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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

 

True Christian Religion #623

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623. The third experience.

I once was allowed to see three hundred clergy together with laymen, all well-educated and learned, because they knew how to prove that faith alone was sufficient for justification, and even 1 beyond. Since their belief was that heaven was merely a matter of being admitted by grace, they were given permission to go up to one community in heaven, but not one of the higher ones. When they went up, they looked from a distance like calves. On entering heaven they were received politely by the angels; but when they began to talk with them, they were seized with trembling, then terror and finally agony like that of death. Then they cast themselves down headlong, and as they fell they looked like dead horses. The reason why they looked like calves, when they were going up, was that the natural affection for seeing and knowing in joyous play is by correspondence like a calf. When they were falling down they looked like dead horses, because by correspondence the understanding of truth looks like a horse, and the lack of understanding of truth as the church possesses it, like a dead horse.

[2] There were some boys down below, who saw them coming down, and looking like dead horses as they fell. Then they turned their faces away, and said to the master who was with them: 'What is the meaning of this monstrous thing? We saw people and now they have turned into dead horses. So being unable to look at them we turned our faces away. Let us not stay in this place, sir, but go away.' So they went away.

Then as they went the master taught them what a dead horse meant. 'A horse,' he said, 'means the understanding of truth drawn from the Word. All the horses you have seen meant that. When someone goes along meditating on something from the Word, his meditation seen from a distance looks like a horse, of good breeding and alive if he meditates spiritually, and by contraries a poor or dead one if he meditates materially.'

[3] Then the boys asked: 'What is meant by meditating spiritually or materially on something from the Word?' 'I will illustrate this,' replied the master, 'by examples. Everyone who reverently reads the Word thinks inwardly about God, the neighbour and heaven, doesn't he? Anyone who thinks about God only as a Person and not as Essence thinks materially; and so does anyone who thinks about the neighbour merely as an external form, without regard to the sort of person he is. If anyone thinks of heaven merely as a place, instead of as love and wisdom, which are what make it heaven, he too is thinking materially.'

[4] But the boys said: 'We have thought about God as a Person, and about the neighbour as a human form, and about heaven as a place which is up above us. So when we read the Word, did we then look to anyone like dead horses?'

'No,' said the master, 'you are still children, and could not do otherwise. But I have noticed that you have an affection for knowing and understanding; and since this is spiritual, you were also thinking spiritually. For there is some spiritual thought hidden within your material thought, a fact so far unknown to you. But I want to go back to what I said before, that anyone who thinks materially when he reads the Word or meditates on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse; but if he thinks spiritually, like a live one. I said too that anyone who thinks of God only as a Person and not as Essence is thinking materially about God. The Divine Essence has many attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, love, wisdom, mercy, grace and others too. There are also attributes which proceed from the Divine Essence; creation and preservation, redemption and salvation, enlightenment and instruction. Everyone who thinks of God in terms of Person makes three Gods; there is one God, he says, who is the Creator and Preserver, another who is the Redeemer and Saviour, and a third who is the Enlightener and Instructor. But everyone who thinks of God in terms of Essence makes God one; God created us, he says, and He too redeems and saves us, and also enlightens and instructs us. That is the reason why those who think of the Divine Trinity in terms of Person, and so materially, cannot help being led by the ideas in their thought, which is material, to make three Gods out of one. But they are still obliged to say, contrary to their thinking, that the three are united by Essence, because their thought has also led them to perceive God, as it were through a lattice, in terms of Essence.

[5] 'You, my pupils, should therefore think about God in terms of essence, and from this think about person. Thinking in terms of person about essence means thinking materially about essence too. But thinking about person in terms of essence means thinking spiritually also about person. The pagans of antiquity, since they thought materially about God and so also about His attributes, made not three but as many as a hundred Gods; for they made each separate attribute into a God. You should know that the material cannot enter into the spiritual; but the spiritual can into the material. It is much the same with thinking about the neighbour in terms of external form rather than the sort of person he is. Or again, thinking about heaven in terms of place rather than love and wisdom, which are what heaven is made of. It is much the same with every single thing in the Word. Anyone therefore who cherishes a material idea of God, and also of the neighbour and of heaven, cannot understand anything in the Word, since for him it is a dead letter; and he himself, when he is reading the Word or meditating on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse.

[6] 'Those whom you saw coming down from heaven and turning before your eyes into dead horses were people who had shut off their rational vision as regards theological matters, or the spiritual concerns of the church, not only for themselves but also for others, by their special dogma that the understanding must be kept subservient to their faith. They never thought that if the understanding is kept shut off by religion, it is as blind as a mole, and full of thick darkness. Darkness of this sort, which reflects all spiritual light, prevents it flowing in from the Lord and out of heaven, and sets in its place a barrier at the level of the bodily senses, far below the rational level, in matters of faith. That is to say, it sets this barrier near the nose, securing it in the cartilage there, so that afterwards it is not even possible to smell what is spiritual. As a result, some people have become so sensitive that on catching a whiff of what is spiritual they fall down in a faint. By smell I mean perception. These are the people who make God into three. They do speak in terms of essence, saying that God is one, but still they are led by their faith to pray that God the Father may have mercy for the sake of the Son and send the Holy Spirit, so that it is clear they are making three Gods. They cannot help themselves, if they pray to one to have mercy for the sake of another, and to send a third.' Then the master taught them about the Lord being the one God in whom is the Divine Trinity.

Footnotes:

1. Reading et quidem for et quidam 'and some of them'.

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

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