THE GIST OF SWEDENBORG

COMPILED BY
JULIAN K. SMYTH
AND
WILLIAM F. WUNSCH

1920
The Gist Of Swedenborg By Julian K. Smyth And William F. Wunsch.

This edition was created and published by Global Grey

©GlobalGrey 2019

globalgreyebooks.com
CONTENTS
Foreword
Biographical Note
The Gist Of Swedenborg
Man
The Warfare Of Regeneration
Childhood
Prayer
The Service Of Worship
The Responsible Life In The World
The Decalogue
The Sacred Scriptures
The Life Of Charity And Faith
The Divine Providence
Death And The Resurrection
The First Three States After Death
Heaven
Hell
Communication With The Spiritual World
The Church
Memorable Sayings
 1

FOREWORD

The reason for a compilation such as is here presented should be obvious.

Swedenborg's theological writings comprise some thirty or more substantial
volumes, the result of the most concentrated labor extending over a period
of twenty-seven years. To study these writings in their whole extent, to see
them in their minute unfoldment out of the Word of God, is a work of years.
It is doubtful if there is a phase of man's religious experience for which an
interpretation is not here to be found. Notwithstanding this immense sweep
of doctrine there are certain vital, fundamental truths on which it all rests:--
the Christ-God, Man a spiritual being, the warfare of Regeneration,
Marriage, the Sacred Scriptures, the Life of Charity and Faith, the Divine
Providence, Death and the Future! Life, the Church. We have endeavored to
press within the small compass of this book passages which give the gist of
Swedenborg's teachings on these subjects.

The compilers would gladly have made room for the interpretative and
philosophical teachings which contribute so much to the content and form
of Swedenborg's theology; but they have confined their effort to setting
forth briefly and clearly the positive spiritual teachings where these seemed
most packed with religious meaning and moment.

The translation of the passages here brought together has been carefully
revised.

Julian K. Smyth.
 2

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm, January 29, 1688.

A devout home (the father was a Lutheran clergyman, and afterwards

Bishop of Skara) stimulated in the boy the nature which was to become so
active in his culminating life-work. A university education at Upsala,
however, and studies for five years in England, France, Holland and
Germany, brought other interests into play first. The earliest of these were
mathematics and astronomy, in the pursuit of which he met Flamsteed and
Halley. His gift for the detection and practical employment of general laws
soon carried him much farther afield in the sciences. Metallurgy, geology, a
varied field of invention, chemistry, as well as his duties as an Assessor on
the Board of Mines and of a legislator in the Diet, all engaged him, with an
immediate outcome in his work, and often with results in contributions to
human knowledge which are gaining recognition only now. The Principia and
two companion volumes, dedicated to his patron, the Duke of Brunswick,
crowned his versatile productions in the physical sciences.

Academies of science, at home and abroad, were electing him to

membership.

Conspicuous in Swedenborg's thought all along was the premise that there
is a God and the presupposition of that whole element in life which we call
the spiritual. As he pushed his studies into the fields of physiology and
psychology, this premised realm of the spirit became the express goal of his
researches. Some of his most valuable and most startling discoveries came
in these fields. Outstanding are a work on The Brain and two on the Animal
Kingdom (kingdom of the anima, or soul). As his gaze sought the soul,
however, in the light in which he had more and more successfully beheld all
his subjects for fifty-five years, she eluded direct knowledge. He was
increasingly baffled, until a new light broke in on him. Then he was borne
along, in a profound humiliation of his intellectual ambitions, by another
way. For when the new light steadied, he had undergone a personal
religious experience, the rich journals of which he himself never published.
 3

But what was of public concern, his consciousness was opened into the
world of the spirit, so that he could observe its facts and laws as, for so long,
he had observed those of the material world, and in its own world could
receive a revelation of the doctrines of man's spiritual life.

It was now, for the first time, too, that he gave a deep consideration to the
condition of the Christian Church, revealed in other-world judgment to be
one of spiritual devastation and impotency. To serve in the revelation of
"doctrine for a New Church" became his Divinely appointed work. He
forwent his reputation as a man of science, gave up his assessorship, cleared
his desk of everything but the Scriptures. He beheld in the Word of God a
spiritual meaning, as he did a spiritual world in the world of phenomena. In
revealing both of these the Lord, he said, made His Second Coming. For the
rest of his long life Swedenborg gave himself with unremitting labor but
with a saving calm to this commanding cause, publishing his great Latin
volumes of Scripture interpretation and of theological teaching at
Amsterdam or London, at first anonymously, and distributing them to clergy
and universities. The titles of his principal theological works appear in the
following compilation from them. Upon his death-bed this herald of a new
day for Christianity solemnly affirmed the reality of his experience and the
reception by him of his teaching from the Lord.

Swedenborg died in London, March 29, 1772. In 1908 his remains were
removed from the Swedish Church in that city to the cathedral at Upsala,
where they lie in a monument erected to his memory by the Swedish
Parliament.

William F. Wunsch.

Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Swedenborg (3 Vols.) 1875-

1877, R. L. Tafel, is the main collection of biographical material; The Life and
Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg, 1883, Benjamin Worcester, and Emanuel
Swedenborg, His Life, Teachings and Influence, 1907, George Trobridge, are
two of the better known biographies.
 4

THE GIST OF SWEDENBORG

"At this day nothing but the self-evidenced reason of love will re-establish
the Church."--Canons, Prologue.

GOD THE LORD

"Believe in God: believe also in Me."

John, XIV, 1

"My Lord, and my God!"

John, XX, 28

ONE AND INFINITE

GOD is One, and Infinite. The true quality of the Infinite does not appear; for
the human mind, however highly analytical and exalted, is itself finite, and
the finite-ness in it cannot be laid aside. It is not fitted, therefore, to see the
Infinity of God, and thus God, as He is in Himself, but can see God from
behind in shadow; as it is said of Moses, when he asked to see God, that he
was placed in a cleft of the rock, and saw His hinder side. It is enough to
acknowledge God from things finite, that is, created, in which He is infinitely.

--True Christian Religion, n. 28

"INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT"

WE read in the Word that Jehovah God dwells in light inaccessible. Who,
then, could approach Him, unless He had come to dwell in accessible light,
that is, unless He had descended and assumed a Humanity and in it had
become the Light of the world? Who cannot see that to approach Jehovah
the Father in His light is as impossible as to take the wings of the morning
and to fly with them to the sun?

--True Christian Religion, n. 176

THE CHRIST-GOD
 5

WE ought to have faith in God the Saviour, Jesus Christ, because that is faith
in the visible God in Whom is the Invisible; and faith in the visible God, Who
is at once Man and God, enters into man. For while faith is spiritual in
essence it is natural in form, for everything spiritual, in order to be anything
with a man, is received by him in what is natural.

--True Christian Religion, n. 339

Man's conjunction with the Lord is not with His supreme Divine Being itself,
but with His Divine Humanity, and by this with the supreme Divine Being; for
man can have no idea whatever of the supreme Divine Being of the Lord,
utterly transcending his thought as it does; but of His Divine Human Being
he can have an idea. Hence the Gospel according to John says that no one
has at any time seen God except the only-begotten Son, and that there is no
approach to the Father save by Him. For the same reason He is called a
Mediator.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 4211

GOD-MAN

IN the Lord, God and Man are not two but one Person, yea, altogether one,
as soul and body are. This is plain in many of the Lord's own utterances; as
that the Father and He are one; that all things of the Father are His, and all
His the Father's; that He is in the Father, and the Father in Him; that all
things are given into His hand; that He has all power; that whosoever
believes in Him has eternal life; that He is God of heaven and earth.

--Doctrine Concerning the Lord, n. 60

There is one God, and the Lord is He, His Divinity and Humanity being one
Person.

--Divine Providence, n. 122

They who think of the Lord's Humanity, and not at the same time of His
Divinity, by no means allow the expression "Divine Humanity"; for they think
of the Humanity by itself and of the Divinity by itself, which is like thinking of
man apart from his soul or life, which, however, is no conception of man,
still less of the Lord.
 6

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 26

WHY HE CAME

THE Lord from eternity, Who is Jehovah, came into the world to subdue the
hells and to glorify His Humanity. Without Him no mortal could have been
saved; and they are saved who believe in Him.

--True Christian Religion, n. 2

The Lord came into the world to save the human race which would
otherwise have perished in eternal death. This salvation the Lord effected by
subjugating the hells, which infested every man coming into the world and
going out of the world, and by glorifying His Humanity; for so He can hold
the hells subdued to eternity. The subjugation of the hells, and the
glorification at the same time of His Humanity, were effected by
temptations let into the Humanity He had from the mother, and by
unbroken victories. His passion on the cross was the last temptation and
complete victory.

--Heavenly Doctrine, n. 293

HOW HE CAME

BECAUSE, from His essence, God burned with the love of uniting Himself to
man, it was necessary that He should cover Himself around with a body
adapted to reception and conjunction. He therefore descended and
assumed a human nature in pursuance of the order established by Him from
the creation of the world. That is, He was to be conceived by a power
produced from Himself; He was to be carried in the womb; He was to be
born, and then to grow in wisdom and in love, and so was to approach to
union with His Divine origin. Thus God became Man, and Man God.

