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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

 

True Christian Religion #333

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333. The second experience.

Some time later I heard again from the lower earth the same cries as before 'How learned, how learned!' On looking around to see who was there, I found myself in the presence of angels from the heaven exactly above the people who were shouting 'How learned!'

When I talked to them about the shouting, they said that these were learned people who only argue whether a thing exists or not, and rarely reach the thought that it is so. 'They are therefore like winds which blow and pass on, or like bark around trees that have no heartwood, or like almond shells with no kernel, or like the peel around fruits with no flesh inside. For their minds are devoid of interior judgment, and merely coupled to the bodily senses. So if the senses themselves are unable to judge, they can reach no conclusions. In short, they are creatures of their senses, and we call them logicmongers. We call them this because they never reach any conclusions, but they pick up anything they hear and argue whether it exists, continually speaking for and against. Nothing gives them more pleasure than attacking truths and by subjecting them to argument tearing them in pieces. These are the people who consider themselves learned beyond anyone in the world.'

[2] On hearing this I begged the angels to take me down to visit them. So they took me down to a hollow, from which steps led down to the lower earth. We went down and followed the sound of shouting 'How learned!' There we found some hundreds of people standing in one place stamping on the ground. I was surprised at this and asked: 'Why are they standing like that stamping on the ground? They might,' I added, 'make a hole in the ground like that.'

The angels smiled at this and said: 'They seem to stand in one place because they never think about anything being so, but only whether it exists, and this they argue about. When thought makes no further progress, they seem merely to trample and wear out one clod of earth without advancing.'

The angels went on: 'Those who arrive in this world from the natural one, and are told that they are in a different world, form groups in many places, and try to find out where heaven and hell are, and likewise where God is. But even after being taught this, they still begin reasoning, debating and arguing whether God exists. They do so because at the present time so many people in the natural world are nature-worshippers, and when the talk turns to religion this is the subject they discuss among themselves and with others. This proposition and discussion rarely ends in an affirmation of faith in the existence of God. Afterwards these people associate more and more with the wicked; this happens because no one can do any good from the love of good, except by God's help.'

[3] After this I was taken to a meeting, and there I saw people with not unpleasing faces and well dressed. 'They look like this,' said the angels, 'in their own light, but if light is shed from heaven, there is a change in their faces, and in their clothes.' This happened, and their faces turned swarthy and they seemed to be wearing black sackcloth. But when this light was shut off, they returned to their previous appearance.

A little later I spoke with some of the people in the meeting and said: 'I have heard the crowd around you crying out "How learned!" So I should like, if I may, to enter into conversation with you about matters of the most profound learning.' 'Say anything you like,' they replied, 'and we will satisfy you.'

'What sort of religion,' I asked, 'will effect people's salvation?'

'We shall split up this question,' they said, 'into several, and we cannot give a reply until we have settled these. The order of discussion will be: (1) whether religion is of any importance; (2) whether or not there is such a thing as salvation; (3) whether one religion is more efficacious than another; (4) whether heaven and hell exist; (5) whether there is everlasting life after death; and many more questions.'

So I asked about the first question, whether religion is of any importance; and they started discussing it with many arguments. So I asked them to refer it to the meeting, which they did. The agreed reply was that this proposition requires so much investigation that it would not be finished before evening. 'Could you,' I asked, 'finish it within a year?' One of them said it could not be finished in a hundred years. 'So,' I said, 'in the meantime you have no religion, and since salvation depends upon it, you have no idea of salvation, no belief in it or hope for it.'

'Wouldn't you like us,' he replied, 'to prove first whether religion exists, what it is, and whether it is of any importance? If it exists, it will be for the wise too; if it does not, it will be only for the common people. It is well known that religion is called a bond; but the question may be asked, "For whom?" If it is only for the common people, it is not really of any importance; but if it is for the wise, then it is.'

