harm instead, and would destroy him forever. It is sufficient for man to know truths, and by means of truths to know what is good and what is evil, and to acknowledge the Lord and His Divine auspices in every least thing. Then so far as he knows truths, and by means of them what is good and evil, and does what is good as if from himself, so far the Lord leads him from love into wisdom, conjoining love to wisdom and wisdom to love, and making them to be one, because they are one in Himself.

AE 1145 - "wood" and "stone"

AE 1145 [2]
"Wood" signifies good, because it is from a tree from which are fruits; also because wood can be burned and be useful in keeping the body warm, and in building houses and marking various articles of convenience and use; also because an oil, which signifies the good of love, may be expressed from wood; it also contains in it that which gives heat.

"Stone" on the hand signifies here (Rev. 18:12) the truth of the natural man, because it is cold and cannot be burned.

AE 1144 - love of the neighbor, love of uses

AE 1144
Love towards the neighbor in the spiritual sense is the love of uses;
and when uses are for the sake of self,
it is not a love of uses but a love of self.

AE 1139 - the union of the Lord with a person

AE 1139 [2]
... the light of life and the heat of life move and fill their recipient in the exact measure of the quality of his acknowledgment that they are not his but are the Lord's, and the quality of acknowledgment is in exact accord with the quality of love in doing the commandments, which are uses.

AE 1129 - the universe

AE 1129 [5]
... the created universe is full of God.

AE 1127 - life from the Lord

AE 1127
Life from the Lord is love and wisdom;
consequently,
such as the reception of love and wisdom from the Lord is
such is the person.

AE 1115 - spirit & body

AE 1115 [4]
A man is in the idea of his spirit when he thinks abstractly,
and in the idea of his body when he does not think abstractly.

AE 1112 - civil truth is truth from law, civil equity is the good

AE 1112
"The just" is truth from good because civil justice is nothing else than civil truth, which is of the law, and civil equity is the good that is also of the law, since as the law wills justice so it wills equity; for as all truth must be from good so all justice must be from equity; and as all truth must be of good so all justice must be of equity, and conversely. The two cannot be separated, for if they are separated equity is no longer equity, nor is so-called justice justice; as good and truth cannot be separated, of if they are separated, good is not good, nor is truth truth.

AE 1104 - the Lord as Man who is God

AE 1104 [3]
In a word, those who separate the Divine from His Human, and do not think that the Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body, and that the two are one Person, may fall into strange ideas about the Lord, even into an idea like that of a man separated from his soul. Take heed, therefore, not to think of the Lord as a man like yourself, but think of the Lord as Man who is God.

AE 1100 - the truths of the Word can be understood

AE 1100 [24]
If what is not understood must be believed,
a man might be taught like a parrot to speak and to remember....
But be it known that all the truths of the Word,
which are the truths of heaven and of the church,
can be seen by the understanding,
in heaven spiritually,
in the world rationally;
for a truly human understanding is the sight itself of these truths,
for it is separated from what is material
and when separated
it sees truths as clearly as the eye sees objects;
it sees truths as it loves them,
for as it loves them it is enlightened.
The angels have wisdom in consequence of seeing truths....

AE 1096 - thought of God

AE 1096 [4]
As thought about God is what primarily opens heaven,
so thought against God is what primarily closes heaven.

AE 1092, 1094 - our thoughts

AE 1092 [3]
... all the thoughts of a person pour themselves forth into the spiritual world in every direction, much the same as rays of light from a flame. As the spiritual world consists of heaven and hell, and as heaven as well as hell consists of innumerable societies, the thoughts of a person must needs pour themselves forth into societies; spiritual thoughts, which relate to the Lord, to love and faith in Him, and to the truths and goods of heaven and the church, into heavenly societies; but merely natural thoughts, which relate to self and the world and the love of these, and not at the same time to God, into infernal societies.

AE 1094 [2]
Here let it be said that a person lets himself more and more into the societies of heaven successively according to the increase of wisdom, and into more and more interior societies successively according to the increase of the love of good; also that so far as heaven is opened to him hell is closed. But it is man who opens hell to himself, while it is the Lord who opens heaven to man.

AE 1088 - "cherubim" guard & protect

AE 1088 [5]
The "cherubim" mean in the Word a guard and protection that the holy things of heaven not be violated, and that the Lord be approached only through love; consequently these signify the sense of the letter of the Word, because that is what guards and protects.

AE 1085 - our Word, Its holiness, and the angels

AE 1085 [2]
As the angels of the three heavens receive their wisdom from the Lord through the Word with them, and as their Words make one with our Word by correspondences, it also follows that the sense of the letter of our Word is the basis, support, and foundation of the wisdom of the angels of heaven. For the heavens rest upon the human race as a house rests upon its foundation; so the wisdom of the angels of heaven rests in like manner upon the knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom of men from the sense of the letter of the Word, for as been said above, communication and conjunction with the heavens are effected through the sense of the letter of the Word. So it is, that of the Lord's Divine Providence it has come to pass, that the Word as to the sense of the letter from its first revelation has not been mutilated, not even as to an expression and letter in the original text, for every expression is a support, and in some measure the letters. From all this it is clear what a profanation it is to falsify the truths and adulterate the goods of the Word, and how infernal it is to deny or weaken its holiness. As soon as that is done, for that man of the church heaven is closed. The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which cannot be forgiven, is the blasphemy of the Word by those who deny its holiness.

AE 1083 - "Thou shalt not steal"

AE 1083 [4]
When... "Thou shalt not steal" is read, by "stealing" a man understands stealing, defrauding, and taking away under any pretense his neighbor's goods. But an angel of the spiritual kingdom by "stealing" understands depriving another of his truths and goods by means of falsities and evils, while an angel of the celestial kingdom by "not to steal" understands not to attribute to himself the things that are the Lord's as the good of life and the truth of faith; for thereby good becomes not good, and truth not truth, because they are from men.

