Receiving the Celestial Seeds of Charity

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When a man is being reformed, which is effected by combats and temptations, such evil spirits are associated with him as excite nothing but his things of knowledge and reason [scientifica ejus et rationalia]; and spirits that excite cupidities are kept entirely away from him. For there are two kinds of evil spirits, those who act upon man's reasonings, and those who act upon his cupidities. The evil spirits who excite a man's reasonings bring forth all his falsities, and endeavor to persuade him that they are true, and even turn truths into falsities. A man must fight against these when he is in temptation; but it is really the Lord who fights, through the angels who are adjoined to the man. As soon as the falsities are separated, and as it were dispersed, by these combats, the man is prepared to receive the truths of faith.

For so long as falsities prevail, a man never can receive the truths of faith, because the principles of falsity stand in the way.

When he has thus been prepared to receive the truths of faith, then for the first time can celestial seeds be implanted in him, which are the seeds of charity. The seeds of charity can never be implanted in ground where falsities reign, but only where truths reign. Thus is it with the reformation or regeneration of the spiritual man....

This agrees with what is at this day known in the churches: that faith comes by hearing. But faith is by no means the knowledge [cognitio] of the things that are of faith, or that are to be believed. This is only memory-knowledge [scientia]; whereas faith is acknowledgment.

There can however be no acknowledgment with anyone unless the principal of faith is in him, which is charity, that is, love toward the neighbor and mercy.

When there is charity, then there is acknowledgment, or faith. He who apprehends otherwise is as far away from a knowledge of faith as earth is from heaven. When charity is present, which is the goodness of faith, then acknowledgment is present, which is the truth of faith. When therefore a man is being regenerated according to the things of knowledge, of reason, and of understanding, it is to the end that the ground may be prepared-that is, his mind-for receiving charity; from which, or from the life of which, he thereafter thinks and acts. Then he is reformed or regenerated, and not before.

(Arcana Cœlestia 653, 654)

Continually Being Perfected

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There is no definite period of time within which man's regeneration is completed, so that he can say, "I am now perfect;" for there are illimitable states of evil and falsity with every man, not only simple states but also states in many ways compounded, which must be so far shaken off as no longer to appear.... In some states the man may be said to be more perfect, but in very many others not so. Those who have been regenerated in the life of the body and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are continually being perfected in the other life.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 894)

The Origin of All Things

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In heaven all goods and truths — celestial and spiritual — are so distinct in their genera, and these in their species, that there is not the least of them which is not most distinct; and so innumerable are they, that the specific differences may be said to be unlimited.

From this it may be seen how poor and almost nonexistent is human wisdom, which scarcely knows that there is such a thing as spiritual good or spiritual truth, much less what it is.

From celestial and spiritual goods and their derivative truths, issue and descend natural goods and truths. For there is never any natural good and truth that does not spring from spiritual good, and this from celestial, and also subsist from the same. If the spiritual should withdraw from the natural, the natural would be nothing.

The origin of all things [rerum] is in this wise:-

All things, both in general and in particular, are from the Lord; from Him is the celestial; from Him through the celestial comes forth the spiritual; through the spiritual the natural; through the natural the corporeal and the sensuous. And as they all come forth from the Lord in this way, so also do they subsist from Him

for, as is well known:-

Subsistence is a perpetual coming into existence.

They who have a different conception of the coming into existence and rise of things — like those who worship nature and deduce from her the origins of things — are in principles so deadly that the phantasies of the wild beasts of the forest may be called far more sane. Such are very many who appear to themselves to excel others in wisdom.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 775)