The Divine Trinity (pt 14)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(Continued pt 14)

So, too, unless a new heaven and a new church were established by the Lord there could no flesh be saved.

It is said in Matthew:

Then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days be shortened no flesh would be saved (24:21, 22).

This chapter treats of "the consummation of the age," by which the end of the present church is meant; therefore "to shorten those days" means to bring that church to an end and establish a new one.

Who does not know that unless the Lord had come into the world and wrought redemption no flesh could have been saved? To work redemption means to found a new heaven and a new church.

That the Lord would again come into the world He foretold in the Gospels, Matt. 24:30, 31; Mark 13:26; Luke 12:40; 21:27; and in the Apocalypse, particularly in the last chapter. That He is also effecting a redemption at this day by founding a new heaven and establishing a new church to the end that man may be saved...

The great mystery that unless a new church is established by the Lord no flesh can he saved, is this:

That so long as the dragon with his horde remains in the world of spirits into which he has been cast, no Divine truth united to Divine good can pass through that world to men on earth without being perverted and falsified, or without its perishing.

This is what is meant in the Apocalypse by the words:

The dragon was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Woe to those that inhabit the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down unto them having great anger (12:9, 12, 13).

But when the dragon had been cast into hell (10:10),

John saw a new heaven and a new earth, and he saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (21:1, 2);

"the dragon" meaning those who are in the faith of the present church.

In the spiritual world I have several times talked with those who believe that men are justified by faith alone; and I have told them that their doctrine is both erroneous and absurd, and induces upon men security, blindness, sleep, and in spiritual things a night, and consequently death to the soul; and I have exhorted them to discard it; but I received the answer, "Why discard it? Does not the superiority of the learning of the clergy over that of the laity hang upon that sole doctrine?" I replied, "In that case they do not regard the salvation of souls as any object, but the superiority of their own reputation; and as they have adapted the truths of the Word to their false principles, and have thus adulterated them, they are those angels of the abyss, called Abaddons and Apollyons (Apoc. 9:11), who signify those that destroy the church by a total falsification of the Word."

But they made answer, "What do you mean? By our knowledge of the mysteries of that faith we are oracles, and from it as from a sanctuary we give responses; therefore we are not Apollyons but Apollos." Indignant at this reply I said, "If you are Apollos you are also leviathans - your leaders the crooked leviathans, and the rest of you the stretched-out leviathans, whom God will visit with His sore and great sword" (Isa. 27:1). But at this they laughed.

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 182)

Divine Trinity (pt 13)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(Continued pt 13)

This is the source of that "abomination of desolation, and that tribulation such as has not been nor ever shall be," which the Lord foretold in Daniel, and in the Gospels, and in the Apocalypse.

In Daniel we read:

      Upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation even until the consummation and decision, it shall drop upon the devastation (9:27).

In the gospel of Matthew the Lord says:

      Many false prophets shall arise and shall lead many astray. When, therefore, ye shall see the abomination of desolation predicted by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let him that readeth note it well (24:11, 15);

and afterwards in the same chapter:

      Then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be (verse 21).

This tribulation and that abomination are treated of in seven chapters of the Apocalypse; they are what are meant:

      By the black horse, and the pale horse going out of the book, the seal of which the Lamb opened (6:5-8).

Also by:

      The beast coming up out of the abyss which made war upon the two witnesses and killed them (11:7 seq.).

Also by:

      The dragon which stood before the woman about to be delivered, that he might devour her child, and which pursued her into the desert and there from his mouth cast out water as a river that he might drown her (12).

Also by:

The beasts of the dragon, one from the sea and the other from the earth (13).

Again:

      By the three green spirits like frogs which went forth out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet (16:13).

And finally by this:

      That after the seven angels had poured out the bowls of the wrath of God, in which were the seven last plagues, into the earth, the sea, the fountains and rivers, upon the sun, upon the seat of the beast, upon the Euphrates, and at length into the air, there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth (16).

The "earthquake" means the overturning of the church, which is done by falsities and falsifications of truth, and this is signified also by:

      The great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world (Matt. 24:21).

The following words have a like meaning:

      And the angel thrust in his sickle and gathered the vineyard of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the anger of God; and the wine-press was trodden and there went out blood even unto the bridles of the horses for a thousand and six hundred furlongs (Apoc. 14:19, 20);

"blood" signifying truth falsified. Besides other things contained in those seven chapters.

In the Gospels (Matt. 24; Mark 13; and Luke 21) the successive states of decline and corruption in the Christian church are described; and "the great tribulation such as hath not been since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be" which is there mentioned means (as in many other places in the Word) the infestation of truth by falsities, even until no truth remains that is not falsified and consummated. This also is meant by "the abomination of desolation" there mentioned; and again by "the desolation upon the bird of abominations" and by "the consummation and decision" in Daniel; and the same thing is described in the Apocalypse in the passages just quoted from that book.