--True Christian Religion, n. 838

THE LIFE ON EARTH

THE Lord had at first a human nature from the mother, of which He
gradually divested Himself while He was in the world. Accordingly He kept
experiencing two states: a state of humiliation or privation, as long and as
 7

far as He was conscious in the human nature from the mother; and a state of
glorification or union with the Divine, as long and as far as He was conscious
in the Humanity received from the Father. In the state of humiliation He
prayed to the Father as to One other than Himself; but in the state of
glorification He spoke with the Father as with Himself. In this state He said
that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father, and that the Father and He
were one.

The Lord consecutively put off the human nature assumed from the mother,
and put on a Humanity from the Divine in Himself, which is the Divine
Humanity and the Son of God.

--Doctrine Concerning the Lord, nn. 29, 35

THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE

WHEN the Lord was in the world, His life was altogether the life of a love for
the whole human race, which He burned to save forever. That life was of the
intensest love by which He united Himself to the Divine and the Divine to
Himself. For being itself, or Jehovah, is pure mercy from love for the whole
human race; and that life was one of sheer love, as it can never be with any
man.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2253

"COME UNTO ME"

DO you, my friend, flee evil, and do good, and believe in the Lord with your
whole heart and with your whole soul, and the Lord will love you, and give
you love for doing, and faith for believing. Then will you do good from love,
and from a faith which is confidence will you believe. If you persevere in this,
a reciprocal conjunction will take place, and one that is perpetual, indeed is
salvation itself, and everlasting life.

--True, Christian Religion, n. 484

THE TRINITY; THE FULNESS OF HIS BEING

THEY who are truly men of the Church, that is, who are in love to the Lord
and in charity toward the neighbor, know and acknowledge a Trine. Still,
 8

they humble themselves before the Lord, and adore Him alone, inasmuch as
they know that there is no approach to the Divine Itself, called the Father,
but by the Son; and that all that is holy, and of the Holy Spirit, proceeds from
Him. When they are in this idea, they adore no other than Him, by Whom
and from Whom are all things; consequently they adore One.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2329

God is one in essence and in person. This God is the Lord. The Divinity itself,
which is called Jehovah "the Father," is the Lord from eternity. The Divine
Humanity is "the Son" begotten from His Divine from eternity, and born in
the world. The proceeding Divinity is "the Holy Spirit."

--Divine Providence, n. 157

 9

MAN

"Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him; And the son of man that
Thou visitest him?"
Psalm, VIII, 4

GOD'S UNRELAXED EFFORT

THE object of creation was an angelic heaven from the human race; in other
words, mankind, in whom God might be able to dwell as in His residence. For
this reason man was created a form of Divine order. God is in him, and as far
as he lives according to Divine order, fully so; but if he does not live
according to Divine order, still God is in him, but in his highest parts,
endowing him with the ability to understand truth and to will what is good.
But as far as man lives contrary to order, so far he shuts up the lower parts
of his mind or spirit, and prevents God from descending and filling them
with His presence. Then God is in him, but he is not in God.

--True Christian Religion, nn. 66, 70

AN INSTRUMENT OF LIFE

MAN is an instrument of life, and God alone is life. God pours His life into His
instrument and every part of him, as the sun pours its heat into a tree and
every part of it. God also gives man to feel this life in himself as his own. God
wills that he should do so, that man may live as of himself according to the
laws of order, which are as many as there are precepts in the Word, and may
dispose himself to receive the love of God. But still God perpetually holds
with His finger the perpendicular above the scales, and regulates, but never
violates by compulsion, man's free decision. Man's free will is from this: that
he feels life in himself as his, and God leaves him so to feel, that reciprocal
conjunction may take place between Him and man.

--True Christian Religion, n. 504

"ABIDE IN ME"
 10

MAN is so created that he can be more and more closely united to the Lord.
He is so united not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even
by wisdom alone, but by a life in accordance with these. The more closely he
is united to the Lord, the wiser and happier he becomes, the more distinctly
he seems to himself to be his own, and the more clearly he perceives that he
is the Lord's.

--Divine Providence, nn. 32 et al.

TWO MINDS: TWO WORLDS

MAN is so created as to live simultaneously in the natural world and in the

spiritual world. Thus he has an internal and an external nature or mind; by
the former living in the spiritual world, by the latter in the natural world.

--Heavenly Doctrine, n. 36

INALIENABLE POWERS

THERE are in man from the Lord two capacities by which the human being is
distinguished from the beasts. One capacity is the ability to understand
what is true and what is good. It is called rationality, and is a capacity of his
understanding. The other capacity is the ability to do the true and the good.
It is called freedom, and is a power of the will. By virtue of his rationality,
man can think what he pleases, as well against God as with Him, and with his
neighbor or against his neighbor. He can also will and do what he thinks; and
when he sees evil and fears punishment, by virtue of freedom he can refrain
from doing. By these two capacities man is man and is distinguished from
the beasts. Man has these twin powers from the Lord, and they are from
Him every moment; nor are they ever taken away, for if they were, man's
humanity would perish. The Lord is in these two powers with every man,
with the evil as well as the good. They are His abiding-place in the race.
Thence it is that every human being, evil as well as good, lives to eternity.

--Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 240

 11

THE DRAG OF HEREDITY

MAN inclines to the nature he derives hereditarily, and lapses into it. Thus he
strengthens any evil in it, and also adds others of himself. These evils are
quite opposed to the spiritual life. They destroy it. Unless, therefore, a man
receives new life from the Lord, which is spiritual life, he is condemned; for
he wills nothing else and thinks nothing else than concerns him and the
world.

--Heavenly Doctrine, n. 176

LOVES OF SELF AND THE WORLD

THE reason why the love of self and the love of the world are infernal loves,
and yet man has been able to come into them, and thus to ruin will and
understanding in him, is as follows: By creation the love of self and the love
of the world are heavenly loves; for they are loves of the natural man
serving his spiritual loves, as a foundation does a house. From the love of
self and the world, a man wishes well by his body, desires food, clothing and
habitation, takes thought for his household, seeks occupation to be useful,
wishes also for obedience's sake to be honored according to the dignity of
the thing he does, and to be delighted and recreated by the pleasures of the
world;--yet all this for the sake of the end, which must be use. By this a man
is in position to serve the Lord and to serve the neighbor. But when there is
no love of serving the Lord and the neighbor, but only a love of serving
oneself at the world's hands, then from being heavenly that love becomes
infernal, for it causes a man to sink mind and character in his proprium, or
what is his own, which in itself is the whole of evil.

--Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 396

THE NEED FOR SELF-ACTION

NO one can cleanse himself of evils by his own power and abilities; but
neither can this be done without the power and abilities of the man, used as
his own. If this strength were not to all appearance his own, no one would
be able to fight against the flesh and its lusts, which, nevertheless, is
enjoined upon all men. He would not think of combat. Because man is a
rational being, he must resist evils from the power and the abilities given
 12

him by the Lord, which appear to him as his own; an appearance that is
granted for the sake of regeneration, imputation, conjunction, and
salvation.

--True Christian Religion, n. 438

 13

THE WARFARE OF REGENERATION

"Blessed be the Lord my strength,

Who teacheth my hands to war,
And my fingers to fight: My goodness,
and my fortress; My high tower and my deliverer;
My shield, and He in whom I trust;
Who subdueth my people under me."
--Psalm, cxliv, 1, 2

"TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH"

BECAUSE man is reformed by conflicts with the evils of his flesh and by
victories over them, the Son of Man says to each of the seven Churches, that
He will give gifts "to him that overcometh."

--True Christian Religion, n. 610

Without moral struggle no one is regenerated, and many spiritual wrestlings

succeed one after another. For, inasmuch as regeneration has for its end
that the life of the old man may die and the new and heavenly life be
implanted, there will unfailingly be combat. The life of the old man resists
and is unwilling to be extinguished, and the life of the new man cannot
enter, except where the life of the old has been extinguished. From this it is
plain that there is combat, and ardent combat, because for life.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 8403

REPENTANCE AND THE REMISSION OF SINS

HE who would be saved, must confess his sins, and do repentance. To

confess sins is to know evils, to see them in oneself, to acknowledge them,
to make oneself guilty and condemn oneself on account of them. Done
before God, this is to confess sins. To do repentance is to desist from sins
after one has thus confessed them and from a humble heart has besought
forgiveness, and then to live a new life according to the precepts of charity
and faith, He who merely acknowledges generally that he is a sinner, making
 14

himself guilty of all evils, without examining himself,--that is without seeing

his sins,--makes a confession but not the confession of repentance.
Inasmuch as he does not know his evils, he lives as before.

One who lives the life of charity and faith does repentance daily. He reflects
upon the evils in him, acknowledges them, guards against them, and
beseeches the Lord for help. For of oneself one continually lapses toward
evil; but he is continually raised up by the Lord and led to good.

