The Lord as A Householder

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: (Matthew 21:33)

It is permitted him [the celestial man] to enjoy all these things, but not to possess them as his own, because they are the Lord's.

• The celestial man acknowledges, because he perceives, that all things both in general and in particular are the Lord's.
• The spiritual man does indeed acknowledge the same, but with the mouth, because he has learned it from the Word.
• The worldly and corporeal man neither acknowledges nor admits it; but whatever he has he calls his own, and imagines that were he to lose it, he would altogether perish.

That wisdom, intelligence, reason, and knowledge [scientia] are not of man, but of the Lord, is very evident from all that the Lord taught; as in Matthew, where the Lord compares Himself to a householder, who planted a vineyard, and hedged it round, and let it out to husbandmen (21:33); and in John:

The Spirit of truth shall guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself, but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak; He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall declare it unto you (John 16:13-14).

And in another place:

A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven (John 3:27).

That this is really so is known to everyone who is acquainted with even a few of the arcana of heaven.

(Arcana Cœlestia 122 - 124)

What are not from Love and Faith, and Thus from the Lord...

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Be it known ... that there is no wisdom which is not from love, thus from the Lord; nor any intelligence except from faith, thus also from the Lord; and that there is no good except from love, thus from the Lord; and no truth except from faith, thus from the Lord. What are not from love and faith, and thus from the Lord, are indeed called by these names, but they are spurious.

(Arcana Cœlestia 112)

Where There is Little Good, There is Little Truth

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

They who are in the affection of truth have little truth in comparison with those who are in the affection of good, this is evident from the fact that it is from the meager and obscure good appertaining to them that they regard truth.

The truth in a man is exactly according to the good that is in him.

Where there is little good, there is little truth. They are in a like ratio and in a like degree, or, as we say, they march with even step. This indeed may seem a paradox, but still the case is so.

Good is the very essence of truth, and truth without its essence is not truth, although it appears as if it were; it is merely a sounding brass, and is like an empty vessel.

In order that anyone may have truth in himself, he must not only know it, but also acknowledge it, and have faith in it; he then for the first time has truth, because it then affects him, and remains. It is otherwise when he only knows truth, and does not acknowledge it, and have faith in it; for in this case he has not the truth in himself. This is the case with many who are in evil: they are able to know truths, sometimes more than other men; but still they have not the truth; nay, they have it so much the less, because at heart they deny it.

(Arcana Cœlestia 2429:2, 3)