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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 #531

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531. To this I will append the following account:

I was suddenly seized with an almost fatal illness. My whole head was weighed down. A toxic smoke emanated from the Jerusalem called Sodom and Egypt. I was half-dead with the fierce pain. I awaited the end. In that state I lay in my bed for three and a half days. Thus was my spirit afflicted, and because of it my body.

And then I heard about me voices saying, "Look, there he lies dead in our city's street, the one who preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins and Christ alone, a man." And they asked some of the clergy whether they ought to bury him.

The clerics said, "No. Let him lie there for people to see."

The people went to and fro, scoffing.

In truth this happened to me when I was expounding this chapter of the book of Revelation.

I heard then the sober words of the people scoffing, especially the following:

"How can one repent apart from faith? How can Christ, a man, be worshiped as God? Since we are saved by grace apart from any merit of our own, what need do we have then of anything but simply a faith that God the Father sent His Son to take away the condemnation of the Law, to impute His Son's merit to us and thus justify us in His sight, to absolve us of our sins through His emissary the priest, and to grant us then the Holy Spirit to bring about any goodness in us? Does this not accord with Scripture, and also with reason?"

At that the crowd standing around applauded.

[2] I heard this, but could not reply, because I lay almost dead. But after three and a half days my spirit recovered, and in the spirit I went from the street into the city and said again, "Repent and believe in Christ, and your sins will be forgiven you and you will be saved. If you don't, you will perish. Didn't the Lord Himself preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and for people to believe in Him? Didn't He command His disciples to preach this, too? The dogma attending your faith - is it not followed by a lack of concern over the way you live?"

But they said, "What nonsense are you prattling on about? Did not the Son make satisfaction? Did the Father not impute this to us and justify those of us who believe it? We are led, therefore, by the spirit of grace. What then is sin in us? What then does death have to do with us? Do you not comprehend this gospel, you preacher of sin and repentance?"

However, a voice was heard from heaven then, saying, "What is the faith of an impenitent person but a lifeless one? The end is coming. The end is coming upon you so unconcerned, so blameless in your own eyes, so justified in that faith of yours, you who are devils."

Then suddenly a chasm opened at the center of that city and widened, and one after another their houses fell and were swallowed up. And shortly water bubbled up from that broad gulf and flooded the devastated land.

[3] When they were thus covered with water and seemingly drowned, I wished to know their fate at the bottom, and I was told from heaven, "You will see and hear it."

And before my eyes then the water vanished - the water in which they were seemingly drowned, because bodies of water in the spiritual world are correspondent forms, which appear therefore around people who are caught up in falsities - and I saw them then in the sandy bottom. There were heaps of piled up stones there, and the people were running among them, lamenting the fact that they had been cast down from their great city. They kept crying out and bawling, "Why has this happened to us? Thanks to our faith in the world, are we not pure, just, and godly?"

And others cried, "Has our faith not cleansed us, purified us, justified and sanctified us?"

And still others, "Has our faith not made us such that in the sight of God the Father we appear, seem, and are regarded as clean, pure, just and godly, and declared to be so in the eyes of angels? Have we not been reconciled, restored to favor, and atoned for, and so freed, washed and cleansed of any sins? Has Christ not taken away the condemnation of the Law? Why, then, have we been cast down here as though condemned?

"A brazen preacher of sin told us in our great city, 'Believe in Christ and repent.' Have we not believed in Christ, since we believed in His merit? And have we not repented, since we confessed ourselves sinners? Why, then, has this befallen us?"

[4] At that they then heard from one side a voice speaking to them. "Are you aware of any sin gripping you? Have you ever examined yourselves? Have you as a result refrained from any evil as being a sin against God? Anyone who does not, remains caught up in it. Is not sin the devil? You are therefore the kind of people about whom the Lord says,

Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.' But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.' (Luke 13:26-27)

"And also the kind of people spoken of in Matthew 7:22-23. 1

"Go, therefore, each to his own place. You will see caves opening into caverns. Go in, and there each of you will be given his own work to do, and food then commensurate with the work. If you don't want to go in, still hunger will drive you to."