Repentance of the mouth and not of the life is not repentance. Nor are sins
pardoned on repentance of the mouth, but on repentance of the life. Sins
are constantly pardoned man by the Lord, for He is mercy itself; but still they
adhere to man, however he supposes they have been remitted. Nor are they
removed from him save by a life according to the precepts of true faith. So
far as he lives according to these precepts, sins are removed; and so far as
they are removed, so far they are remitted.

--Heavenly Doctrine, nn. 159-165

TEMPTATION AND PRAYER

WHEN a man shuns evils as sins, he flees them because they are contrary to
the Lord and to His Divine laws; and then he prays to the Lord for help and
for power to resist them--a power which is never denied when it is asked. By
these two means a man is cleansed of evils. He cannot be cleansed of evils if
he only looks to the Lord and prays; for then, after he has prayed, he
believes that he is quite without sins, or that they have been forgiven, by
which he understands that they are taken away. But then he still remains in
them; and to remain in them is to increase them. Nor are evils removed only
by shunning them; for then the man looks to himself, and thereby
strengthens the origin of evil, which was that he turned himself back from
the Lord and turned to himself.

--The Doctrine Concerning Charity, n. 146

THE GREAT ARENA

 15

IN temptations the hells fight against man, and the Lord for him. To every
falsity which the hells inject, there is an answer from the Divine. The falsities
inflow into the outward man, the answer into the inward man, coming to
perception scarcely otherwise than as hope, and the resulting consolation,
in which, however, there is a multitude of things of which the man is
unaware.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 8159

In temptations a man is left, to all appearance, to himself alone; yet he has

not been left alone, for God is then most present in his inmost being, and
upholds him. When anyone overcomes in temptation, therefore, he enters
into closer union with God.

--True Christian Religion, n. 126

"BY LITTLE AND LITTLE"

WHEN man is being regenerated, he is not regenerated speedily but slowly.

The reason is that all things which he has thought, purposed and done since
infancy, have added themselves to his life and have come to constitute it.
They have also formed such a connection among themselves that no one
thing can be removed unless all are at the same time. Regeneration, or the
implantation of the life of heaven in man, begins in his infancy, and
continues to the last of his life in the world, and is perfected to eternity.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 9334

A NEW MAN

WHEN a man is regenerated, he becomes altogether another, and a new,

man. While his appearance and his speech are the same, yet his mind is not;
for his mind is then open toward heaven, and there dwell in it love for the
Lord, and charity toward the neighbor, together with faith. It is the mind
which makes another and a new man. The change of state cannot be
perceived in man's body, but in his spirit When it [the body] is put off then
his spirit appears, and in altogether another form, too, when he has been
regenerated; for it has then a form of love and charity with inexpressible
 16

beauty, in the place of the earlier form, which was one of hatred and cruelty
with a deformity also inexpressible. --Arcana Coelestia, n. 3212
 17

CHILDHOOD

"It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones
should perish."
--Matthew, XVIII, 14

Never could a man live,--certainly not as a human being,--unless he had in

himself something vital, that is, some innocence, neighborly love, and
mercy.

This a man receives from the Lord in infancy and childhood. What he
receives then is treasured up in him, and is called in the Word
the remnant or remains, which are of the Lord alone with him, and they
make it possible for him truly to be a man on reaching adult age. These
states are the elements of his regeneration, and he is led into them; for the
Lord works by means of them.

These remains are also called "the living soul" in all flesh.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 1050

All states of innocence from infancy on, of love toward parents, brothers,
teachers and friends; of charity to the neighbor, and also of mercy to the
poor and needy; all states of goodness and truth, with their goods and
truths, impressed on; the memory, are preserved in man by the Lord, and
are stored up unconsciously to himself in his internal man, and are carefully
kept from evils and falsities.

They are all so preserved by the Lord that not the smallest of them is lost.

Every state from infancy even to extreme old age not only remains in
another life, but also returns. Returning, these states are such as they were
during a man's abode in the world.

Not only the goods and truths, stored up in the memory, remain and return,
but likewise all the states of innocence and charity; and when states of evil
 18

and the false, or of wickedness and phantasy recur, these latter states are
attempered by the former through the Divine operation of the Lord.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 561

 19

PRAYER

"O Thou who hearest prayer; Unto Thee shall all flesh come."
--Psalm, LXV, 2

PRAYER, in itself considered, is speech with God. There is then some inward
view of the objects of the prayer, and answering to that something like an
influx into the perception or thought. Thus there is a kind of opening of the
man's interiors toward God, with a difference according to the man's state
and according to the nature of the object of the prayer. If one prays out of
love and faith and only about and for things heavenly and spiritual, then
there appears in the prayer something like revelation, which shows itself in
the affection of the suppliant, in hope, solace, or an inner gladness.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2535

 20

THE SERVICE OF WORSHIP

"I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy;
In Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple."
--Psalm, v, 7

ONE should not omit the practice of external worship. Things inward are
excited by external worship; and outward things are kept in holiness by
external worship, so that things inward can flow in. Moreover, a man is
imbued in this way with knowledge, and prepared to receive celestial things,
so as to be endowed with states of holiness, though he is unaware of it.
These states of holiness the Lord preserves to him for the use of eternal life;
for in the other life all one's states of life recur.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 1618

THE SACRAMENTS

BAPTISM and the Holy Supper are the holiest acts of worship. Baptism and
the Holy Supper are as it were two gates, through which a man is introduced
into eternal life. After the first gate there is a plain, which he must traverse;
and the second is the goal where the prize is, to which he directed his
course; for the palm is not given until after the contest, nor the reward until
after the combat.

--True Christian Religion, nn. 667, 721

I. BAPTISM

BAPTISM was instituted for a sign that a man is of the Church and for a
memorial that he is to be regenerated. For the washing of baptism is no
other than spiritual washing, which is regeneration. All regeneration is
effected by the Lord through truths of faith and a life according to them.
Baptism, therefore, testifies that a man is of the Church and that he can be
regenerated; for it is in the Church that the Lord is acknowledged, Who
regenerates man, and there the Word is, where are truths of faith, by which
is regeneration.
 21

--Heavenly Doctrine, nn. 202, 203

The sign of the cross which a child receives on the forehead and breast at
baptism is a sign of inauguration into the acknowledgment and worship of
the Lord.

--True Christian Religion, n. 682

II. THE HOLY SUPPER

THE Holy Supper was instituted that by means of it there might be

conjunction of the Church with heaven, and thus with the Lord. When one
takes the bread, which is the Body, one is conjoined with the Lord by the
good of love to Him, from Him; and when one takes the wine, which is the
Blood, one is conjoined to the Lord by the good of faith in Him, from Him.

--Heavenly Doctrine, nn. 210, 213

In the Holy Supper the Lord is fully present, both as to His glorified
Humanity, and as to the Divine. And because He is fully present, therefore
the whole of His redemption is; for where the Lord the Redeemer is, there
redemption is. Therefore all who observe the Holy Communion worthily,
become His redeemed, and receives the fruits of redemption, namely,
liberation from hell, union with the Lord, and salvation.

--True Christian Religion, nn. 716, 717

 22

THE RESPONSIBLE LIFE IN THE WORLD

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me."

--Matthew, XI, 29

THERE are those who believe that it is difficult to live the life which leads to
heaven, which is called the spiritual life, because they have heard that one
must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of
the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They take this to mean that
they must cast away worldly things, which are especially riches and honors;
that they must go continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and
eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and
pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this
manner acquire a melancholy life, unreceptive of heavenly joy. To receive
the life of heaven a man must by all means live in the world and engage in its
duties and affairs and by a moral and civil life receive the spiritual life.

That it is not so difficult to live the life of heaven, as some believe, may be
seen from this: when a matter presents itself to a man which he knows to be
dishonest and unjust, but to which he inclines, it is only necessary for him to
think that it ought not to be done because it is opposed to the Divine
precepts. If a man accustoms himself to think so, and from so doing
establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually conjoined to heaven. So far
as he is conjoined to heaven the higher regions of his mind are opened; and
so far as these are opened he sees whatever is dishonest and unjust; and so
far as he sees these evils they can be dispersed--for no evil can be dispersed
until it is seen.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 528, 533

 23

THE DECALOGUE

"Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall
not be forgotten."
--Jeremiah, l, 5

THE conjunction of God with man, and of man with God, is taught in the two
Tables which were written with the finger of God, called the Tables of the
Covenant. These Tables obtain with all nations who have a religion. From the
first Table they know that God is to be acknowledged, hallowed and
worshipped. From the second Table they know that a man is not to steal,
either openly or by trickery, nor to commit adultery, nor to kill, whether by
blow or by hatred, nor to bear false witness in a court of justice, or before
the world, and further that he ought not to will those evils. From this Table a
man knows the evils which he must shun, and in the measure that he knows
them and shuns them, God conjoins him to Himself, and in turn from His
Table gives man to acknowledge, hallow and worship Him. So, also, He gives
him not to meditate evils, and, in so far as he does not will them, to know
truths freely.