[4] On hearing this I said: 'You are anything but learned, since you can think of nothing but whether it exists, and argue this in either direction. Can anyone be learned, unless he knows something for certain, and advances to that conclusion, just as a person advances step by step, and in due course achieves wisdom? Otherwise you do not so much as touch truths with your finger-tips, but drive them further and further from your sight. Therefore reasoning only whether it exists is like arguing about a hat without wearing it, or about a shoe without putting it on. What can come of this, except ignorance whether anything exists, whether anything is more than an idea, and so whether salvation exists, or everlasting life after death, whether one religion is better than another, or whether heaven and hell exist? You cannot have any thoughts on these subjects, so long as you are bogged down at the first step and pound the sand there, unable to put one foot in front of the other and make progress. Take care that, while your minds stand in the open outside the court, they do not inwardly grow ossified and turn into pillars of salt.'

With these words I left them, and they were so incensed they threw stones after me. Then they looked to me like carvings, totally devoid of human reason. I asked the angels what was their fate. They said that the worst of them are plunged into the depths, and there they find a desert, where they are forced to carry loads. Since they can then make no reasonable utterance, they chatter and make idle remarks, Seen from a distance there they look like donkeys carrying loads.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #389

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389. The fifth experience.

I once saw a document sent down from heaven to a community in the world of spirits, where there were two leading churchmen together with a retinue of canons and presbyters. The document contained an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as God of heaven and earth, as He taught (Matthew 28:18), and to abandon as erroneous the doctrine that faith justifies without the deeds prescribed by the law. Many people read and copied out that document, and its contents were considered and talked over judiciously by many of them. But after receiving it, they said to one another: 'Let us hear the opinion of our leaders.'

So they listened to them, but they spoke against it and rejected it. However, the leaders of that community were hard of heart as the result of the falsities they had absorbed in their former world. After a short consultation, therefore, they sent the document back to heaven where it came from. When this was done, after some muttering most of the laymen abandoned their former acceptance, and then the light of their judgment in spiritual matters, which had previously been bright, was suddenly snuffed out. After a second, but vain, warning, I saw that community sinking down, though I could not see how deeply; but it sank out of sight of those who worship the Lord alone, and turn their backs on justification by faith alone.

[2] A few days later I saw perhaps as many as a hundred coming up from the lower earth, to which that small community had sunk; they approached me and one of them said: 'Listen to this extraordinary occurrence. When we sank down, we saw what looked like a lake, and after a while dry land; then later a small town in which many found a home for themselves. Next day we got together to discuss what we should do. Many people said that the two leaders of the church should be approached and gently reproved for sending the document back to the heaven it came from, since it was because of that this had happened to us. They also chose a few people (and the man talking to me said he had been one of them) who went off to the leaders, where one of their number who was especially wise addressed them as follows: "We believed that we excelled others in possessing the church and religion, because we heard it said that we enjoy the strongest light of the Gospel. But some of us have been granted enlightenment from heaven, and this enlightenment has been accompanied by the perception that at the present time there is no longer a church, because there is no religion, in the Christian world."

[3] 'The leaders said: "What is this you are saying? Is not the church where there is the Word, where Christ the Saviour is known, and where there are the sacraments?" Our spokesman replied to this: "They belong to the church, for they make the church; but they make it inside, not outside, a person." He went on to say: "Can there be a church where three Gods are worshipped? Can there be a church where its whole teaching is based upon a misinterpretation of a single saying of Paul, and thus not upon the Word? Can there be a church, when the Saviour of the world, who is the God of the church Himself, is not approached? Can anyone deny that religion is shunning evil and doing good? Is there any religion [where it is taught] that faith alone saves, and not together with charity? Is there any religion where it is taught that the charity which man exercises is only moral and civil charity? Is there anyone who does not see that that sort of charity contains nothing religious? Does faith alone involve any act or deed, though religion consists in action? Is there a nation anywhere in the whole world which attributes no saving power to the good of charity, which is good deeds? Yet the whole of religion consists in good, and the whole of the church consists in the teaching of truths, and by means of truths the teaching of various kinds of good. How glorious our lot would have been, if we had welcomed the teachings at the heart of the document sent down from heaven!"

