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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

 

Conjugial Love #415

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

One morning as I awoke from sleep, while meditating in the serene morning light before being fully awake, I saw through the window what seemed to be flashes of lightning, and presently heard what seemed to be the rumbling of thunder. Then, as I wondered what the cause was, I heard from heaven the following:

"There are people not far from you who are arguing bitterly about God and nature. The flashing of light like lightning and the rumbling of the air like thunder are correspondences and thus manifestations of the conflict and clash of their arguments, one side on the side of God, and the other on the side of nature."

The reason for the spiritual conflict was this. There were satanic spirits in hell who said to each other, "If we could only speak with angels from heaven! We would absolutely and thoroughly show that what they call God, from whom all things flow, is nature, and thus that God is only a term unless by it they mean nature." And because those satanic spirits believed this with all their heart and all their soul, and longed as well to speak with angels from heaven, it was granted them to ascend from the muck and gloom of hell and to speak then with two angels descending from heaven. They were in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell.

[2] Seeing the angels there, the satanic spirits rushed up to them and in a furious voice cried out, "You must be the angels from heaven that we are allowed to meet with to argue about God and nature. People call you wise because you acknowledge God, but oh, how simple you are! Does anyone see God? Does anyone understand what God is? Does anyone comprehend how God rules and can rule the universe and each and all things of it? Who but the lower-class and common person acknowledges what he does not see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is the all in all things? Who has seen anything with his eye but nature? Who has heard anything with his ear but nature? Who has smelled anything with his nose but nature? Who has tasted anything with his tongue but nature? Who has felt anything with the touch of his hand and body but nature? Are not the senses of our body the only attesters of truth? Who cannot swear on the basis of them that a thing is so? Do your heads not exist in nature? The thoughts in your heads - from what origin does anything flow into them but from nature? Take nature away. Are you capable of any thought?"

And they added many other things of a similar nature.

[3] After listening to this, the angels replied, "You speak as you do because you are merely sense-oriented. All spirits in hell keep the ideas of their thoughts immersed in the senses of their body, nor can they elevate their minds above them. We pardon you therefore. A life of evil and a consequent faith in falsity has closed up the inner faculties of your mind, so that to rise above things of the senses is in your case impossible - unless, that is, you are in a state removed from the evils of your life and the falsities of your faith. For a satanic spirit can understand truth when he hears it just as well as an angel, only he does not retain it, because evil wipes out the truth and introduces falsity. However, we perceive that you are now in such a removed state, and so can understand the truth in what we say. Pay attention, therefore, what we are about to tell you."

Then the angels said, "You were in the natural world, and died there, and now you are in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before this about the life after death? Did you not previously deny it, and regard yourselves on a par with animals? Did you know anything beforehand about heaven and hell, or about the light and warmth of this world? Or the fact that you are no longer in the confines of nature but above it? For this world and all things in it are spiritual, and spiritual things are above natural ones, so much so that not the least thing of nature can enter into this world. But because you believed nature to be a kind of god or goddess, you also now believe that the light and warmth of this world are the same as the light and warmth of the natural world, even though they are not in the least the same. For natural light here is darkness, and natural warmth here is cold.

"Did you know anything about the sun of this world, from which comes our light and our warmth? Did you know that this sun is pure love, and the sun of the natural world nothing but fire? That the sun of the world, which is nothing but fire, is the origin from which nature came into existence and continues in existence? That the sun of heaven, which is pure love, is the origin from which life itself, which is love combined with wisdom, came into existence and continues in existence? And thus that nature, which you regard as a god or goddess, is wholly without life?

[4] "If given protection, you could ascend with us into heaven, and if given protection, we could descend with you into hell; and in heaven you would see magnificent and splendid sights, whereas in hell we would see squalid and filthy ones. These differences exist, because all in heaven worship God, and all in hell worship nature. Thus the magnificent and splendid sights in heaven are correspondences of affections for good and truth, while the squalid and filthy sights in hell are correspondences of lusts for evil and falsity.

"Draw your own conclusion, now, from the one and the other, as to whether God or nature is the all in all things."

To this the satanic spirits replied, "In the state in which we are now, we can conclude from what you have said that it is God; but when the delight of evil seizes our minds, we see nothing but nature."

[5] The two angels and two satanic spirits were standing not far from me on the right, so that I saw them and heard them. Moreover, I suddenly saw around them a multitude of spirits who in the natural world had been renowned for their learning; and I wondered at the fact that these learned people would stand, sometimes with the angels, sometimes with the satanic spirits, and that they would side with those with whom they were standing. But I was told that their changes in position reflected changes in their state of mind as they favored now the one side, now the other.

"For they are chameleons," I was told. "Moreover, we will tell you a mystery. We looked down upon the earth at people renowned for their learning, who consulted their own judgment in what they thought concerning God and nature; and we found six hundred out of a thousand on the side of nature, and the rest on the side of God. However, we found the latter on the side of God because they frequently said that nature is from God - not owing to any understanding, but only in consequence of what they had been told; and frequently saying a thing from memory and recollection, and not at the same time as a result of thought and intelligence, induces a kind of faith."

[6] After that the satanic spirits were given protection, and they ascended with the two angels into heaven, where they saw magnificent and splendid sights. Moreover, being then in a state of enlightenment from the light of heaven there, they acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to serve the life which is in God and from God; also that nature in itself is lifeless, and thus does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life.

Having seen and perceived these things, they descended, and as they descended, their love of evil returned, which closed up their intellect above and opened it below; and then above it a kind of veil appeared, flashing with a hellish fire. Moreover, the moment their feet touched the ground, the earth opened under them and they sank back to their companions.

  
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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 #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.

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