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 1179

As one views the two tables, it is plain that they are so conjoined that God
from His table looks to man, and that in turn man from his table looks to
God. Thus the regard is reciprocal. God for His part never ceases to regard
man, and to put in operation such things as are for his salvation; and if man
receives and does the things in his table, reciprocal conjunction is effected,
and the Lord's words to the lawyer will have come to pass, "This do, and
thou shalt live."

--True Christian Religion, n. 287

MARRIAGE

"Jesus said: ' Have ye not read that He who made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave
 24

father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one
flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What, therefore,
God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.'"

--Matthew, XIX, 4, 5

A PRICELESS JEWEL

THE conjugial inclination of one man to one wife is the jewel of human life
and the depository of the Christian religion.

--Conjugial Love, n. 457

THE PROGRESSIVE CHASTITY OF MARRIAGE

THE love in marriage is from its origin and correspondence heavenly,

spiritual, holy, pure and clean above every other love which the angels of
heaven or men of the Church have from the Lord. It is such from its origin,
which is the marriage of good and truth; also from its correspondence with
the marriage of the Lord and the Church. If it be received from its Author,
Who is the Lord, sanctity from Him follows, which continually cleanses and
purifies it. Then, if there be in man's will a longing for it and an effort toward
it, this love becomes continually cleaner and purer. All who are in such love
shun extra-conjugial loves (which are conjunctions with others than their
own conjugial partner) as they would shun the loss of the soul and the lakes
of hell; and in the measure that married partners shun such conjunctions,
even in respect of libidinous desires of the will and any intentions from
them, so far love truly conjugial is purified with them, and becomes
successsively spiritual.

--Conjugial Love, nn. 64, 71

THE HEIGHT OF SERVICE

CONJUGIAL love is the love at the foundation of all good loves, and is
inscribed on all the least life of the human being. Its delights therefore
surpass the delights of all other loves, and it also gives delight to other
loves, in the measure of its presence and union with them. Into it all delights
from first to last are collected, on account of the superior excellence of its
use, which is the propagation of the human race, and from it of an angelic
 25

heaven. As this service was the supreme end of creation, all the beatitudes,
satisfaction, delights, pleasantnesses and pleasures, which the Lord the
Creator could possibly confer upon man, are gathered into this love.

--Conjugial Love, n. 68

ITS WHOLE ESTATE

THE states of conjugial love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity, Inmost

Friendship, full Confidence, and mutual desire of mind and heart to do each
other every good. From all of these come blessedness, satisfaction,
agreeableness and pleasure; and as the eternal fruition of them, heavenly
happiness. These states can be realized only in the marriage of one man
with one wife.

--Conjugial Love, nn. 180, 181

 26

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES

"They testify of Me."

--John, V, 39

GOD'S WORD

IN its inmosts the Sacred Scripture is no other than God, that is, the Divine
which proceeds from God......In its derivatives it is accommodated to the
perception of angels and men. In these it is Divine likewise, but in another
form, in which this Divine is called "Celestial," "Spiritual," and "Natural."
These are no other than coverings of God. Still the Divine, which is inmost,
and is covered with such things as are accommodated to the perceptions of
angels and men, shines forth like light through crystalline forms, but
variously, according to the state of mind which a man has formed for
himself, either from God or from self. In the sight of the man who has
formed the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror
in which he sees God, each in his own way. The truths which he learns from
the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to them,
compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is the fulness of God.

--True Christian Religion, n. 6

IN ITS BOSOM SPIRITUAL

THE Word in its bosom is spiritual. Descending from Jehovah the Lord, and
passing through the angelic heavens, the Divine (in itself ineffable and
imperceptible) became level with the perception of angels and finally the
perception of man. Hence the Word has a spiritual sense, which is within the
natural, just as the soul is in the body, or as thought is in speech, or volition
in action.

--True Christian Religion, n. 193

THE LETTER OF THE WORD

 27

THE truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part appearances of
truth, and are taken from things in nature, and thus accommodated and
adapted to the grasp of the simple and also of little children. But being
correspondences, they are receptacles and abodes of genuine truth; and are
like enclosing and containing vessels. The naked truths themselves, which
are enclosed and contained, are in the Word's spiritual sense; and the naked
goods in its celestial sense, The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn
in full from the literal sense of the Word; for the Word in this sense is like a
man clothed, whose face and hands are bare. All that concern's man's life,
and so his salvation, is bare; the rest is clothed.

--Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture, nn. 40, 55

ITS LANGUAGE

THE whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world; not only
generally, but in detail. Whatever comes forth in the natural world from the
spiritual, is therefore called correspondent. The world of nature comes forth
and subsists from the spiritual world, just as an effect does from its efficient
cause.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 89

What is Divine presents itself in the world in what corresponds. The Word is
therefore written wholly in correspondence. Therefore the Lord, too,
speaking as He did from the Divine, spoke in correspondence.

--True Christian Religion, n. 201

"And behold a ladder set on the earth, and its head reaching to heaven: and
behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold
Jehovah standing above it." The ladder set between earth and heaven, or
between the lowest and the highest, signifies communication. In the original
tongue the term ladder is derived from an expression which signifies a path
or way, and a path or way is predicated of truth. By a ladder, therefore, one
extremity of which is set on the earth, while the other reaches to heaven, is
signified the communication of truth which is in the lowest place with truth
which is in the highest, indeed with inmost good and truth, such as are in
heaven, and from which heaven itself is an ascent as it were from what is
 28

lowest and afterward when the order is inverted a descent, and is. the order
of man's regeneration. The arcanum which lies concealed in the internal
sense of these words is, that all goods and truths descend from the Lord,
and ascend to Him, for man is so created that the Divine things of the Lord
may descend through him even to the ultimates of nature and from the
ultimates of nature may ascend to Him; so that man might be a medium
uniting the Divine with the world of nature, and uniting the world of nature
with the Divine, that thus, through man, as through the uniting medium, the
very ultimate of nature might live from the Divine, which would be the case
had man lived according to Divine order.

--Arcana Gælestia, nn. 3699-3702

ITS FUNCTION

DIVINE truth, in passing from the Lord through the three heavens to men in
the world, is written and made the Word in each heaven. The Word,
therefore, is the union of the heavens with one another, and of the heavens
with the Church in the world. Hence there flows in from the Lord through
the heavens a holy Divine with the man who acknowledges the Divine in the
Lord and the holy in the Word, while he reads it. Such a man can be
instructed and can draw wisdom from the Word as from the Lord Himself or
from heaven itself, in the measure that he loves it, and thus can be
nourished with the same food with which the angels themselves are fed,
and in which there is life, according to these words of the Lord:

"The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." "The
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 1074

HOW TO USE IT

THEY who, in reading the Word, look to the Lord, by acknowledging that all
truth and all good are from Him, and nothing from themselves,--they are
enlightened, and see truth and perceive what is good from the Word. That
enlightenment is from the light of heaven.
 29

--Arcana Gcelestia, n. 9405

ITS DISSEMINATION OF LIGHT

THERE cannot be any conjunction with heaven unless somewhere upon the
earth there is a Church where the Word is and by it the Lord is known. It is
sufficient that there be a Church where the Word is, even though it should
consist of few relatively. The Lord is present by it, nevertheless, in the whole
world. The light is greatest where those are who have the Word. Thence it
extends itself as from a centre out to the last periphery. Thence comes the
enlightenment of nations and peoples outside the Church, too, by the Word.

--Doctrine concerning the Sacred Scripture, nn. 104, 106

A CANON ON A NEW PRINCIPLE

THE books of the Word are all those which have an internal sense. In the Old
Testament they are the five books of Moses, the book of Joshua, the book
of Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of
David, the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea,
Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
Zecharaiah, Malachi; and in the New Testament the four Evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; and the Apocalypse.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 10,325

 30

THE LIFE OF CHARITY AND FAITH

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and

what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God."
--Micah, VI, 8

THE LAW OF CHARITY

NOT to do evil to the neighbor is the first thing of charity, and to do good to
him fills the second place......That a man cannot do good which in itself is
good before evil has been removed, the Lord teaches in many places: "Do
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Neither can a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit."
--Matt. XVI, 18.

So in Isaiah: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well" (I, 16,17).

--True Christian Religion, n. 445

GOOD IN ITS WHOLENESS

BEFORE repentance good is not done from the Lord, but from the man. It
has not, therefore, the essence of good within it, however it appears like
good outwardly. Good after repentance is another thing altogether. It is a
whole good, unobstructed from the Lord Himself. It is lovely; it is innocent;
it is agreeable, and heavenly. The Lord is in it, and heaven. Good itself is in it.
It is alive, fashioned of truths. Whatever is thus from good, in good, and
toward good, is nothing less than a use to the neighbor, and hence it is a
serving. It puts away self and what is one's own, and thus evil, with every
breath. Its form is like the form of a charming and beautifully colored flower,
shining in the rays of the sun.

--The Doctrine of Charity, n. 150

THE MAN OF CHARITY

 31

EVERY man who looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins, if he sincerely,
justly and faithfully performs the work which belongs to his office and
employment, becomes an embodiment of charity.

