Why The Church Has Immersed Itself Into So Many Falsities

Selection from Invitation to the New Church ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Posthumous Work

The sole cause why the church has immersed itself into so many falsities, that not a single truth has remained in it, and why it is like a ship that has suffered shipwreck, of which the top of the mast only protrudes, is this:

that hitherto they have not approached the Lord immediately; and so long as the Lord is not approached immediately, not a single truth can appear in its own light.

The reason of this is, that the Lord is the Word, that is, the all of Divine truth in the Word, and that He alone is the Light which enlighteneth all, as He Himself teaches; and further, that every truth of the Word shines from no other source than from the Lord alone. This light is what is meant by the spiritual; when, therefore, this light is not present, there is nothing spiritual in man's understanding, but what is merely natural; and all things which contain the spiritual, the natural man sees only invertedly; he sees falsity instead of the truth. On reading the Word, therefore, he bends all things towards his own falsities, and thus falsifies truths; and he takes delight in them. For the natural human mind is in such things as belong to the world and to self; it is delighted solely by such things; wherefore, unless in the above things there is spiritual light, the natural man transfers them to those things which belong to the world and to self, and he puts these in the first place. He thus not only shuns spiritual things, and hides them away, but he also scoffs at them. Faith is spiritual from no other source, that is, it cannot be called spiritual, except from the truths which it contains, and thus by virtue of light from the Lord. Unless faith is from this source, it is natural faith which does not conjoin, and which is not saving.

(from Invitation to the New Church 40)