This has come to pass because the church, instead of acknowledging the unity of God in trinity and His trinity in unity in one person, has acknowledged these in three persons; and in consequence the church has been based in the mind upon the idea of three Gods, and on the lips upon the confession of one God; and thus men have separated themselves from the Lord, and at length to such an extent that no idea of Divinity in His Human nature is left with them, when in fact He is God the Father in the Human, and therefore He is called:

      The Father of eternity (Isa. 9:6)

      And He said to Philip, He that seeth Me seeth the Father (John 14:7, 9).

But it may be asked, Whence is the very stream of that fountain from which has come forth an abomination of desolation such as is described in Daniel (9:27), and a tribulation such as was not nor shall be (Matt. 24:21)?

The answer is, that it comes from that same universal faith of the Christian world, and from its influx, operation, and imputation according to traditions. Wonderful it is that the doctrine of justification by that faith alone (which, however, is no faith but only a chimera) controls every point of doctrine in Christian churches; that is, with the clerical order it rules as almost the sole theological principle. It is what all students of divinity eagerly learn in the schools and drink in and absorb; and afterwards, seemingly inspired by heavenly wisdom, they teach it in the churches and publish it in books; and by it they strive after and acquire a reputation and fame and praise for superior learning; and on account of it, diplomas, degrees, and prizes are bestowed upon them; and all this is done, although by that same faith alone-

The sun at this day is darkened, the moon is robbed of her light, the stars have fallen from heaven, and the powers of the heavens have been shaken, according to the words of the Lord's prophecy in Matthew (24:29).

It has been proved to me that the doctrine of this faith has today so darkened men's minds that they are not willing, and therefore as it were not able, to see any Divine truth inwardly, either in the light of the sun or in the light of the moon, but only outwardly on the mere rough surface by the light on a hearth at night; and I am therefore able to declare, that if Divine truths respecting the real conjunction of charity and faith, respecting heaven and hell, the Lord, life after death, and eternal happiness, were sent down from heaven written in letters of silver, those who hold to justification and sanctification by faith alone would not deem them worth reading. But it would be wholly different if a treatise on justification by faith alone were sent up from the hells; this they would receive, and would kiss it and carry it home in their bosoms.
To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 179 - 181)

Divine Trinity (pt 12)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(Continued pt 12)

The faith of every church is like the seed from which all its dogmas spring.

It may be compared to the seed of a tree, out of which grows everything belonging to the tree, even to its fruit; and also to the seed of man, from which offspring and families are begotten in successive series. Therefore as soon as its leading tenet, which from its predominance is called saving, is known, the character of a church is known.

This may be illustrated by the following example-

Suppose the faith to be that nature is the creator of the universe; it will follow from this faith that the universe is called God, that nature is its essence, that the ether is the supreme Deity whom the ancients called Jove, that the air is the goddess they called Juno and made the wife of Jove; that the ocean is a god below these, which after the manner of the ancients may be called Neptune; and as the Divinity of nature reaches to the earth's very center, there is a god there also, who, as with the ancients, may be called Pluto; that the sun is the court of all the gods, where they meet whenever Jupiter calls a council; moreover, that fire is life from God; and thus the birds fly in God, the beasts walk in God, and the fishes swim in God. It follows also that thoughts are merely modifications of the ether, as the words flowing from them are modulations of air; and that love's affections are occasional changes of state caused by the influx into them of the sun's rays; and along with these notions, that the life after death, together with heaven and hell, is a fable concocted by the clergy for the purpose of acquiring honors and wealth, which, although a fable, is useful, and not to be ridiculed openly, since it serves the public interest by keeping simple minds in the bonds of obedience to magistrates; but those that are inveigled by religion are in fact often devoted to abstractions, their thoughts are fantasies, their actions ludicrous, and they themselves drudges of the priests, believing in what they see not, and seeing what transcends the sphere of their minds.

The belief that nature is the creator of the universe includes these consequences, and many more like them, and they proceed from that belief when it is laid open. They are presented here to show that-

within the faith of the present church, which in its internal form is a faith in three Gods and in its external form a faith in one, there are swarms of falsities

and that as many falsities can be drawn out of it as there are little spiders in the egg-sac of a single spider. Who that has a mind truly rational does not see this by light from the Lord; and how can any other mind see it so long as the door to that faith and its offshoots is shut and bolted by the decree that it is unlawful for reason to look into its mysteries?

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 178)