AE 1077 - a source of wisdom & intelligence

AE 1077 [2]
The Word of the Lord is wonderful in this,
that in every particular of it
there is a reciprocal union of good and truth
which testifies that the Word is the Divine proceeding from the Lord
which is the Divine good and the Divine truth reciprocally united . . ..
There is a marriage of good and truth, also of truth and good,
in every particular of the Word,
in order that it may be a source of wisdom
to angels and of intelligence to mankind . . .

AE 1072 - the Word is like a garden

AE 1072 [2]
That the Word is holy and Divine from inmosts to outermosts
is not evident to the man who leads himself,
but is evident to the man whom the Lord leads.
For the man who leads himself sees only the external of the Word,
and judges from its style;
but the man whom the Lord leads
judges of the external of the Word from the holiness that is in it.
The Word is like a garden,
that may be called a heavenly paradise,
in which are dainties and delightful things of every kind,
dainties from the fruits,
and delightful things from the flowers;
and in the middle of it trees of life,
and near them fountains of living water,
and round about trees of the forest,
and near them rivers.
The man who leads himself judges of that paradise,
which is the Word,
from its circumference, where the trees of the forest are;
but the man whom the Lord leads judges of it from the middle of it,
where the trees of life are.
The man whom the Lord leads is actually in the middle of it,
and looks to the Lord;
but the man who leads himself actually sits down at the circumference,
and looks away from it to the world.

AE 1066 - the Word

AE 1006 [3]
The Word is Divine truth itself,
which gives wisdom to angels and enlightens men.
... as the Word is the Divine truth, it is also the Lord....

The rest of this number gives a beautiful explanation of the senses of the Word, and then gives a detailed look at the sense of the letter of the Word. You can find it if you click on the word "comments" under this passage.

AE 1064 - the fifth kind of profanation

AE 1064 [3]
This kind is not like the others that have been treated of, for it consists in jesting from the Word and about the Word. For those who make jokes from the Word do not regard it as holy, and those who joke about it hold it in no esteem. And yet the Word is the very Divine truth of the Lord with men, and the Lord is present in the Word, and heaven also; for every particular of the Word communicates with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord; therefore to jest from the Word and about the Word is to bespatter the holy things of heaven with the dust of the earth.

AE 1061 - the Word serves heaven

AE 1061
... the Word in the letter must be natural,
in every particular of which the spiritual sense must be stored up;
otherwise the Word would not serve the heavens as a basis;
nor would it serve the church as the means for its conjunction with heaven.

AE 1050 - the light of heaven

AE 1050 [2]
A person has two minds, the natural and the spiritual. The natural mind is opened to him by the knowledges and cognitions of truth and good, and the spiritual mind is opened by a life according to these; and this is effected in those who know, acknowledge, and believe the truths of the Word and live according to them.... When the spiritual mind has been opened, the light of heaven, which is Divine truth, flows through it into the natural mind, and there arranges truths in corresponding order.


[cognitions - thinking, remembering, learning, using language)

AE 1043 - equilibrium

AE 1043 [3]
All angels, spirits, and men are kept by the Lord in equilibrium between good and evil, and thus between truth and falsity, in order that they may be in freedom; and thus may be led from evil to good and from falsity to truth easily and as if by themselves, although in fact they are led by the Lord.

AE 1038 - beasts

AE 1038 [2]
The divine Word can be signified by a "beast," because many of the holy things of the church are signified in the Word by "beasts".... Moreover, all beasts that were sacrificed, as oxen, bullocks, goats, she-goats, kids, rams, sheep, and lambs, signified the holy things of the church.... And this is why men because of charity are called "sheep," and even the Lord Himself because of the Divine innocence is called a "Lamb," and because of Divine power is called a "Lion."

AE 1032 - heaven or hell?

AE 1032 [2]
Man is either led from heaven or he is led from hell;
he cannot be led by both at the same time;
and he is led from heaven when he is led by the Lord,
and from hell when he is led by self.

... when man thinks in that elevated state
he thinks truth from the Lord
and does good from Him.

AE 1029a - Babylon

AE 1029a
"Babylon (or Babel)" means the church consisting of those who by means of the holy things of the church strive to gain dominion over the whole world, and this by dominion over the souls of men, claiming to themselves authority to save whomsoever they will; and these finally seek dominion over heaven and hell and make it their own. And to this end they draw and transfer to themselves all the Lord's authority, as if it had been given them by Him. The church consisting of such is very different in the beginning from what it becomes in process of time. In the beginning they are as it were in zeal for the Lord, for the Word, for love and faith, and especially for the salvation of men. But in that zeal the fire of domineering lies hidden; and in process of time as dominion increases this breaks forth; and so far as it comes into act the holy things of the church become the means, and dominion itself the end; and when dominion becomes the end the holy things of the church are applied to that end, and thus to themselves; and then they not only ascribe the salvation of souls to their own authority, but they also appropriate to themselves all the Lord's Divine power. And when they do this they pervert every good and every truth of the church, and thus profane the holy things of the church. These things are "Babylon."

AE 1027 - we can be in the Lord, and the Lord in us

AE 1027 [3]
... a person does not conjoin himself to the Lord, but that the Lord alone conjoins a person to Himself, and that conjunction is effected by doing...

AE 1027 [4]
... when a person through the last six commandments conjoins himself to the Lord as if of himself, the Lord then conjoins Himself to a person through the first three commandments, which are that man must acknowledge God, must believe in the Lord, and must keep His name holy. This a person does not believe, however much he man think that he does, unless the evils forbidden in the other table, that is, in the last six commandments, he abstains from as sins. These are the things pertaining to the covenant on the part of the Lord and on the part of man, through which there is reciprocal conjunction, which is that a person may be in the Lord and the Lord in a person.