--The Doctrine of Chanty, VII

In common belief charity is nothing else than giving to the poor, succoring
the needy, caring for widows and orphans, contributing to the building of
hospitals, infirmaries, asylums, orphanages, and especially churches, and to
their decoration and income. But most of these things are not the proper
activities of charity, but extraneous to it. A distinction is to be made
between the duties of charity, and its benefactions. By the duties of charity
those exercises of it are meant, which proceed directly from charity itself.
These have to do primarily with one's occupation. By the benefactions those
aids are meant which are given outside of, and over and above the duties.

--True Christian Religion, n. 425

THE ACTIVITY OF CHARITY

CHARITY is an inward affection, moving man to do what is good, and this

without recompense, So to act is his life's delight.

The life of charity is to will well and to do well by the neighbor; in all work,
and in every employment, acting out of regard to what is just and equitable,
good and true. In a word, the life of charity consists in the performance of
uses.

--Heavenly Doctrine, nn. 106, 124

FAITH THE PARTNER OF CHARITY

NEITHER charity alone nor faith alone can produce good works, any more
than a husband alone or a wife alone can have offspring. The truths of faith
not only illuminate charity, but qualify it, too; and, moreover, they nourish it.
A man, then, who has charity and not truths of faith, is like one walking in a
garden in the night-time, snatching fruit from the trees without knowing
whether it is of a good or evil use.

--True Christian Religion, n. 377

 32

THE PATRIOTISM OF CHARITY

ONE'S country is the neighbor more than a society, for it consists of many
societies, and consequently the love of it is a more extended and a higher
love. Besides to love one's country is to love the public welfare. A man's
country is the neighbor because it is like a parent; for there he was born; it
has nourished and still nourishes him; it has protected him from harm, and
still protects him. From love for it he ought to do good to his country
according to its needs, some of which are natural, and others spiritual. The
country ought to be loved, not as a man loves himself, but more than
himself. This is a law inscribed on the human heart. And from the law has
issued the proposition, which has the assent of every true man, that if ruin
threatens the country from an enemy or other source, it is illustrious to die
for it, and glorious for a soldier to shed his blood for it. This is a common
saying, because so much should one's country be loved. Those who love
their country, and from good will do good to it, after death love the Lord's
kingdom, for this is their country there; and they who love the Lord's
kingdom, love the Lord, for He is the All in all of His Kingdom.

--True Christian Religion, n. 414

FAITH AND DOUBT

THERE are those who are in doubt before they deny, and there are those
who are in doubt before they affirm. Those in doubt before they deny, are
men who incline to a life of evil. When that life sways them, they deny things
spiritual and celestial to the extent that they think of them. But those in
doubt before they affirm, are men who incline to a life of good. When they
suffer themselves to be turned to this life by the Lord, they then affirm
things spiritual and celestial to the extent that they think of them.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2568

THE FAITH OF THE FAITHFUL

IT is one thing to know truths, another to acknowledge them, and yet

another to have faith in them. Only the faithful can have faith.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 896

 33

The only faith that endures with man springs from heavenly love. Those
without love have knowledge merely, or persuasion. Just to believe in truth
and in the Word is not faith. Faith is to love truth, and to will and do it from
inward affection for it.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 482

If a man thinks to himself or says to another, "Who can have that inward
acknowledgment of truth which is faith? I cannot" I will tell him how he may:
"Shun evils as sins, and go to the Lord, and you will have as much as you
desire."

--Doctrine Concerning Faith, n. 12

NEIGHBORS

NOT only is the individual man the neighbor, but the collective man, too. A
society, smaller or larger, is the neighbor ; the Church is; the Kingdom of the
Lord is; and above all the Lord Himself. These are the neighbor, to whom
good is to be done from love. These are also the ascending degrees of the
neighbor; for a society consisting of many is the neighbor in a higher degree
than is the individual; one's country in a still higher degree; the Church in a
still higher degree than one's country; in a degree higher still the Kingdom of
the Lord; and in the highest degree the Lord Himself. These degrees of
ascent are like the steps in a ladder, at the top of which is the Lord.

--Heavenly Doctrine, n. 91

DIVERSIONS

THERE is an affection in every employment, which puts the mind upon the
stretch and keeps it intent upon its work or study. If it is not relaxed, this
becomes heavy, and its desire meaningless; as salt, when it loses its saltness,
no longer stimulates, and as the bow on the stretch, unless it is unbent,
loses the force it gets from its elasticity. Continuously intent upon its work,
the mind wants rest; and dropping to the physical life, it seeks pleasures
there that answer to its activities. As is the mind in them, such are the
pleasures, pure or impure, spiritual or natural, heavenly or infernal. If it is the
affection of charity which is in them, all diversions will recreate it--shows,
 34

games, instrumental and vocal music, the beauties of field and garden,
social intercourse generally. There remains deep in them, being gradually
renewed as it rests, the love of work and service. The longing to resume this
work breaks in upon the diversions and puts an end to them. For the Lord
flows into the diversions from heaven, and renews the man; and He gives
the man an interior sense of pleasure in them, too, of which those know
nothing who are not in the affection of charity.

--Doctrine of Charity, nn. 127, 128, 130

 35

THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE

"He leadeth me."

--Psalm, XXIII, 2

THE DIVINE PURPOSE

THE Divine Providence has for an end a heaven which shall consist of men
who have become angels or who are becoming angels, to whom the Lord
can impart from Himself all the blessedness and felicity of love and wisdom.

--Divine Providence, n. 27

THE LAWFUL ORDER OF PROVIDENCE

IN. all that proceeds from the Lord the Divine Providence is first Indeed, we
may say that the Lord is Providence, as we say that God is Order; for the
Divine Providence is Divine Order with regard above all to the salvation of
man. As order is impossible without laws, it follows that as God is order so is
He the Law of His order. And as the Lord is His Providence, He is also the
Law of His Providence. The Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His
Providence, for to act contrary to them would be to act contrary to Himself.

--Divine Providence, n. 331

A WORLD-WIDE LEADING

THE Lord provides that there shall be religion everywhere, and in each
religion the two essentials of salvation, which are to acknowledge God, and
not to do evil because it is contrary to God. It is provided furthermore that
all who have lived well and acknowledge God should be instructed by angels
after death. Then, they who, in the world, were in the two essentials of
religion, accept the truths of the Church, such as they are in the Word, and
acknowledge the Lord as the God of heaven and the Church. It has also been
provided by the Lord that all who die infants shall be saved, wherever they
may have been born.

--Divine Providence, n. 328

 36

THE DIVINE PERSEVERANCE

THE Divine Providence differs from all other leading and guidance in this,
that it continually regards what is eternal, and continually leads to salvation,
and this through various states, now glad, now sad,--states which a man
cannot understand at all, and yet they all conduce to his life to eternity.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 8560

IN THE STREAM OF PROVIDENCE

THE Divine Providence is universal, that is, in the leasts of all things. They
who are in the stream of Providence are borne along continually to
happiness, whatsoever the appearance of the means may be. They are in the
stream of Providence, who put their trust in the Divine, and ascribe all things
to Him. They are not in the stream of Providence who trust themselves
alone and ascribe all things to themselves. As far as one is in the stream of
Providence, so far one is in a state of peace. Such alone know and believe
that the Divine Providence of the Lord is in each and all things, yea, in the
leasts of all things.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 8478

CARE FOR THE MORROW

IT is not contrary to order to look out for one's self and one's dependents.
Those have "care for the morrow" who are not content with their lot, who
do not trust in the Divine but themselves, and who regard only worldly and
earthly things and not heavenly. With such there prevails universally a
solicitude about things future, a desire to possess everything, and to rule
over all. They grieve if they do not get what they desire, and suffer torment
when they lose what they have. Then they grow angry with the Divine,
rejecting it to-

gather with everything of faith, and cursing themselves. Altogether

different is it with those who trust in the Divine. Though they have care for
the morrow, yet they have it not; for they do not think of the morrow with
solicitude, still less with anxiety. Whether they get what they wish or not,
they are composed not lamenting over losses, but being content with their
 37

lot. If they become rich, they do not set their hearts upon riches. If they are
exalted to honors, they do not look upon themselves as worthier than
others. If they become poor, they are not cast down. If their condition be
mean, they are not dejected. They know that with those who put their trust
in the Divine, all things work toward a happy state to eternity.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 8478

THE SUFFERANCE OF EVIL

THE chief aim and effort of the Lord's Divine Providence is that a man shall
be in what is good and in what is true at the same time; for thereby man is
man, since he is then an image of the Lord. But because, in his life in the
world, he can be in what is good and in what is false at the same time, and
also in what is evil and what is true at the same time, nay, even in evil and at
the same time in good, and thus be a double man, as it were, and because
this division destroys God's image and so destroys the man, therefore the
Lord's Divine Providence in all its workings seeks to prevent this division.
Furthermore, because it is better for man to be in what is evil and in the
same time in what is false than to be in good and at the same time in evil,
therefore the Lord permits it; not as one willing it, but as one unable to
prevent it consistently with the end, which is salvation.