[5] After that a voice from heaven addressed some people aboveground who were outside that great city - people also mentioned in Revelation 11:13 - saying loudly, "Beware! Beware of allying yourselves with people like that. Can you not understand that evils called sins and iniquities render a person unclean and impure? How can a person be cleansed and purified of those evils except by actual repentance and faith in Jesus Christ? Actual repentance is to examine oneself, to recognize and acknowledge one's sins, to make oneself guilty of them, to confess them before the Lord, to implore His aid and power in resisting them, and so to refrain from them and lead a new life, doing all this as though of oneself. Do this once or twice a year when you go to Holy Communion; and afterward, when the sins of which you have made yourself guilty recur, say to yourselves, 'We refuse to do them because they are sins against God.' That is actual repentance.

[6] "Who cannot understand that someone who does not examine himself and see his sins, remains caught up in them? For every evil is delightful from one's birth, inasmuch as it is delightful to take revenge, to be licentious sexually, to prey on others, to blaspheme, and most of all to dominate others from a love of self. Does delight not cause these to go unseen? And if by chance someone says they are sins, does not the delight you find in them cause you to excuse them, even to persuade you and by false arguments convince you that they are not sins, so that you remain caught up in them and go on doing them, afterward even more than before? And this until you do not know what sin is, indeed whether there is any such thing as sin.

"It is different with someone who repents actually. His evils that he recognizes and acknowledges, he calls sins, and therefore he begins to refrain from them and to be averse to them, and to feel the delight he had felt in them as undelightful. Moreover, to the extent that he does this, to the same extent he sees and loves goods, and finally feels delight in them, a delight which is one of heaven. In a word, to the extent someone casts the devil behind him, to the same extent he is adopted by the Lord and taught, led, withheld from evils by Him and kept in goods. This is the way, the only way, from hell to heaven."

[7] Surprisingly, it is a fact that the Protestant Reformed have a certain deep-seated resistance, opposition and aversion to actual repentance, which is so great that they cannot compel themselves to examine themselves and see their sins and confess them before God. It is as though a kind of horror besets them when they go to do it.

I have asked many of them in the spiritual world about this, and they have all said that it is beyond their power.

When they are told that Roman Catholics still do it, namely that they examine themselves and openly confess their sins to a monk, they are quite surprised, saying that the Protestant Reformed cannot do this in secret to God, even though they are likewise enjoined to do it before they take Holy Supper. Some of them there also inquired into why this was, and they found that faith alone produced in them such a state of impenitence and such a disposition.

They were then given to see, moreover, that Roman Catholics who worship the Christ and do not call on their saints, and who do not worship their so-called Vicar of Christ 2 or any of his keepers of the keys, are saved.

[8] After that I heard what sounded like thunder and a voice speaking from heaven, saying, "We are astonished. Tell the company of the Protestant Reformed, 'Believe in the Christ and repent and you will be saved.'"

So I said that, and also added, "Is not Baptism a sacrament of repentance and thus an initiation into the church? What else do the sponsors promise for the one being baptized than to renounce the devil and his works?

"Is not Holy Supper a sacrament of repentance and thus an initiation into heaven? Are the communicants not told to thoroughly repent before they approach?

"Any catechism containing the universal doctrine of the Christian Church, is it not a document teaching repentance? Does it not say there in reference to the six commandments of the second table that you must not do this or that evil, and say that you must do this or that good?

"You may know from this that to the extent someone refrains from evil, to the same extent he loves good; and that before then you do not know what good is, nor even what evil is."

Footnotes:

1. "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew 7:22-23)

2. I.e., the Pope.

  
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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

 

Apocalypse Revealed #386

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386. To this I will append the following account:

When I once looked about in the spiritual world, I heard what sounded like the gnashing of teeth, and like a thumping, too, intermixed with a harsh noise. So I asked what I was hearing, and the angels who were with me said, "There are clubs, which we call taverns, where people argue with each other. This is the way their debates sound at a distance, but close by they sound only like arguments.

I went over and saw cottages constructed of interwoven rushes, with clay for mortar. I wanted to look through a window, but there wasn't one. I looked for a window because I was not permitted to enter through the door, as light from heaven would then flow in and befuddle the people.