AE 1022 - Thou shalt not covet

AE 1022 [3]
... all lusts are of love, for it is love that covets; and as there are two evils loves to which all lusts have reference, namely, the love of the world and the love of self, it follows that the lust of the ninth commandment has reference to the love of the world, and the lust of this (the tenth) commandment to the love of self, especially to the love of ruling. (... all evils and the falsities therefrom flow from these two loves...)

AE 1014, 1017 - "Thou shalt not kill"

AE 1012 [4]
The more remote sense of this commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which is called the celestial spiritual sense, is that one shall not take away from man the faith and love of God, and thus his spiritual life. This is murder itself, because from this life man is a man, the life of the body serving this life as the instrumental cause serves its principal cause. Moreover, from this spiritual murder, moral murder is derived; consequently he who is in the one is also in the other; for he who wills to take away a man's spiritual life is in hatred against him if he cannot take it away, for he hates the faith and love with him, and thus the man himself. These three, namely, spiritual murder, which pertains to faith and love, moral murder, which pertains to reputation and honor, and natural murder, which pertains to the body, follow in a series one from the other, like cause and effect.

AE 1017
When a man abstains from hatred and turns away from it and shuns it as diabolical, then love, charity, mercy and clemency flow in through the heaven from the Lord, and then first the works which he does are works of love and charity.... So long as hatred is not put away, so long man is merely natural...nor can he become spiritual before hatred, with its root, which is the love of ruling over all, is removed; for the fire of heaven, which is spiritual love, cannot flow in so long as the fire of hell, which is hatred, stands in the way and shuts it out.

AE 1006 - Happy is he that is awake

AE 1006
Happy is he that is awake, (Rev. 16:15)
signifies the happy state of those who look to the Lord.
This is evident from the signification of "happy,"
as being to be in a happy state;
also from the signification of "being awake,"
as being to acquire for oneself spiritual life;
and this is acquired by man's looking to the Lord,
because the Lord is Life itself,
and from Him alone is life eternal.

AE 1003 - faith alone

AE 1003 [2]
... faith involves that a thing must be believed,
however it may appear to the understanding;
and when the understanding is taken away from faith
enlightenment also is taken away....

AE 997 [4] - Peace

AE 997 [4]
Peace is happiness of heart and soul
arising from the conjunction of the Lord with heaven and the church,
as well as from the conjunction of good and truth,
when all conflict and combat of evil and falsity
with good and truth has ceased....

AE 997 - the influx of Divine Truth

AE 997 [2]
Something shall now be said about the influx into men of Divine truth from the Lord. From the Lord as a sun both heat and light proceed; but the heat is Divine good, and the light is Divine truth. The light, which is Divine truth, flows into and enters into every angel of heaven, and also into every man in the world, and gives internal sight, which is the sight of the understanding. For every man, not as to his body but as to his spirit, has a faculty for receiving that light, that is, for understanding the Divine truth. And that faculty is opened as the man grows up, and cultivates and forms his rational according to order, by the knowledges [scientifica] and by the cognitions [cognitiones] of good and truth. But the heat, which is Divine good, does not flow into an angel or a man as the light, which is Divine truth, does, for the reason that man is born into evils of every kind, and evils obstruct; consequently evils must first be removed before the heat, which is Divine good, can flow in; and evils are removed by looking upon them as sins against God and shunning them, by praying to the Lord for help; and so far as a man thus receives Divine good so far he comes into the light of understanding Divine truth. For the way of Divine truth into a man who is reformed is through the good of the will, and of the life therefrom with him.

AE 995 - the angels of the third heaven

AE 995 [2]
The genuine conjugial is given especially in the third heaven,
because the angels there are in love to the Lord,
they acknowledge Him alone as God,
and they do His commandments.
To them doing the commandments is loving the Lord.
To them the Lord's commandments are the truths in which they receive Him.
There is conjunction of the Lord with them,
and of them with the Lord;
for they are in the Lord because they are in good,
and the Lord is in them because they are in truths.
This is the heavenly marriage, from which true conjugial love descends.

AE 985 - the love of marriage

AE 985 [3]
The love of marriage is so holy and heavenly because
it has its beginning in the inmosts of a person from the Lord Himself,
and it descends according to order to the ultimates of the body,
and thus fills the whole person with heavenly love
and brings him into a form of the Divine love,
which is the form of heaven,
and is an image of the Lord....

AE 979 & 980, 982 - good works & loving the Lord vs. love of self

AE 979 [2]
When a man shuns evils as sins, he daily learns what a good work is, and the affection of doing good grows with him, and the affection of knowing truths for the sake of good; for so far as he knows truths he can perform works more fully and more wisely, and thus his works become more truly good. Cease, therefore, from asking in thyself, "What are the good works that I must do, or what good must I do to receive eternal life?" Only cease from evils as sins and look to the Lord, and the Lord will teach and lead you.

AE 981
Love to the Lord means the love or affection of doing His commandments, thus the love of keeping the commandments of the Decalogue. For so far as a man from love or from affection keeps and does these, so far he loves the Lord, and for the reason that these are the Lord with man.

AE 982 [2]
In the world it is scarcely known that all who are in the love of self, according to the delight of that love, are in the delight of injuring others who do not make one with them.

AE 973 - to love the Lord

AE 973 [2]
For when a man shuns and turns away from unlawful gains through fraud and craft he so far wills what is sincere, right, and just, and at length begins to love what is sincere because it is sincere, what is right because it is right, and what is just because it is just. He begins to love these things because they are from the Lord, and the love of the Lord is in them. For to love the Lord is not to love the Person, but to love the things that proceed from the Lord for these are the Lord with man; thus it is to love sincerity itself, right itself, and justice itself. And as these are the Lord, so far as a man loves these, and thus acts from them, so far he acts from the Lord and so far the Lord removes insincerity and injustice as to the very intentions and volitions in which they have their roots, and always with less resistance and struggle, and therefore with less effort than in the first attempts.