--Divine Providence, n. 16
 38

DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION

"I laid me down and slept: I awaked: for the Lord sustained me."
--Psalm, III, 5

"Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he
called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob: for He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all are
living."
--Luke, XX, 37, 38

IMMORTAL BY ENDOWMENT

MAN has been so created that as to his inward being he cannot die; for he
can believe in God, and also love God, and thus be united to God in faith and
love; and to be united to God is to live to eternity.

--Heavenly Doctrine, n. 223

FROM WORLD TO WORLD

WHEN the body is no longer able to perform its functions in the natural
world, a man is said to die. Still the man does not die; he is only separated
from the bodily part which was of use to him in the world. The man himself
lives. He lives, because he is man by virtue, not of the body, but of the spirit;
for it is the spirit in man which thinks; and thought together with affection
makes the man. It is plain, then, that when a man dies, he only passes from
one world into the other. ......The spirit of man after separation remains
awhile in the body, but not after the motion of the heart has entirely ceased.
This takes place with a variation according to the diseased condition of
which the man dies. As soon as the motion ceases, the man is resuscitated.
This is done by the Lord alone.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 445, 447

UNHURT BY DEATH
 39

WHEN a man passes from the natural world into the spiritual, he takes with
him everything that belongs to him as a man except his earthly body. (This
he leaves when he dies, nor does he ever resume it.) He is in a body as he
was in the natural world; and to all appearance there is no difference. But
his body is spiritual, and is therefore separated or purified from things
terrestrial. And when what is spiritual touches and sees what is spiritual, it is
just the same as when what is natural touches and sees what is natural...... A
human spirit also enjoys every sense, external and internal, which he
enjoyed in the world. He sees as before, hears and speaks as before, smells
and tastes as before, and feels when he is touched. He also longs, desires,
craves, thinks, reflects, is stirred, loves, wills, as he did previously......In a
word, when a man passes from the one life into the other, or from the one
world into the other, it is as though he had passed from one place to
another ; and he carries with him all that he possesses in himself as a man. It
cannot, then, be said, that after death a man has lost anything that really
belonged to him. He carries his natural memory with him, too; for he retains
all things whatsoever which he has heard, seen, read, learned and thought
in the world, from earliest infancy even to the last of life.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 461

THE WORLD OF SPIRITS

EVERY man at death comes first into the world of spirits, which is midway
between heaven and hell; and there he passes through his own states, and
is prepared either for heaven or for hell according to his life.......It is to be
observed that the world of spirits is one thing, and the spiritual world
another. The spiritual world embraces the world, of spirits and heaven and
hell.

--Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 140

THE WAY OF ONE'S OWN LOVE

AFTER death every one goes the way of his love--he who is in a good love, to
heaven, and he who is in a wicked love, to hell. Nor does he rest until he is in
that society where his ruling love is. What is wonderful, every one knows the
way.
 40

Every one's state after death is spiritual, which is such that he cannot be
anywhere but in the delight of his own love, which he has acquired for
himself by his life in the natural world. From this it appears plainly that no
one can be let into the delight of heaven who is in the delight of hell......This
may be still more certainly concluded from the fact that no one is forbidden
after death to ascend to heaven. The way is shown him, opportunity is given
him, and he is let in. But when one who is in the delight of evil comes into
heaven and breathes in its delight, he begins to be oppressed, and racked at
heart, and to feel in a swoon, in which he writhes like a snake put near a fire;
and with his face turned away from heaven and toward hell, he flees
headlong, nor does he rest until he is in the society of his own love.

--Divine Providence, nn. 319, 338

It is an abiding truth that every man rises again after death into another life,
and presents himself for judgment. This judgment, however, is
circumstanced as follows: As soon as his bodily parts grow cold, which takes
place after a few days, he is raised by the Lord at the hands of celestial
angels who first are with him. If he is such that he cannot be with them, he is
received by spiritual angels, and in turn afterwards by good spirits. For all
who come into the other life, whoever they may be, are grateful and
welcome new-comers. But as every one's desires follow him, he who has led
a bad life cannot remain long with angels or good spirits, but in turn
separates himself from them, until at length he comes to spirits of a life
conforming with the life he had in the world. Then it seems to him as if he
were back in the life of the body; his present life being, in fact, a
continuation of his past life. With this life his judgment commences. They
who have led a bad life in process of time descend into hell; they who have
led a good life, are by degrees raised by the Lord into heaven.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2119

 41

THE FIRST THREE STATES AFTER DEATH

"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy
still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let
him be holy still."
--Rev., XXII, II

CONTINUATION OF THE OUTWARD LIFE

THERE are three states through which a man passes after death, before he
enters either heaven or hell. The first state is that of his outward nature and
life; the second, that of his inward nature and life; and the third, one of
preparation. A man passes through these states in the world of spirits, The
first state of a man after death is like his state in the world, because he is
then similarly in things outward. His appearance is similar, and so are his
speech, his mental habit, and his moral and civil life. As a result he does not
know but that he is still in the world, unless he pays attention to things that
meet his eye, and to what the angels told him at his resuscitation, that now
he is a spirit. Thus one life is carried on into the other, and death is only the
transition.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 491, 493

REVELATION OF THE INNER LIFE

AFTER the first state is past, which is the state of the outward nature and
life, a spirit is admitted into the state of his inward will and thought, in
which, on being left to himself to think freely and unchecked, he had been in
the world. He slips unawares into this state, just as he did in the world.
When he is in this state, he is in himself, and in his very life; for to think freely
from the affection properly one's own, is the very life of man, and is the
man.

When a spirit is in the state of his inward nature and life, it appears plainly
what manner of man he was in the world; for then he acts from his very self.
A man who was inwardly in good in the world, then acts rationally and
 42

wisely--more wisely, in fact, than he did in the world; for he has been loosed
from connection with the body, and so with worldly things, which caused
obscurity and, as it were, interposed a cloud. But a man who was in evil in
the world, then acts foolishly and insanely-- more insanely, in fact, than he
did in the world, for now he is in freedom and not coerced. For when he
lived in the world, he was sane in his outward life, for so he assumed the
appearance of a rational man. When, therefore, his outward life is laid off,
his insanities reveal themselves.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 502, 505

INSTRUCTED FOR HEAVEN

THE third state of a man after death is a state of instruction. This is a state in
the experience of those who enter heaven and become angels.

Instruction in heaven differs from instruction on earth, in that knowledge is

not committed to memory, but to life; for the memory of spirits is in their
life, inasmuch as they receive and become imbued with everything that
agrees with their life, and they do not receive, still less do they become
imbued with, anything that disagrees with it; for spirits are affections, and
are in a human form like their affections. Being such, they have inspired in
them continually an affection for truth for the sake of the uses of life; for the
Lord provides that every one may love the uses which suit his genius, a love
that is exalted, too, by the hope of becoming an angel......With every one,
therefore, the affection of truth is united to the affection of use, so fully
that they act as one. Thereby truth is planted in service, so much so that the
truths which angelic spirits learn, are truths of use. Thus are they instructed
and prepared for heaven.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 512, 517

 43

HEAVEN

"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to
the tree of life; and may enter in through the gates into the city.
--Rev., XXII, 14

"Thou wilt show me the path of life; In Thy presence is fulness of joy; At Thy
right hand there are pleasures forevermore."
--Psalm, XVI, II

"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU"

HEAVEN is in a man; and they who have heaven within themselves, come
into heaven. Heaven in a man is to acknowledge the Divine, and to be led by
the Divine.

Every angel receives the heaven which is around him according to the
heaven which is within him. Unless heaven is within a man, none of the
heaven around him flows in and is received.

Love to the Lord is the love regnant in the heavens; for there the Lord is
loved above all things. Thus the Lord is All in all there. He flows into all the
angels, and into each of them. He disposes them; He induces a likeness of
Himself on them, and causes Heaven to be where He is. Hence an angel is
heaven in the least form; a society is heaven in a greater form; and all the
societies together are heaven in the greatest form.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 319, 54, 58

AN ACTUAL WORLD

IN general, what appears in heaven, appears the same as it does in our

material world of three kingdoms. Things appear before the eyes of angels
just as objects of the three kingdoms do before the eyes of men in the
world. Still there is this difference: the things which appear in heaven, have a
spiritual origin, and those which appear in our world a material origin.
Objects of a spiritual origin affect the senses of angels because these senses
 44

are spiritual, as those of a material origin affect the senses of men, inasmuch
as their senses are material. Heavenly objects are said to have a spiritual
origin, because they exist from the Divine which proceeds from the Lord as
a Sun; and the Divine that proceeds from the Lord as a Sun is spiritual. For
there the Sun is not fire, but Divine Love, appearing before the eyes of the
angels as the sun of the world does before the eyes of men; and whatever
proceeds from the Divine Love is Divine and is spiritual. Of this origin are all
things which exist in the heavens, and they appear in forms like those in our
world. It is due to the order of creation that they appear in such forms.
According to that order, things which are of love and wisdom with the
angels, on descending into the lower sphere in which angels are in respect
of their bodies and of their sensation, present themselves in such forms and
under such types. These are correspondences.

