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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

 

Conjugial Love #477

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477. To this I will append the following narrative account:

I heard a certain spirit, a young man newly come from the world, boasting of his licentious activities and acting as though he wished to have the acclaim of being a man more manly than others. Then amid the effronteries of his boasting, he blurted out also the following:

"What is more dismal than to imprison one's love and to live alone with only one woman? And what is more delightful than to set one's love free? Who is not wearied by the companionship of one, and enlivened by the attentions of many? Is anything sweeter than unrestricted freedom, variety, the deflowering of virgins, the deceiving of husbands, and licentious charades? Do not those things delight the inmost elements of the mind which are obtained by wiles, subterfuges and theft?"

[2] On hearing this, the people standing by said, "Do not speak so! You do not know where you are and in whose company you are. You have only recently arrived here. Under your feet is hell, and above your head is heaven. You are now in the world which is midway between those two and is called the world of spirits. All people come here and are gathered here who pass away out of the world, and they are explored with respect to their character and prepared, evil people for hell and good people for heaven. Perhaps you recall still from priests in the world that licentious and wanton men and women are cast into hell, and that the chastely married are taken up into heaven."

The newcomer laughed at that, saying, "What is heaven, and what is hell? Is it not heaven wherever a person is free, and is he not free who is at liberty to make love to as many of the opposite sex as he pleases? And is it not hell wherever a person is enslaved, and is he not enslaved who must restrict himself to one?"

[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard what he was saying and stopped him from speaking, to keep him from going any further and speaking profanely of marriage. And the angel said to him, "Come up here, and I will show you by actual experience what heaven is and what hell is, and what the latter is like for the deliberately licentious."

The angel then pointed out a path, by which the newcomer ascended. And after receiving the newcomer, he took him first to a garden paradise, containing fruit trees and flowers whose beauty, charm and fragrance filled their spirits with invigorating delights.

On seeing these sights, the newcomer marveled with great admiration; but he was then seeing with his external sight, of the kind he had had in the world when viewing like things there, and in that state of sight he was rational. However, when seeing with his internal sight, in which licentiousness predominated and occupied every particle of his thought, he was not rational. His external sight was closed up, therefore, and his internal sight opened. And when it was opened he said, "What is this I am seeing now? Are they not wisps of straw and dry sticks of wood? And what am I smelling now? Is it not a foul stench? Where now have the things of paradise gone?"

Whereupon the angel said, "They are close by and around you, but they are not visible to your internal sight, which is licentious; for licentiousness turns heavenly things into hellish ones and sees only their opposites. Every person has an inner mind and an outer mind, thus an internal sight and an external sight. In evil people the inner mind is insane and the outer one wise, while in good people the inner mind is wise and in consequence of it the outer one too; and the character of the mind determines how a person in the spiritual world sees objects."

[4] After that, by a power given him, the angel closed up the newcomer's internal sight and opened his external one; and he took him through some gates towards the central area of their residences, where the young man saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, with arcades adjoining them, and columns round about, covered and beset with stunning emblems and ornamentations.

When the young man saw these, he was overwhelmed with astonishment, and he said, "What am I seeing? I am seeing magnificent sights in the essence of their magnificence, and architecture in the essence of its art!"

But then the angel closed up his external sight again, and opened his internal one, which was evil because of its foully licentious character; and at that the young man cried out, saying, "What am I seeing now? Where am I? Where now have the palaces and magnificent sights gone? I am seeing ruins, rubble, and cavernous hollows!"

[5] He was, however, shortly restored to his external state and taken into one of the palaces; and he beheld the ornamentations of the doors, windows, walls and ceilings - especially of the implements, which were covered and beset with heavenly forms of gold and precious stones such as words cannot describe or any art portray; for they transcended the imagery of words and the conceptions of art.

Seeing these things, the young man cried out again, saying, "These are truly marvels, never seen by any eye before!"

But then as previously his external sight was closed up and his internal one opened; and on being asked what he saw now, he replied, "Nothing but walls of rushes here, of straw there, and of firebrands over there."

[6] Again, however, he was brought into his external state of mind, and maidens were presented to him who were pictures of beauty, because they were images of heavenly affection; and these spoke to him in the sweet voice of their affection. At that, then, on seeing and hearing them, the young man's expression changed, and he spontaneously slipped back into his internal qualities, which were licentious. And because these qualities cannot endure any element of heavenly love, and conversely cannot be endured by any heavenly love, they vanished on both sides - the maidens from the sight of the man, and the man from the sight of the maidens.

[7] After that the angel informed him of the reason for these changes in the state of his sight. "I perceive," he said, "that in the world from which you come, you had a dual character, being one person in your inner qualities and another in your outer ones; and that in your outer qualities you were a law-abiding, moral and rational person, but in your inner qualities not law-abiding, not moral, and not rational, because you were licentious and an adulterer. When people of this character are permitted to ascend into heaven and are kept there in their outer qualities, they can see the heavenly objects around them; but when their inner qualities are laid open, instead of heavenly objects they see hellish ones.

[8] "However, you should know that the outer qualities in everyone here are gradually closed up and the inner ones laid open, and thus they are prepared for heaven or for hell. Furthermore, because the evil of licentiousness defiles the inner qualities of the mind more than any other evil, it is inevitable that you be carried down to the foul depravities of your love, depravities which exists in the hells, in caverns which stink of excrement.

"Who cannot know from reason that unchasteness and lasciviousness in the spiritual world is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing pollutes and defiles a person more and induces on him a hellish character?

"Take care, therefore, not to boast any further of your licentiousness, thinking that in this you are a man more manly than others. I predict to you that you will become impotent, even so that you scarcely know where your masculinity lies. Such is the fate that awaits those who boast of the prowess of their licentiousness."

After hearing this the young man descended and went back to the world of spirits, and returning to his former companions, he spoke with them modestly and chastely - but yet not for long.

  
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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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