AE 969 - Why 8 of the 10 commandments are "You shall not"

AE 969 [2]
Man is an image of the world as to his natural mind, and he is an image of heaven as to his spiritual mind. The natural mind, which is the world, is beneath; and the spiritual mind, which is heaven is above.

[3]
... before the Lord can flow in with heaven out of heaven and form man to the image of heaven, those evils that lie heaped up in the natural mind must needs be removed. Moreover, as the removal of evils must come first before man can be taught and led by the Lord, the reason is evident why in eight commandments of the Decalogue the evil works that must not be done are recounted, but not the goods that must be done. Good does not exist together with evil, nor does it exist before evils have been removed; for until then there is no way possible for heaven to enter man.

AE 966 - the Lord gives

AE 966 [2]
For the Lord gives life from Himself,
and through the church He gives nourishment.

AE 960b - 'the name of God'

AE 960b [10]
As the Lord's "blood," and likewise "wine," signify the Divine truth that proceeds from Him ... it is said therefore "this is My blood;" and as it is by means of the Divine truth that the Lord is conjoined with the church, it is called "that of the new Testament or the new Covenant."

[14]
Since "the name of God" means that which is from God and which is God, and this is called the Divine truth, and with us the Word, this must not be profaned, because it is in itself Divine and most holy; and it is profaned when its holiness is denied, which is done when it is despised, rejected, and treated contemptuously. When this is done heaven is closed and man is left to hell. For the Word is the only medium of conjunction of heaven with the church; therefore when the Word is cast out of the heart that conjunction is dissolved; and because man is then left to hell he no longer acknowledges any truth of the church.

AE 957 - the primary of all ideas

AE 957 [3]
The idea of God is the primary of all ideas; for such as this idea is, such is man's communication with heaven and his conjunction with the Lord, and such is his enlightenment, his affection of truth and good, his perception, intelligence, and wisdom; for these are not from man but from the Lord according to conjunction with Him. The idea of God is the idea of the Lord....

AE 949 - so far as evils are removed as sins

AE 949 [3]
So far as evils are removed as sins,
so far goods flow in,
and so far does man afterwards do good,
not from self, but from the Lord.

AE 943 - heavenly joy is in these affections

AE 943
Man has the affection of truth
when he loves truth and turns away from falsity.
He has the affection of good
when he loves good uses and turns away from evil uses.
He has the affection of bringing forth fruit
when he loves to do goods and to be serviceable.
All heavenly joy is in these affections and from them,
and this joy cannot be described by comparisons,
for it is supereminent and eternal.

AE 934 - the necessary two things

AE 934 [2]
... for works to be done by the Lord, and not by man, two things are necessary: First, the Lord's Divine must be acknowledged, also that He is the God of heaven and earth even as to the Human, and that every good that is good is from Him; and secondly, that man must live according to the commandments of the Decalogue by abstaining from those evils that are there forbidden, that is, from worshiping other gods, from profaning the name of God, from thefts, from adulteries, from murders, from false witness, from coveting the possessions and property of others. These two things are requisite that the works done by man may be good. The reason is that every good comes from the Lord alone, and the Lord cannot enter into man and lead him so long as these evils are not removed as sins; for they are infernal, and in fact are hell with man, and unless hell is removed the Lord cannot enter and open heaven.

AE 927 - great and wonderful

AE 927
Great and wonderful (Revelation 15:1),
signifies from Divine omnipotence and providence.
This is evident from the signification of "great,"
as being in reference to the Lord His Divine omnipotence;
also from the signification of "wonderful,"
as being in reference to the Lord His Divine providence.
For when man looks to what is great in the Lord
he looks to His Divine omnipotence,
and when he looks to what is wonderful in the Lord
he looks to His Divine providence.

AE 923 - enlightenment, perception, stupidy, foolishness

AE 923 [3]
... spiritual good...which is the good of charity from the Lord,
is what alone opens the spiritual mind,
through which the Lord flows in and enlightens;
and without the opening of that mind
no enlightenment is possible,
and thus no understanding of truth.

AE 923 [4]
I will put my hook in thy nose... (Isaiah 37:29)
... which signifies that stupidity and foolishness should possess him;
for the "nose" signifies perception,
and a "hook" signifies taking it away,
or properly, immersing it in the corporeal sensual,
and when this is separated from the rational it is stupid.

AE 918 - What is charity?

AE 918 [2]
What charity is, which is the same as spiritual good, shall be told briefly.
Charity or spiritual good is to do good because it is true;
thus it is to do truth,
and to do truth is to do what the Lord has commanded in His Word.

For spiritual good is from the Lord, but moral good is from man,
consequently unless the good that man does is from the Lord,
that is, through man from the Lord, it is not good...

[10]
The good of charity means justice, sincerity, and uprightness in every work
and in every function from a love of justice, sincerity, and uprightness,
which love is solely from the Lord.

AE 911c - the Lord's gift to man

AE 911c [17]
For it is to be known, that, although the Lord works all things, and man nothing from self, yet He wills that man should work as if from self in all that comes to his perception. For without man's co-operation, as if from self, there can be no reception of truth and good, thus no implantation and regeneration. For to will is the Lord's gift to man....

AE 907 - Divine Truth

AE 907 [4]
For the real truth is,
that the Divine truth never fights against falsity from evil,
but falsity fights against truth;
and thus heaven does not fight against hell,
but hell against heaven.