Suddenly, however, a window materialized on the right side, and I heard the people complain then that everything had gone dark. But shortly a window materialized on the left side, with the window on the right side closing, and then the darkness was by degrees dispelled, and they saw each other in a state of light. After that I was allowed to enter through the door and listen.

There was a table in the middle of the room, with benches surrounding it, yet the people all seemed to me to be standing on the benches, and to be arguing sharply with each other about faith and charity, the people on one side saying that faith was the principal tenet of the church, and on the other side that charity was.

Those who made faith the principal tenet said, "Do we not deal with God as regards faith, and with people as regards charity? Is not faith therefore something heavenly, and charity something earthly? Are we not saved by what is heavenly, and not by anything earthly?

"Furthermore, cannot God confer faith from heaven, because it is something heavenly, and must not a person confer on himself charity, because it is something earthly? What a person confers on himself is unrelated to the church and is therefore not saving. Can works that are called works of charity justify anyone in that case before God?

"Believe us when we say that by faith alone we are not only justified but also sanctified, provided our faith is not contaminated by hopes for merit that spring up from works of charity."

And so on.

[2] In reply, the people who made charity the principal tenet of the church sharply refuted them, saying that charity is saving, and not faith. "Does not God hold all people dear and will good to all? How can God do this except through the agency of people? Does God enable people to speak with one another only about matters having to do with faith, and not enable them to do things for one another that are matters of charity?

"Do you not see how absurdly you spoke about charity, saying that it is something earthly? Charity is something heavenly, and because you do not do the good pertaining to charity, your faith is earthly. How do you receive faith other than as a log or rock? You say that it is simply by hearing the Word, but how can the Word do anything simply by being heard, and how can it have any effect on a log or rock? Perhaps you are animated without being aware of it. However, what is that animation except to enable you to say that faith alone is saving? Yet what that faith is, and what saving faith is, you do not know."

[3] But one among them then arose, whom an angel speaking with me called a syncretist. 1 He took the cap from his head and placed it on the table, but quickly replaced it, as he was bald. He said, "Listen, you are all wrong. The truth is that faith is spiritual, and charity moral; but still they are conjoined, and they are conjoined by the Word, by the Holy Spirit, and by the effect these have, without the person's knowing. Indeed, the person may be said to be a compliant form, but one in which the person has no part.

"I have thought to myself a long time about this, and I eventually found that God can enable a person to receive a faith that is spiritual, but cannot move him to a charity that is spiritual without his being like a pillar of salt."

[4] When he said this, the people caught up in faith alone applauded, while those espousing charity booed. And the latter said with annoyance, "Listen, my friend, you do not know that a moral life can be spiritual, and that it can be merely natural - being a moral life that is spiritual in the case of people who do good from the Lord, though doing it as if of themselves, and being a moral life that is merely natural in the case of people who do good from hell, though doing it as if of themselves."

[5] I said before that the arguing sounded like the gnashing of teeth, and like a thumping, too, intermixed with a harsh noise. The particular arguing that sounded like the gnashing of teeth came from those who were espousing faith alone; the arguing that sounded like a thumping came from those who were espousing charity alone; and the intermixed harsh noise came from the syncretist. I heard their voices at a distance thus because they had all argued in the world, but did not refrain from any evil and so did not do any moral good that was spiritual. Moreover, they also did not know at all that the totality of faith is truth, and that the totality of charity is goodness, and that truth without goodness is not truth in spirit, and that goodness without truth is not goodness in spirit; thus that one must form the other.

The reason everything became dark when a window materialized on the right side is that light flowing in from heaven on that side affects the will. And a state of light returned when the window on the right side closed and a window materialized on the left side, because light flowing in from heaven on the left side affects the intellect, and everyone can be in the light of heaven as regards his intellect, provided his will is closed as regards the evil in him.

Footnotes:

1. An espouser of syncretism, a system of belief that attempts to reconcile differing religious and philosophic positions. The term was applied especially to the views of George Calixtus, a Lutheran theologian in the 17th century, and to his followers.

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

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