The Internals of a Deed

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All things of the three degrees of the natural mind are included in the deeds that are done by the acts of the body. All things of the mind, that is, of the will and understanding of man, are in his acts or deeds, included therein very much as things visible and invisible are in a seed or fruit or egg.  Acts or deeds by themselves appear outwardly as these do, but in their internals there are things innumerable, such as the concurring forces of the motor fibers of the whole body and all things of the mind that excite and determine these forces, all of which ... are of three degrees. And since all things of the mind are in these, so also are things of the will, that is, all the affections of man's love, which make the first degree; all things of the understanding, that is, all thoughts from his perception, which makes the second degree; and all things of the memory, that is, all ideas of the thought nearest to speech, taken from the memory, which compose the third degree. Out of these things determined into act, deeds come forth, in which, seen in external form, prior things are not visible although they are actually therein.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 277)

That Which Is Compulsory or Not Free

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Whatever is not from affection is from what is not spontaneous, or not free, for everything spontaneous or free is of affection or love. The same is evident also from the derivation of the expression in the original language, as meaning deficiency; for when ardor of affection is deficient, then freedom ceases; and what is then done is said to be not free, and at last compulsory.

That all the conjunction of truth and good is effected in freedom, or from what is spontaneous, and consequently all reformation and regeneration; and consequently that in the absence of freedom (that is, by compulsion) no conjunction, and thus no regeneration, can be effected.

A True Faith, A Spurious Faith and A Hypocritical Faith

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

From its cradle the Christian church began to be infested and divided by schisms and heresies, and in the course of time to be torn and mutilated almost like what is said,
Of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and was surrounded by thieves, who stripped him and beat him and then left him half dead (Luke 10:30).

From this it has come to pass as it is written of that church in Daniel:
At last upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation; and even to the consummation and decision shall it drop upon the devastation (9:27).

Also according to these words of the Lord:
Then shall the end come, when ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet (Matt. 24:14, 15).

The lot of that church may be compared to that of a vessel laden with precious merchandise, which immediately on leaving port is driven about by storms, and a little after is wrecked and sunk in the sea, with its precious cargo partly destroyed by the waters, and partly torn by fishes.