AE 902 - the commandments in the Word

AE 902
Spiritual life is acquired solely by a life
according to the commandments in the Word.
These commandments are given in a summary in the Decalogue, namely,
Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not kill,
Thou shalt not bear false witness,
Thou shalt not covet the goods of others.
These commandments are the commandments that are to be done,
for when a man does these his works are good and his life becomes spiritual,
because so far as a man shuns evils and hates them,
so far he wills and loves goods.

AE 902 [6]
... for to do these commandments from religion purifies the internal man,
opens heaven,
admits the Lord,
and makes man as to his spirit an angel of heaven.
And this is why the nations outside the church
who do these commandments from religion are all saved,
but not any one who does them merely from civil and moral law.

AE 898 - Write

AE 898
Write, signifies certainty....
"To write" signifies certainty because writing is the ultimate act of thought and of speech therefrom, and thus it means what is certain, because what is terminated. This may be compared with all things that a man wills, thinks, and speaks therefrom, and does not terminate by doing them; such things are not yet in man's life, for the ultimate in which prior things exist together is lacking.

AE 888 [3] - the Word communicates & conjunctions

AE 888 [3]
How infernal and thus how injurious it is to falsify the Word
even to the destruction of the Divine truth and the Divine good in the heavens
can be seen from the fact
that all things of the sense of the letter of the Word,
which are Divine truths for the natural man,
communicate through the spiritual sense with the angels of heaven,
to the extent that men and the angels of heaven are conjoined
by means of the Word;
consequently the sense of the letter of the Word,
with the man who falsifies it,
is perceived in heaven in a two-fold manner,
namely as genuine truth from the sense of the letter
according to correspondences,
and as destroyed according to falsifications.
From this it comes that truth and falsity are presented together as conjoined,
from which the angels of heaven are exasperated,
and turn themselves entirely away.

AE 887 - falsifying the Word

AE 887
...those who falsify the Word are spiritually drunken, that is,
are in a state of delirium in respect to truths...

AE 874 - "Fear God and give glory to Him"

AE 874
Fear God and give glory to Him (Rev. 16:7),
signifies to worship the Lord from His Divine truth
by a life according to it.

AE 866 - all who are in the Lord

AE 866
For the Lord is Divine truth united to Divine good;
and all who are in the Lord,
who are those who acknowledge His Divine Human
and do His commandments,
are in the Divine truth and in the Divine good...

AE 864 - to follow the Lord

AE 864
"To follow the Lord" has a similar signification as "to go or to walk after Him."
That "to go or walk after the Lord,"
signifies to acknowledge, to obey,
and to act and live from Him and with Him....
For the Lord so operates with man that man may follow Him as if of himself;
thus does the Lord flow into man's freedom;
and this He does for the sake of the reception and implantation
of truth and good with man and consequent reformation and regeneration.

AE 863a - spiritual affections of truth

AE 863a
...spiritual affections of truth...are such as have for their end eternal life and the uses of that life. Those who are in such affections love truths because they are truths, thus apart from the world's glory, honors, and gains; and those who love truths apart from such considerations love the Lord; for the Lord is with man in the truths that are from good.

AE 852a - foreheads and eyes

AE 852a
Having the name of His Father written on their foreheads,
... means the full acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord,
because the Lord turns towards Himself all who acknowledge His Divine,
and looks at them in the forehead,
while they look at the Lord with the eyes;
and this for the reason that the "forehead" signifies love,
and the "eye" the understanding of truth;
therefore to be looked at by the Lord in the forehead
signifies to be looked at by the Lord from the good of love;
and on the other hand their looking at the Lord with the eyes
signifies to look from truths from that good,
consequently from the understanding of truth.

AE 850a - the presence of the Lord

AE 850a
The presence of the Lord is perpetual in the whole heaven
and in the whole church;
for heaven is not heaven from what is the angels' own,
nor is the church a church from what is men's own,
but from the Divine of the Lord with them.

... it is a presence that is peaceful, tranquil, preserving, and sustaining,
by which all things in the heavens and on the earth
are held constantly in their order and connection....

AE 847 - every religion

AE 847 [3]
... every religion has life as its end;
for it teaches the evils that must be shunned,
and the goods that are to be done.

AE 840 - the treasure hidden in a field

AE 840 [10]
The treasure hidden in a field,
which a man having found hid,
and for joy he went and sold all things
whatsoever that he had
and bought the field. (Matthew 13:44)

The "treasure" signifies the Divine truth that is in the Word;
and the "field" signifies the church and its doctrine;
and "to sell all things whatsoever that he had and buy the field"
signifies to set aside what is one's own
and to acquire for oneself the Divine truth that is in the Lord's church.

AE 834 - doing for the neighbor

AE 834
... while every man is a neighbor, every man is a neighbor from his quality,
and consequently that it is the quality of a man from which he is a man
that is meant in the spiritual sense by "neighbor;"
for otherwise a bad man would be as much a neighbor as a good man;
and yet to do good to the evil is sometimes doing evil to the good.

AE 832 - spiritual truths & understanding in the world

AE 832 [4]
... he who loves truth from truth, that is, because it is truth, can see spiritual truths; and those which he does not see in the world he sees afterwards in heaven. For it is the love itself of truth that receives the light of heaven, which enlightens the understanding.

AE 832 - spiritual angels & their heaven

AE 832 [4]
... spiritual angels admit no truth into the memory and from that into the understandingwith themsleves unless they see it; for the angels in that heaven see truths from the light of truth, thus by enlightenment from the Lord...

AE 826 & 828 - the celestial angels & their heaven

AE 826 [2]

... with them all truths are written on their affections, and these derive their essence from celestial love, which is love to the Lord.