[4] 'Then the leaders said: "Your remarks aim too high. Surely faith in action, which is the faith which fully justifies and saves, is the church? Surely faith at rest, which is the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, is religion? You must grasp this, my children." But then our wise man said: "Listen, fathers. Surely according to your dogma man resembles a block of wood in conceiving faith in action? Can a block be made alive so as to become a church? Surely faith at rest is according to your notion the continuation and progress of faith in action? And when, as your dogma insists, all saving power resides in faith, and the good of charity on man's part makes no contribution, where is religion then?" Then the prelates said: "Friend, you talk like this because you do not know the secrets of justification by faith alone; and if one is ignorant of these, one cannot know inwardly the way to salvation. Your way is external and fit only for the common people. Go that way if you like. But you should know that all good is from God, and nothing of it from man, so that in spiritual matters man can achieve nothing by himself. How then can a man by himself do good which is spiritual good?"

[5] 'To this our spokesman replied with great indignation: "I know more about your secrets of justification than you do, and I tell you frankly that I have seen nothing inwardly in your secrets but phantoms. Surely religion consists in acknowledging [and loving] God, and shunning and hating the devil? Is not God good itself and the devil evil itself? Is there anyone anywhere in the world, who, if he has a religion, does not know this? Is not acknowledging and loving God doing good, because this is God's and from God; and is not shunning and hating the devil not doing evil, because this is the devil's and from the devil? Or to put it another way, does your faith in action, which you called the faith that fully justifies and saves, or in other words your act of justification by faith alone, teach you to do any good deed which is God's and from God, or to shun any evil because it is the devil's and from the devil? None at all, since you lay down that there is no salvation in either. What is your faith at rest, which you called the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, but the same as faith in action? How can this be perfected, since you exclude all good done by man as if of himself, saying in your secret doctrines: 'How can anyone be saved by any good done by himself, when salvation is a free gift?' Or 'What good can be done by man except with a view to seeking merit, when yet Christ's merit is all-sufficient? Thus doing good to achieve salvation would be attributing to oneself what belongs to Christ alone, and it would also be wishing to justify and save oneself.' Or 'How can anyone do a good deed, when the Holy Spirit performs everything with no help from man? What need then is there for any extra good from man, when all good from man is not in essence good at all?'

[6] There are many other questions; are not these your secrets? But in my eyes they are simply quibbles and tricks invented in order to get rid of good deeds, which are the good deeds of charity, so as to establish firmly your doctrine of faith alone. And because you do so, you consider man as regards faith, and in general as regards all spiritual matters relating to the church and religion as a block of wood, or like a lifeless effigy, not as a human being created in the image of God, who has been given and is continually given the ability to understand and to will, to believe and to love, and to speak and act, exactly as if of himself, especially in spiritual matters, since they are what make a human being human. If a human being were not to think and act in spiritual matters as if of himself, what then would become of the Word? What would then become of the church and religion? And what of worship? You know that doing good to the neighbour as the result of love is charity; but you do not know what charity is. Yet it is the soul and essence of faith. And since charity is both these things, how can faith divorced from charity be anything but dead? Dead faith is nothing but a phantom. I call it a phantom, because James 2:17 calls faith without good deeds not only dead, but even diabolical."

[7] Then one of the leaders, on hearing his faith called dead, diabolical and a phantom, became so furious that he snatched the mitre off his head and threw it on the table saying: 'I will not put it on again until I have taken vengeance on the enemies of the faith of our church.' So he shook his head murmuring 'That man James! That man James!' On the front of the mitre was a plate, with the words 'Faith alone justifies' engraved on it. Then there suddenly appeared a monster rising out of the ground; it had seven heads, feet like a bear's, a body like a leopard's, a mouth like a lion's, exactly like the beast described in Revelation (Revelation 13:1-2), and of which an image was made and honoured (Revelation 13:14-15). This phantom took the mitre from the table, pulled its lower edge apart and put it on its seven heads. At this the ground gaped open beneath its feet and it sank down. On seeing this the leader cried: 'Assault, assault.' Then we left them, and found steps before our eyes which we went up; so we came back upon the earth and into sight of heaven, where we had been before.'

This was the story told me by the spirit who with a hundred companions had come up from the lower earth.

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

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