March 6, 2019

TEMPTATION (pt. 7)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
TEMPTATION
(pt. 7)


Temptations conduce to acquire for good dominion over evil, and for truth dominion over falsity; also to confirm truths, and conjoin them to goods, and at the same time to disperse evils and the falsities thence derived.

They serve also to open the internal spiritual man, and to subject the natural man to it; as also to break the loves of self and the world, and to subdue the lusts which proceed from them.

When these things are effected, man acquires enlightenment and perception as to what are truth and good, and what falsity and evil are; whence man obtains intelligence and wisdom, which afterwards increase continually.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 194)