AE 825 - the laws of our religion & the leading of the Lord

AE 825 [3]
The lawns of our 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 everywhere else in the Word,
and are called sins against God and also abominations.
When man shuns these because they are opposed to the Word,
and so opposed to God,
and because they are from hell,
then man lives according to the laws of his religion,
and so far as he lives according to his religion he is led by the Lord;
for so far as he is led by the Lord and his works good;
he is then led to do goods and to speak truths
for the sake of goods and the sake of truths,
and not for the sake of self and the world;
uses are his enjoyments, and truths his delight.
Moreover, he is daily taught by the Lord
what he must do and what he must say,
also what he must preach or what he must write;
for when evils are removed he is continually under
the Lord's guidance and 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 the truths
of which his understanding consists.
When he acts from this influx,
he appears to be acting as if from himself,
and yet he acknowledges in heart that it is from the Lord.

AE 821d - thunder and celestial good

AE 821d [4]
... in the spiritual world thunders are also heard,
and these are produced by truths that are from celestial good
when these are descending from the higher heavens into the lower....

Celestial good is the same thing as the good of love in will and in act.

AE 819 & AE 820a - goods of love & good in truth

AE 819 [3] (2)
... goods that are of life are what gives life to faith, and make it spiritual.
For love is the very soul of faith, and love is doing,
for a what a man loves he wills, and what he wills he does.

And this the Lord teaches in John 14:21, 24:

He that has My commandments and does them,
he it is that loves Me;
but he that loves Me not, does not keep My words.

AE 820a [4]
Moreover, as soon as good is implanted in truths with man
he is conjoined with the angels....

AE 817d - the Philistines

AE 817d [6]
All the wars that the sons of Israel waged against the Philistines
represented the combats of the spiritual man with the natural man,
and so also the combats of truth conjoined with good
against truth separated from good,
which in itself is not truth but falsity.

AE 815c - "To believe in the Lord"

AE 815c [11]
"To believe in the Lord"
signifies not only to adore and worship Him,
but also to live from Him,
and one lives from Him
when he lives according to the Word
which is from Him . . .

AE 813 - faith & truth

AE 813
"Faith" signifies the implantation of truth
because faith with man is truth acknowledged in the heart;
for unless it is acknowledged in the heart it cannot be one's own faith;
and this is why "faith" is nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament,
but "truth" instead;
...the ancient people with whom was the church
were wholly ignorant that faith was anything else than truth;
and when they said that they believed in God
they meant by it knowing and understanding truths,
and willing and doing them,
and this from the Lord.

AE 810 - to those who are in truths

AE 810 [4]
To those who are in truths the imputation of the Lord's merit
means simply an entreaty to the Lord that He will have mercy ....
The Lord's merit
means that by His own Power He will save those who believe in Him,
and who do what He has commanded.
This merit cannot be imputed, but it can be prayed for.
Intercession means the perpetual remembrance of man by the Lord.
Trust and confidence mean trust and confidence in the Lord
that out of pure mercy He will teach man the way
and lead him to heaven.

impute, imputation - to lay the responsibility or blame for;
to credit a person or cause

AE 808 - What is saving faith?

AE 808 [2]
Saving faith is to believe that the Lord is the Saviour of the world,
and that He is the God of heaven and the God of the earth,
and that by His coming into the world
He entered into the power to save all
who receive truths from Him through the Word,
and who live according to them.
Who those are that are able to receive truths from Him
and to live according to them...
those who shun sins because they are sins against the Word
and thus against God,
since by so doing man's internal is purified,
and when this is purified man is led by the Lord and not by self;
and so far as man is led by the Lord he loves truths,
and receives them and wills them and does them.
This faith is saving faith.

AE 803a - So far as man detests these sins so far good affections enter:

AE 803a [2] (5)
Then so far as he detests adulteries
so far chastity enters;
so far as he detests frauds and unlawful gains
so far sincerity and justice enter;
so far as he detests hatred and revenge
so far charity enters;
so far as he detests lies and blasphemies
so far truth enters;
and so far as he detests elation of mind
so far humility before God and the love of the neighbor enter;
and so on.
From this it follows that to shun evils is to do goods.

AE 802b - predestination & the elect

AE 802b [4]
... yet all are predestined for heaven,
and those are called the elect who learn truths and do them.

AE 799b - the shelter of His wings

AE 799b [8]

I will abide in Your tabernacle for ever,
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. (Psalm 61:4)

"To abide in a tabernacle forever"
signifies to be in the Divine good of love;
"to trust in the shelter of Your wings"
signifies to be in Divine truths,
"the wings of Jehovah"
signifying spiritual truths.

AE 798b - with everyone who is being reformed

AE 789b [3]
...with everyone who is being reformed,
he first forms doctrine for himself out of the Word,
and distinguishes in it between the things that are to be believed
and the things that are to be done.
The things that are to be believed he calls faith,
and the things that are to be done he calls charity;
but as the order with every one has been reversed from birth
he looks to faith in the first place
and charity in the second.
Yet if he lives the life of faith, which is charity,
the order is by degrees turned about and restored;
and from charity he lives faith.

AE 794 - from the Lord

AE 794 [3]
He who does good for the sake of good does good from good;
and he who speaks truth for the sake of truth speaks truth from truth,
thus from the Lord, who is Truth itself and from whom is all truth.
The like is true of him who acts sincerely for the sake of sincerity,
and does what is just for the sake of justice;
for sincerity is moral good and truth,
and justice is civil good and truth;
and all good and truth are from the Lord and not from man,
because they are done from the internal through the external.

AE 790b - a storehouse for the formation of the spiritual man

AE 790b [5]
That the spiritual mind may be opened and formed
it must have a storehouse from which it may draw its supplies;
since unless man has such a storehouse he is empty,
and in emptiness there can be no Divine operation.
This storehouse is in the natural man and it is its memory,
in which everything knowable can be stored up
and can be drawn forth from it.
In this storehouse for the formation of the spiritual man
there must be truths that are to be believed
and goods that are to be done, both of them from the Word
and from doctrine and preaching from the Word.
These man must learn even from infancy.