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 926

A WORLD OF ACTION

ALL heaven's delights are united to uses and inhere in them, because uses
are the goods of love and charity, in which the angels are. The angels find all
their happiness in use, from use, and according to use. There is the highest
freedom in this because it proceeds from interior affection, and is conjoined
with ineffable delight. Uses exist in the heavens in all variety and diversity.
Never is the use of one angel quite the same as that of another; nor the
delight. What is more, the delights of any one person's use are countless.
These countless and various delights are nevertheless united in an order so
that they mutually regard one another, as do the uses of every member,
organ and inner part of the body. They are even more like the uses of each
vessel and fibre in every member, organ and vital part; each and all of which
are so related that they regard each of its own good in the other, and thus in
all, and all in each. As a result of this general and several regard they act as
one.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 402, 403, 404, 405

OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN

 45

EVERY little child, wheresoever born, whether within the Church or out of it,
whether of pious parents or of impious, is received by the Lord at death; is
educated in heaven; is taught and imbued with affections of good and by
these with knowledges of truth; and then, as he is perfected in intelligence
and wisdom, is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel.

When children die, they are still children in the other life. They have the
same infantile mind, the same innocence in ignorance, and the same
tenderness in all things. They have only the rudimentary capacity of
becoming angels; for children are not yet angels, but are to become angels.
The state of children in the other life far surpasses that of children in the
world; for they are not clothed with an earthly body, but with a body like
that of the angels. The earthly body is in itself heavy, and does not receive
its first sensations and impulses from the interior or spiritual world, but from
the exterior or natural world. In this world, therefore, infants must learn to
walk, to control the body's motions, and to talk. Even their senses, like sight
and hearing, must be developed by use. It is quite otherwise with children in
the other life. Being spirits, they act at once in expression of their inner
being, walking without practice, and also talking, but at first from general
affections not yet distinguished into ideas of thought. They are quickly
initiated into these, too, however; and this for the reason that outer and
inner are homogeneous with them.

The Lord flows into the ideas of children chiefly from their inmost soul, for
nothing has closed their ideas, as with adults. No false principles have closed
them to the understanding of truth, nor any evil life to the reception of
good, nor to becoming wise.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 416, 330, 331, 836

TOWARD THE MORNING OF LIFE

THE Lord is present with every human being, urgent and instant to be
received; and when a man receives Him, as he does when he acknowledges
Him as his God, Creator, Redeemer and Saviour, then is His first Coming,
which is called the dawn. From this time the man begins to be enlightened,
as to understanding in things spiritual, and to advance into a more and more
interior wisdom. As he receives this wisdom from the Lord, so he advances
 46

through morning into day, and this day lasts with him into old age, even to
death; and after death he passes into heaven to the Lord Himself, and there,
though he died an old man, he is restored to the morning of his life, and to
eternity he develops the beginnings of the wisdom that was implanted in
the natural world.

--True Christian Religion, n. 766

The people of heaven are continually advancing towards the spring-time of

life; and the more thousands of years they live, the more delightful and
happy is the spring to which they attain. Women who have died old and
worn out with age, and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity to the
neighbor, come, with the succession of years, more and more into the
flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty exceeding every
idea of beauty ever formed through the sight. In a word, to grow old in
heaven is to grow young.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 414

 47

HELL

"If I make my bed in hell; behold, Thou art there."

--Psalm, CXXXIX, 8

EVIL IS HELL

EVIL with man is hell with him; for it is the same thing whether we say evil or
hell. And as a man is the cause of his own evil, therefore he, and not the
Lord, also leads himself into hell. So far is the Lord from leading man into
hell, that He delivers him from it as far as a man does not will and love to be
in his own evil, All a man's will and love remains with him after death. He
who wills and loves evil in the world, wills and loves the same evil in the
other life; and then he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it.
This is the reason that a man who is in evil is bound fast to hell and is actually
there, too, in spirit, and after death he desires nothing more than to be
where his evil is. After death, therefore, a man casts himself into hell, and
not the Lord.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 547

EVIL AND PUNISHMENT

ALL evil bears its punishment with it. Evil spirits are punished because the
fear of punishment is the one means of subduing evils in this state.
Exhortation no longer avails, nor instruction, nor fear of the law nor fear for
one's reputation; for now the spirit acts from a nature which cannot be
coerced or broken except by punishment.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 509

It is a law in the other life that no one shall become worse than he had been
in the world.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 6559

GOD WILLS THE DAMNATION OF NONE

 48

IF men could be saved by immediate mercy, all would be saved, even those
in hell; and indeed there would be no hell, because the Lord is mercy itself
and good itself. Therefore it is contrary to His Divine Nature to say that He
can save all immediately, and does not save them. We know from the Word
that the Lord wills the salvation of all and the damnation of none.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 524

MASTER PASSIONS OF HELL

LOVE of self and love of the world rule in the hells and also constitute them.
Love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor rule in the heavens and also
constitute them. These loves are diametrically opposite. Love of self consists
in wishing well to oneself alone, and not to others except for the sake of
oneself, not even to the Church, to one's country, or to any human society;
also in doing good to them, but for the sake of one's reputation, honor and
glory. Unless he sees these in the services he renders them, he says in his
heart, "Of what use is it? Why should I do it? Of what advantage will it be to
me?", and he leaves it undone. His delight is only that of self-love. And
because the delight which springs from his love makes the life of a man,
therefore his life is the life of self; and the life of self is life from
man's proprium; and the proprium of man, viewed in itself, is nothing but
evil. Love of self is of such a quality, too, that, as far as the reins are given it,
it rushes on until at length it desires to rule not only over the whole earth,
but over the whole heaven, too, and over the Divine Himself.

--Heaven and Hell, nn. 554, 556, 559

"OUR NAME IS LEGION"

MEN have believed hitherto that there is some one devil who is over the
hells, and that he was created an angel of light; but that after he turned
rebel, he was cast down with his crew into hell. Men have had this belief
because the Devil is named in the Word, and Satan, and also Lucifer, and in
these passages the Word has been understood according to the sense of
the letter, when yet hell is meant in them by the Devil and Satan......That
there is no single Devil to whom the hells are subject, is also evident from
this fact, that all who are in the hells, like all who are in the heavens, are
 49

from the human race; and that from the beginning of the creation to this
time they amount to myriads of myriads, every one of whom is a devil of a
sort according with his opposition to the Divine in the world.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 544

 50

COMMUNICATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his
delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and
night,"
--Psalm, I, 1, 2

ONE'S SPIRITUAL COMPANY

THE mind of a man is his spirit which lives after death; and a man's spirit is
constantly in company with spirits like himself in the spiritual world. Man
does not know that in respect to his mind he is in the midst of spirits
because the spirits with whom he is in company in that world, think and
speak spiritually. The spirit of man, however, while in the material body,
thinks and speaks naturally; and spiritual thought and speech cannot be
understood, nor perceived, by the natural human being; nor the reverse.
Hence, too, it is that spirits cannot be seen. Yet when a man's spirit is in
society with spirits in their world, then he is in spiritual thought and speech
with them, too, because his inner mind is spiritual, but the outer natural;
wherefore by his inner nature he communicates with them, and by his outer
being with men. By this communication a man perceives and thinks
analytically. If there were no such communication, man would no more think
than a beast, nor any differently from a beast. Indeed, were all commerce
with spirits cut off, a man would instantly die.

--True Christian Religion, n. 475

"MINISTERS OF HIS, THAT DO HIS PLEASURE"

MAN is quite ignorant that he is governed by the Lord through angels and
spirits, and that there are at least two spirits with a man and two angels.
Through the spirits a communication of the man with the world of spirits is
effected; and through the angels, with heaven. As long as a man is not
regenerated, he is governed quite otherwise than when he is regenerated.
While unregenerated, there are evil spirits with him, who dominate him so
 51

fully that the angels, though present, can scarcely do more than guide him,
so that he shall not hurl himself into the lowest evil, and bend him to some
good--to some good by means of his own desires, indeed, and to some truth
through even fallacies of sense. Then, through the spirits who are with him,
he has communication with the world of spirits, but not so much with
heaven, for the evil spirits rule with him, and the angels only avert their rule.
When, however, a man is regenerated, then the angels rule and inspire in
him all good and truth, and a horror and dread of evil and falsity. The angels
lead the man indeed, but serve only as ministers, for it is the Lord alone,
Who, by angels and spirits, governs man.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 50

