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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 #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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #72

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72. The second experience.

Once I heard an unusual murmuring at a distance, and in the spirit I followed the track of the sound until I came near. When I reached its source, I found a group of spirits arguing about imputation and predestination. They were Dutch and British, with a few from other countries among them, and at the end of each argument these shouted: 'Wonderful, wonderful!'

The subject under discussion was: 'Why does God not impute the merit and righteousness of His Son to every single person He has created and subsequently redeemed? Is He not omnipotent? Can He not, if He wishes, make Lucifer, the Dragon and all the goats into angels? Is He not omnipotent? Why does He allow the unrighteousness and impiety of the devil to triumph over the righteousness of His Son and the piety of those who worship God? What is easier for God than to judge all worthy of faith and so of salvation? What does it take but one little word? And if not, is He not acting contrary to His own words, that He desires salvation for all and death for none? Tell us then whence it is that those who perish are damned, and what is the reason for it.'

Then a certain believer in predestination, a supralapsarian 1 from Holland, said: 'Surely this is at the pleasure of the Almighty. Shall the clay blame the potter, because he made a chamber-pot of it?' Another said: 'The salvation of every man is in His hand, like the scales in the hands of someone weighing.'

[2] At the sides of the group there stood a number of people of simple faith and upright heart, some with reddened eyes, some as if drugged, some as if drunk, and some as if choked, muttering to one another: 'What have we to do with this nonsense? They have been driven crazy by their faith, which is that God the Father imputes the righteousness of His Son to whomsoever He wishes, when He wishes, and sends the Holy Spirit to effect the rewards of that righteousness; and so that a person should not claim for himself a grain of merit in attending to his own salvation, he must be as inert as a stone in the matter of justification, and like a block of wood in spiritual matters.'

Then one of these people thrust himself into the group and said in a loud voice: 'You madmen, what you are arguing about is goat's wool. 2 You obviously do not know that almighty God is order itself, and that there are myriads of laws of order, as many in fact as there are truths in the Word, and God cannot act contrary to them, because if He did so, He would be acting against Himself, and so not only contrary to righteousness but contrary to His own omnipotence.'

[3] On the right he saw at a distance what looked like a sheep and a lamb, and a dove in flight, and on the left what looked like a goat, a wolf and a vulture. 'Do you believe,' he said, 'that God by His omnipotence could turn that goat into a sheep, or that wolf into a lamb, or that vulture into a dove, or the reverse? Far from it; that is contrary to the laws of His order, of which not so much as a tittle can fall to the ground, as His words tell us. How then can He impart the righteousness of His Son's redemption to anyone who resists it, contrary to the laws of His righteousness? How can Righteousness itself do unrighteousness, and predestine anyone to hell and cast him into the fire, beside which the devil stands torch in hand making it blaze? You madmen, devoid of spirit, your faith has led you astray. Is it not in your hands like a snare for catching doves?'

On hearing this a magician made as it were a snare out of that faith and hung it in a tree, saying? 'Watch me catch that dove.' Very soon the hawk flew up and put its neck in the snare and hung there, while the dove on seeing the hawk flew past. The by-standers exclaimed in wonder, 'This trick is a reward of righteousness.'

Footnotes:

1. Supralapsarian: a person who believes the Fall of Adam was predestined.

2. Proverbial for what does not exist.

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

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