[14]
... but still it is the Lord who works all these arcana,
while man knows nothing about it;
all that man needs to do is to learn truths from the Word
and to live according to them.

AE 785b - faith, charity, good works & the church

AE 785b [5]
... the twelve disciples of the Lord represented the church in respect to all things of faith and charity in the complex; and of them, Peter, James, and John represented faith, charity and good works in their order, Peter faith, James charity, and John good works.... Because John represented the church in respect to good works, he reclined at the Lord's breast. That the church is with those who do good works is also signified by the Lord's words from the cross to John:

Jesus saw His mother, and spoke to the disciple whom He loved, who was standing by; and He said to His mother, Woman, behold thy son; and He said to that disciple, Behold thy mother: and from that hour that disciple took her unto himself. (John 16: 26,27)

This signifies that where good works are, there the church will be, for in the Word "woman," like as "mother," signifies the church.

AE 781d - the Lord came

AE 781d [16]
... the Lord came into the world
not for the sake of any kingdom on earth,
but for the sake of a kingdom in heaven...

AE 780b - "and a little boy shall lead them"

AE 780b [6]
In Isaiah 6:5-6:

Righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins,
and truth the girdle of His hips;
therefore the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard with the kid,
the calf and the young lion and the fatling together,
and a little boy shall lead them.

This is said of the Lord and of His kingdom,
and of the state of innocence and peace therein.

"And a little boy shall lead them"
signifies the state of innocence and love to the Lord in which they will be;
'boy" signifying innocence together with love to the Lord,
for love to the Lord makes one with innocence....

AE 778b - heaven is removed

AE 778b [4]
... heaven is removed from man when the Lord and His Divine are denied....

AE 774 - doing the law from what is good, sincere & just

AE 774 [5]
The spiritual man knows that doing the law and fulfilling it in external form does not save; but that so far as man does the law in the external form from the internal, it does save. The internal form, or the internal of the law, is to love what is good, sincere, and just; and its external is to do this. This the Lord teaches in Matthew 23:26:

Cleanse first the inside of the cup and the platter,
that the outside of them may become clean also.

Man fulfills the law so far as he does it from the internal, but not so far as he does it from the external apart from the internal. The internal of man is his love and will. But to love what is good, sincere, and just, and from love to will it, is from the Lord alone. Therefore to fulfill the law is to be led by the Lord.

AE 769 - living a life of faith

AE 769
Who keep the commandments of God, (Rev. 12:17)
... signifies to live the life of faith, which is charity,...

[2]
... neither persuasive faith nor historical faith is a spiritual faith,
thus not a saving faith,
for such faith has as yet no life from the Lord in it.
That a man may receive that life
he must live according to the Lord's commandments in the Word,
because the Lord is the Word and is in the Word.
Such a life is the life of faith, which is charity....

AE 768a - with the Lord

AE 768a
... in the Word the expressions "going with the Lord,"
and "walking with Him" and "after Him," are used,
and these signify to live from the Lord...

AE 763 - spiritual light

AE 763 [2]
But let it be known that only he who is in enlightenment from the Lord,
and so in the spiritual affection of truth, thinks and reasons spiritually,
for these are in the light of truth,
and the light of truth is the light of heaven
from which the angels have intelligence and wisdom;
that light is what is called spiritual light,
and consequently those who are in that light are spiritual.

AE 759- "the wings of an eagle"

And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle,
that she might fly into the wilderness into her place,
where she is nourished a time, and times, and half a time,
from the face of the serpent. (Rev. 12:14)

AE 759 [5]
... what is signified by "the wings of an eagle," namely,
the understanding of truth;
and as "the woman" means the New Jerusalem,
therefore the wings being given to her signifies
that the understanding of truth was given, and will be given,
to those who will be of that church.

AE 754 - equilibrium

AE 754 [2]
... hatreds of various kinds are unceasingly ascending from the hells;
while on the other hand,
spiritual loves also of various kinds descend from the heavens,
and between the hatreds of the hells and the loves of the heavens
there is an equilibrium, in which the men in the world are held,
in order that they may be able to act from freedom according to reason.

AE 750a - eternal life

AE 750a
... life in the world, which is only for some years,
is as nothing compared with the life in heaven, which is eternal life.

AE 748 - the Holy Spirit

AE 748
The Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human
is what is called "the Holy Spirit."

AE 746c - two

AE 746c [6]
... there are two things, namely, charity and faith, that constitute the church,
as there are two things that make up the life of man, will and understanding;
so there are two parts that act as one,
as the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils,
two hands, two feet,
two lobes of the lungs, two chambers of the heart,
two hemispheres of the brain, and so on,
of which the one has reference to good from which is truth,
and the other to good.

AE 741a - doing what the Lord commands

AE 741a [2]
When a man does good from the Word, that is,
because it is commanded by the Lord in the Word,
he does it not from himself but from the Lord,
for the Lord is the Word. (John 1:1,14)

He that keeps My word,
I will come unto him
and will make my abode with him. (John 14:23)

AE 739b - the sensual vs. the celestial man

AE 739 b [10]
For the sensual man supposes that he knows everything
and that nothing escapes him;
but it is not so with the celestial man,
who is convinced that he knows nothing from himself
but from the Lord,
and that, what he does know
is so insignificant as to be scarcely anything
compared with what he does not know.

AE 735 - Michael

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon (Revelation 12:7)

AE 735 [2]
Angels, in the heavens, do not have such names as men on earth have, but they have names expressive of their functions, and in general, to every angel a name is given according to his quality; this is why "name" signifies in the Word the quality of a thing and state. The name Michael means, from its derivation in the Hebrew, who is like God; therefore Michael signifies the Lord in relation to that Divine truth that the Lord is God even as to the Human, and that man must live from Him, that is, in love to Him and from Him, and in love towards the neighbor.

