New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #442

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

442. Then the sixth angel sounded. (9:13) This symbolizes an examination and exposure of the state of life among those people in the Protestant Reformed Church who were not so wise, and yet who placed the whole of religion in faith, thinking of it alone, and of nothing besides it and ritual worship, and so living as they pleased.

That these people are the subject to the end of the chapter will be evident from the exposition of the following verses.

To sound a trumpet means, symbolically, to examine and expose the state of the church and its consequent life among people for whom religion is faith alone, as may be seen in no. 397 above.

[2] The people who are the subject now are totally different from those who have been the subject so far in this chapter, whose falsities in matters of faith were seen in the form of locusts. They differ in this respect, that the people described so far devote themselves to zealously exploring the mysteries of justification by faith and to teaching its signs and its testimonies, which to them are the goods of a moral and civic life, asserting that although the precepts of the Word are in themselves indeed Divine, in people they become natural, because they emanate from a person's will, and being natural, they lack any connection with the spiritual components of faith. Moreover, because they defend these ideas by rational arguments which have the sound of learning, they live in the southern zone in an abyss, in keeping with the description in no. 421 above.

[3] In contrast, however, the people who are the subject in the verses that follow now to the end of the chapter, do not pursue these mysteries, but simply make plain faith the whole of religion, and nothing beyond it and ritual worship, and so live as they please.

I have been granted to see these, too, and to speak with them. They live in the northern zone in huts constructed of rushes and reeds, covered with plaster, and having dirt floors.

These huts are scattered about. The more clever among the inhabitants know how to employ their natural sight to defend that faith by rational arguments and to establish that it has nothing to do with one's way of life. They live in front, moreover, with the more simple behind them, and the more stupid toward the western part of that zone. There is such a multitude of them as to be beyond belief.

They are instructed by angelic spirits, but those who do not accept truths pertaining to faith or live in accordance with them are conveyed down into the hell that lies beneath them, where they are imprisoned.

  
/ 962  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #695

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

695. The fourth experience.

Most people today who believe in a life after death also believe that in heaven their only thoughts will be devotions, their only utterances prayers, and both of these together with their facial expressions and bodily acts will be nothing but ways of glorifying God. So they imagine that the only homes they will have will be places of worship or consecrated buildings, and so they will all be priests of God. But I can solemnly state that in that life the rites of the church do not take up more of people's minds or houses than they do where God is worshipped in the world, though in a purer and more inward way. But there are to be found there all kinds of matters requiring secular attention, and all sorts of matters requiring rational learning, and these of the highest degree,

[2] One day I was carried off into heaven and brought to a society, where wise men lived who in ancient times had been distinguished for the learning they had gained from deep study and meditation on matters within the scope of reason, and which at the same time were of service. Now they were in heaven because they had believed in God, and now believed in the Lord, and they had loved the neighbour as themselves. I was subsequently taken to a meeting they held and asked where I came from. I revealed that I was in the body in the natural world, but in the spirit in their spiritual world.

These angels were delighted to hear this and kept asking: 'In the world where you are in the body what do people know and understand about inflow 1 ?'

After thinking what I could recollect on the subject from conversations and from the writings of famous people, I replied that they are still ignorant of any inflow from the spiritual world into the natural world, though they know of the inflow of nature into objects in nature. For instance, the inflow of heat and light from the sun into living bodies, and also into trees and plants, which causes them to become alive; and in the opposite case the inflow of cold into the same bodies, which causes their death. Moreover they know about the inflow of light into the eyes bringing about sight, the inflow of sound into the ears bringing about hearing, the inflow of smell into the nostrils bringing about smelling, and so on.

[3] Apart from these instances the scholars of the present time reason in different ways about the inflow from the soul into the body, and from the body into the soul. On this subject there are three theories current. One party argues whether there is an inflow from the soul into the body, which they call 'incidental' 2 because of the chance incidence of things on the bodily senses. Or they argue whether there is an inflow from the body into the soul, which they term 'physical', because objects impinge on the senses and from these on the soul. Or whether there is a simultaneous and instantaneous inflow both into the body and the soul together, to which they apply the term 'pre-established harmony'. Yet each of these parties thinks that the inflow they believe in exists inside the realm of nature.

Some people believe that the soul is a particle or drop of ether, some that it is a tiny ball or speck of heat and light, some that it is some entity hidden in the brain. But whatever it is they consider the soul to be, they call it spiritual; but by spiritual they mean something purer but natural, since they know nothing of the spiritual world and the inflow from it into the natural world, so that they remain restricted to the natural sphere. Within this they climb up and drop down, and they soar into it like eagles into the air. Those who are limited to nature are like the natives of an island in the sea who are unaware of the existence of any land but theirs; or they are like fish in a river unaware of the existence of air up above their waters. As a result when anyone mentions the existence of a world apart from theirs inhabited by angels and spirits, and describes this as the source of all inflow into human beings, as well as into trees at a more inward level, they stand astonished, as if they had been told of visions of ghosts, or of nonsense from astrologers.

[4] Apart from the philosophers, people nowadays, in the world in which I live in the body, are unable to think and talk about any other sort of inflow than that of wine into glasses, of food and drink into the stomach, of taste into the tongue, and perhaps of the inflow of air into the lungs, and so on. But if these people are told anything about the inflow from the spiritual world into the natural one, they say: 'Let it flow in, if it does; what pleasure or use is there in knowing this?' Off they go, and then afterwards on talking about what they are told about inflow, they play about with it, as some people play with pebbles, running them through their fingers.

[5] Afterwards I talked with those angels about the amazing effects caused by the inflow from the spiritual world into the natural one. For instance, we talked about the way caterpillars turn into butterflies, about bees and drones, and the astonishing things the silkworm does, and also spiders; how people on earth attribute all these things to the light and heat of the sun, and so to nature. What has often astonished me is that they use these facts to strengthen their leaning towards nature, and any such strengthening plunges their minds into sleep and oblivion, so that they become atheists.

[6] After this I related the amazing facts about plants, how they all progress from the seed in due sequence until they produce new seeds, exactly as if the earth knew how to provide and adapt its elements to the reproductive principle of the seed; and from this to bring forth a shoot, to broaden this to form a stem, to send forth branches from this, to clothe these with leaves, and later to embellish them with flowers, and beginning from their interiors to produce fruits, and by means of these produce as offspring seeds from which the plant can be born again. But because these things are always to be seen and have become familiar, usual and commonplace by constant repetition, they are not looked on as amazing, but as simply the effects of nature. People hold this view solely because they are ignorant of the existence of a spiritual world, working from within on and actuating every single thing which comes into existence and is formed in the world of nature and upon the natural earth, activating sensation and movement as the human mind does in the body. Nor do they know that every detail of nature is as it were a tunic, sheath or clothing enclosing spiritual things and serving at the lowest level to bring about the effects corresponding to the purpose of God the Creator.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin influxus is throughout this section translated 'inflow', although in some cases other translations would be more natural in English.

2. Or 'occasional'.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org