It is an office of the angels to inspire charity and faith in a man, to observe

the direction his enjoyments take, and to restrain and bend them to good,
as far as they can in man's free choice. They are forbidden to act violently,
and so to break a man's cupidities and principles ; but are bidden to act
gently. It is also an office of theirs to govern evil spirits who are from hell.
When evil spirits infuse evils and what is false, the angels instill what is true
and good, by which they at least temper an evil. Infernal spirits are
continually assaulting, and angels constantly giving protection. Especially do
the angels call forth goods and truths which are with a man, and oppose
them to the evils and falsities which the evil spirits excite. Hence a man is in
the midst, nor does he apper-ceive the evil or the good; and being in the
midst, is free to turn himself to the one or to the other. By such means
angels from the Lord lead and protect a man, and this every moment, and
every moment of a moment. For, should the angels intermit their care a
single instant, man would be plunged into evil from which he could never
afterward be led forth. These offices the angels do from a love which they
have from the Lord; for they know nothing pleasanter and happier than to
remove evils from a man, and to lead him to heaven. That this is their joy,
see Luke, XV, 7. Scarcely any man believes that the Lord has such a care for
man, and this continually, from the first thread of his life to the last, and on
to eternity.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 5992

 52

WHOLESOME AND UNWHOLESOME COMMUNICATION

MANY believe that a man can be taught by the Lord through spirits who
speak with him. They who believe so, and will this communication, do not
know, however, that it is attended with danger to their souls. While a man is
living in the world, he is in the midst of spirits as to his spirit; nevertheless
spirits do not know they are with man, nor a man that he is with spirits. But
as soon as spirits begin to speak with a man, they come out of their spiritual
state into the man's natural state; and then they know that they are with
man, and they unite themselves to the thoughts of his affection, and they
speak with him from those thoughts. Thence it is that the spirit speaking is
in the same principles as the man, whether these be true or false. These he
stirs up, and through his affection, united to the man's, strongly confirms
them. All this shows the danger in which a man is who speaks with spirits, or
who manifestly perceives their operation. Of the nature of his affection,
good or bad, a man is ignorant, also with what others he is associated. If his
is a pride of self-intelligence, the spirit favors every thought from that
source. Likewise there is the favoring of principles which are inflamed from
the fire which those have who are not in truths from any genuine affection
for them. Whenever from a like affection a spirit favors a man's thoughts or
principles, then the former leads the latter, as the blind lead the blind, until
both fall into the ditch. It is otherwise with those whom the Lord leads. He
leads those who love and will truths from Him. Such are enlightened when
they read the Word, for there the Lord is, and He speaks with every one
according to the latter's apprehension. When these hear speech from
spirits, as they do sometimes, they are not taught, but are led, and this so
prudently that the man is still left to himself. For every man is led through
the affections by the Lord, and he thinks from these freely as if of himself.
Were it otherwise, a man could not be reformed, nor could he be
enlightened.

--Apocalypse Explained, nn. 1182, 1183

AN UNBROKEN ASSOCIATION

MARRIED partners, who have lived in truly conjugial love, are not separated
in the death of one of them. For the spirit of the deceased partner lives
 53

continually with the spirit of the other, not yet deceased, and this even to
the death of the other, when they meet again and reunite, and love each
other more tenderly than before; for now they are in the spiritual world.

--Conjugial Love, n. 321

 54

THE CHURCH

"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be
their God."
--Rev., XXI, 3

THF CHURCH IN GOD'S SIGHT

THE Church is in man, and not outside of him; and the Church at large
consists of the men who have the Church in them. --The Church consists of
those who from the heart acknowledge the Divine of the Lord, who learn
truths from Him by the Word, and do them.--Every one who lives in the good
of charity and of faith is a Church and a Kingdom of the Lord.--The Church in
general is constituted of those who are severally Churches, however remote
they are from one another.--The Church of the Lord is scattered throughout
the whole world.

--Heaven and Hell, n. 57

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 388

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 6637; ib., n. 9256

A SUCCESSION OF CHURCHES

THERE have been four Churches on this earth since the day of creation; a
first, to be called the Adamic, a second, to be called the Noachic; a third, the
Israelitish; and a fourth, the Christian. After these four Churches, a new one
will arise, which is to be truly Christian, foretold in Daniel and in
the Apocalypse,and by the Lord Himself in the Evangelists, and looked for by
the Apostles.

--Coronis, Summary, I, VIII

EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND ITS DECLINE

 55

WHEN a Church is raised up by the Lord, it is in the beginning blameless; and

one then loves the other as his brother, as we know of the primitive Church
after the Lord's advent. At that time, all the sons of the Church lived
together like brothers, and also called one another brother, and mutually
loved each other. But in the course of time charity diminished, and vanished;
and as it vanished, evils succeeded; and together with evils falsities
insinuated themselves. Hence came schisms and heresies, which would
never come to be, were charity regnant and alive.

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 1834

THE LORD'S SECOND COMING: WHEN? HOW?

NOW is the Lord's Second Coming, and a New Church is to be instituted. The
Second Coming of the Lord is not a coming in Person, but in the Word,
which is from Him, and is Himself. We read in many places that the Lord will
come in the clouds of heaven. The "clouds of heaven" mean the Word in its
natural sense, and "glory" the Word in its spiritual sense, and "power" the
Lord's power by means of the Word. So the Lord is now to appear in the
Word. He is not to appear in Person because, since His ascension into
heaven, He is in the Glorified Humanity, in which He cannot appear to any
man, unless He opens the eyes of his spirit first, and this cannot be done
with any one who is in evils and thence in falsities. It is vain, therefore, to
believe that the Lord will appear in a cloud of heaven in Person; but He will
appear in the Word, which is from Him, and so is Himself.

--True Christian Religion, nn. 115, 776, 777

What occurred at the end of the Jewish Church has occurred similarly now;
for at the end of that Church, which was when the Lord came into the
world, the Word was interiorly opened. Interior Divine truths were revealed
by the Lord, which were to serve the New Church to be established by Him,
and did serve it, too. To-day, again, for similar reasons, the Word has been
interiorly opened, and divine truths still more interior have been revealed,
which are to serve a New Church, which will be called the New Jerusalem.

--Apocalypse Explained, n. 948

A NEW CHURCH
 56

IT was foretold in the Apocalypse (XXI, XXII) that at the end of the former
Church a New Church was to be instituted, in which this would be the chief
teaching: that God is One in Person as well as in Essence, in Whom is the
Trinity, and that that God is the Lord. This Church is what is there meant by
the New Jerusalem, into which only he can enter who acknowledges the
Lord alone as God of Heaven and earth.

--Divine Providence, n. 263

The descent of the New Jerusalem cannot take place in a moment, but
becomes a fact as the falsities of the former Church are removed. For what
is new cannot enter where falsities have previously been engendered,
unless these are eradicated; which will take place with the clergy, and so
with the laity.

--True Christian Religion, n. 784

THE ULTIMATE GOAL

WERE it received as a principle, that love to the Lord and charity to the
neighbor are what the whole Law hangs on and are what all the Prophets
speak of, and thus are the essentials of all doctrine and worship, then the
mind would be enlightened in innumerable things in the Word, which other-
wise lie hidden in the obscurity of a false principle. In fact, heresies would be
scattered then, and out of many one Church would come to be, however the
doctrines flowing therefrom or leading thereto, and the rituals, might differ.
Were the case so, all men would be governed as a single human being by the
Lord; for all would be as members and organs of one body, which, dissimilar
in form and function though they are, still have relation to one heart only,
whereon they each and all depend. Then, in whatever doctrine or outward
worship one might be, he would say of another, "This man is my brother. I
see that he worships the Lord, and that he is a good man."

--Arcana Coelestia, n. 2385

 57

MEMORABLE SAYINGS

All religion has relation to life; and the life of religion is to do good.

Love in act is work and deed.

Heaven is a kingdom of uses.

No one who believes in God and lives well is condemned.

Shunning evils as sins is the mark of faith.

To resist one evil is to resist many; for every evil is united with countless
evils.

If you wish to be led by the Divine Providence, employ prudence as a servant

and attendant who faithfully dispenses his Lord's goods.

Where men know doctrine and think according to it, there the Church may
be; but where men act according to doctrine, there alone the Church is.

It is not the desire of an intelligent man to be able to confirm whatever he

pleases; but to be able to see truth as truth, and falsity as falsity, and to
confirm his insight, is the way of an intelligent man.

To reason only whether a thing is so or not, is like reasoning about the fit of
a cap or a shoe without ever putting it on.

It is the essence of God's love to love others outside Himself, to desire to be

one with them, and from Himself to render them blessed.

The absence of God from man is no more

possible than the absence of the sun from the earth through its heat and
light.

Truths perish with those who do not desire good.

Peace has in it confidence in the Lord-- that He governs all things, and
provides all things, and leads to a good end.
 58

The Lord powerfully influences the humble.

Innocence is willingness to be led by the Lord.

One's distance from heaven is in proportion to the measure of one's self-

love.

Peace in the heavens is like spring in the world, gladdening all things.

No two things mutually love each other more than do truth and good.

Love consists in desiring to give our own to another and in feeling as our
own his delight.

A wicked man may shun evils as hurtful; none but a Christian can shun them
as sins.

If a man studies the neighbor and the Lord more than himself, he is in a state
of regeneration.

The Lord acts mediately through heaven, not because he needs the aid of
the angels, but that they may have functions and offices, life and happiness.

Good is like a little flame which gives light, and causes man to see, perceive
and believe.

Evil itself is disunion.

To serve the Lord is to be free.