AE 734c - the Lord protects us

AE 734c [8]
Because Jehovah, that is, the Lord, protects man from the hells, that is, from the evils and falsities that continually rise up out of the hells, therefore He is call "Jehovah Zebaoth," that is, Jehovah of Hosts, and "hosts" signify the truths and goods of heaven, and thus of the church in the whole complex, by which the Lord removes the hells in general, and with each one individually....

AE 732 - first with a few

AE 732 [2]
There are several reasons why this New Church that is called the Holy Jerusalem will first begin with a few, afterwards to be with more, and finally to reach fullness.

First, its doctrine, which is the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor, can not be acknowledged and thus received except by those who are interiorly affected by truths, and those only can be interiorly affected by truths who have the ability to see them, and those only see truths who have cultivated their intellectual faculty, and have not destroyed it in themselves by the loves of self and of the world.

A second reason is that the doctrine of that church can not be acknowledged and then received but by those who have not confirmed themselves by doctrine and at the same time by life in faith alone; confirmation by doctrine alone does not prevent reception, but confirmation by life also does prevent, for such do not know what love to the Lord is, nor what charity towards the neighbor is, nor are they willing to know.

[3]
A third reason is that the New Church on the earth grows according to its increase in the world of spirits, for spirits from that world are with men, and they are from such as while they lived on earth, were in the faith of their church, and none of these receive the doctrine but those who have been in the spiritual affection of truth; these only are conjoined to heaven where that doctrine is, and they conjoin heaven to man. The number of these in the spiritual world now increases daily, therefore according to their increase does that church that is called the New Jerusalem increase on earth.

AE 730d - wandering in the wilderness for 40 years

AE 730d [31]
Every man is born natural, and lives naturally until he becomes rational; and when he has become rational he can be led by the Lord and become spiritual; and this is effected by the implanting of the knowledges of truth from the Word, and at the same time by the opening of the spiritual mind which receives the things of heaven, and by calling forth these knowledges and elevating them out of the natural man and conjoining them with the spiritual affection of truth. This opening and conjunction is possible only through temptations, because in temptations man fights interiorly against the falsities and evils that are in the natural man. In a word, man is introduced into the church and becomes a church through temptations.

[32] ( ** New International Version translation shown at asterisks below)
Thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might afflict thee and try thee, and know what was in thine heart whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or no; and He afflicted thee and made thee to hunger, and made thee to eat manna, which thou knewest not neither did the fathers know; that He might teach thee that man doth not live by bread only, but all that goeth forth from the mouth of Jehovah doth man live; they raiment waxed not old upon thee, and thy foot swelled not, these forty years. (Deuteronomy 8:2-4)

[33]
He who knows what spiritual temptations are knows that when a man is in them he is so infested by evils and falsities as scarcely to know otherwise than that he is in hell; he knows, too, that the Lord with man fights against temptations from the interior; as also that He sustains man in the meantime with spiritual food and drink, which are the goods and truths of heaven...

**From the New International Version for Deuteronomy 8:2-4:
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

AE 730a - the Lord flows into our will

AE 730a [2]
... the Lord never flows immediately into truths with man,
but mediately through his good;
for good is of the will,
and the will is the man himself;
from the will the understanding is produced and formed;
for the understanding is adjoined to the will
so that what the will loves the understanding sees,
and also brings forth into light;
consequently if the will is not in good, but is in evil,
then the influx of truth from the Lord into the understanding
has no effect, for it is dissipated, because it is not loved,
yea, it is perverted, and the truth is falsified.

AE 727a - old men & old women

AE 727a [9]
There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem,
and a man in whose hand is a staff because of the multitude of days.
(Zechariah 8:4)

"Old men and old women"
signify those who are intelligent from doctrine and from the affection of truth;
"the man in whose hand is a staff because of the multitude of days"
signifies the wise who trust in the Lord alone and not at all in themselves;
that these will be in the church that has the doctrine of genuine truth
is signified by "in the streets of Jerusalem,"
"Jerusalem" meaning the church in respect to doctrine,
and "streets" the truths of doctrine, here genuine truths.

AE 725b - truths

AE 725b [4]
... without truths man does not know what is good,
or what is the nature of good,
thus does not know the way to heaven...

AE 725a - doctrine & life

AE 725a [3]
... doctrine teaches how one must live and do,
and life lives the doctrine and does it.

AE 724b - regeneration

AE 724b [8]
... regeneration is the conjunction of goods with truths
and of truths with goods,
and it is the Lord who regenerates,
and the Word that teaches.

AE 721b & c - women, giving birth, the New Church, gardens, & regeneration

AE 721b [10]
... "the woman with child" those who receive truths,
and "she who is bringing forth" those who do them.
(from Jeremiah 31:8)

[11]
That those who will be of that church will acknowledge the Lord,
and will receive love to Him and thence wisdom,
is signified by
"her wilderness shall be made like Eden,
and her solitude like the garden of Jehovah",
"Eden" signifying love to the Lord,
and "the garden of Jehovah" wisdom therefrom.

[16]
Since a "mother" signifies the church,
and "sons and daughters" its truths and good,
and in the ancient churches, and afterwards the Jewish church,
all things were representative and thence significative,
it was a reproach and disgrace for women to be barren..."

AE 721c
That a woman being with child, cried out, travailing,
and pained to be delivered;
(Revelation 12:2)
which signifies that spiritual truths and goods,
which are from the Word,
can be received only with the greatest difficulty and distress,
because of the opposing evils and falsities
that then exist in the church
and occupy the minds of those who are devoted to religion.