How To Be Gifted With Peace and Trust Solely In The Lord

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

If a man would believe as the case really is, namely, that all that is good and true is from the Lord, and all that is evil and false is from hell, he then could not become guilty of any fault, nor could evil be imputed to him; but because he believes that it is from himself, he appropriates evil to himself, for this is the effect of his faith; and in this way evil adheres and cannot be separated from him; nay, such is man that he would be indignant if anyone should say that he thinks and wills from others, and not from himself.

It is an eternal truth that the Lord rules heaven and earth, and also that no one besides the Lord lives of himself, consequently that everything of life flows in - the good of life from the Lord, and the evil of life from hell. This is the faith of the heavens.  When a man is in this faith (and he can be in it when he is in good), then evil cannot be fastened and appropriated to him, because he knows that it is not from himself, but from hell.  When a man is in this state, he can then be gifted with peace, for then he will trust solely in the Lord.  Neither can peace be given to any others than those who are in this faith from charity; for others continually cast themselves into anxieties and cupidities, whence come disquietudes.  Spirits who desire to direct themselves, suppose that this would be to lose their own will, thus their freedom, consequently all delight, thus all life and its sweetness. This they say and suppose, because they do not know how the case really is; for the man who is led by the Lord is in freedom itself, and thus in delight and bliss itself; goods and truths are appropriated to him; there is given him an affection and desire for doing what is good, and then nothing is more delightful to him than to perform uses. There is given him a perception of good, and also a sensation of it; and there is given him intelligence and wisdom; and all these as his own; for he is then a recipient of the Lord's life. It is known in the learned world that the principal cause and the instrumental cause act together as a one: man - being a form recipient of the Lord's life, is an instrumental cause, and the life from the Lord is the principal cause. This life is felt in the instrumental cause as of it, when yet it is not of it.

The Degrees of Life in Man

Man consists of mere forms for receiving life, and that one form is more interior than another, but that one has come into existence and subsists from another; also that when the lower or exterior form is dissolved, the higher or interior form still lives. It was further said that all operations of the mind are variations of the form, which variations in the purer substances are in such perfection that they cannot be described; and that the ideas of thought are nothing else; and that these variations take place according to the changes of the state of the affections. How very perfect are the variations in the purer forms may be concluded from the lungs, which fold themselves variously and vary their forms according to every expression of speech, and to every note of a tune, and to every motion of the body, and also to each state of thought and affection; and what then must be the case with interior things, which, in comparison with so large an organ, are in the greatest perfection.

(Arcana Coelestia 6324-6326)

[emphasis by reviser]

No Truth is Holy Unless It Comes from Good

A Portion of a Passage from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

No truth is holy unless it comes from good. A man may utter many truths from the Word, and thus from memory, but if it is not love or charity that brings them forth, nothing holy can be predicated of them. But if he has love and charity, then he acknowledges and believes, and this from the heart. And it is the same with faith, of which so many say that it alone saves: if there is no love or charity from which the faith comes, there is no faith.

Love and charity are what make faith holy.

The Lord is in love and charity, but not in faith that is separated from charity. In faith separated is the man himself, in whom there is nothing but uncleanness. For when faith is separated from love, his own praise, or his own advantage, is the moving cause that is in his heart, and from which he speaks. This everyone may know from his own experience. Whoever tells anyone that he loves him, that he prefers him to others, that he acknowledges him as the best of men, and the like, and yet in heart thinks otherwise, does this only with his mouth, and in heart denies, and sometimes makes sport of him. And it is the same with faith.

(Arcana Coelestia 724)

The Holy Scripture - The One Only Source of the Holiness of the Word

Selections from The Doctrine of the Lord ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[The] universal Holy Scripture has been written solely about the Lord.... The Holy Scripture - is the one only source of the holiness of the Word, and is what is meant by the words:  The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10).

Briefly stated, the subjects concerning the Lord that are treated of in all the Prophets of the Old Testament, from Isaiah to Malachi, both in general and in particular, are these:

i. The Lord came into the world in the fullness of times, which was when He was no longer known by the Jews, and when, consequently, there was nothing of the church left; and unless He had then come into the world and revealed Himself, mankind would have perished in eternal death. As He Himself says in John: "Except ye believe that I am, ye shall die in your sins" (8:24).

ii. The Lord came into the world to execute a Last Judgment, and thereby to subdue the existing dominance of the hells; which was effected by means of combats (that is, temptations) admitted into his maternal human, and the attendant continual victories; for unless the hells had been subjugated no man could have been saved.

iii. The Lord came into the world in order to glorify His Human, that is, unite it to the Divine which was in Him from conception.

iv. The Lord came into the world in order to set up a new church which should acknowledge Him as the Redeemer and Savior, and be redeemed and saved through love to Him and faith in Him.

v. He at the same time reduced heaven into order, so that it made a one with the church.

vi. The passion of the cross was the last combat or temptation, by means of which He completely conquered the hells and fully glorified His Human.

(Doctrine of the Lord 3, 7)