Faith (pt. 25)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 25)

VI. THE LORD, CHARITY, AND FAITH, MAKE ONE, LIKE LIFE, WILL, AND UNDERSTANDING IN MAN; AND IF THEY ARE DIVIDED, EACH PERISHES LIKE A PEARL REDUCED TO POWDER.

Some things shall first be stated that have been heretofore unknown in the learned world, and consequently among the ecclesiastics, as much so as things buried in the earth, and yet they are treasures of wisdom, and unless they are dug up and given to the public, man will toil in vain to arrive at any correct knowledge of God, faith, charity, and the state of his own life, as to the manner in which he should direct it and prepare it for the state of eternal life. The things heretofore unknown are as follows:

That man is a mere organ of life; that life with everything belonging to it flows in from the God of heaven, who is the Lord; that in man there are two faculties of life, which are called the will and understanding, the will the receptacle of love, and the understanding the receptacle of wisdom; so, too, the will is the receptacle of charity, and the understanding the receptacle of faith;

that everything that man wills and everything he understands flows into him from without the goods pertaining to love and charity, and the truths pertaining to wisdom and faith, from the Lord, and the opposites of these from hell; that it is provided by the Lord that man should feel in himself as his own whatever flows in from without, and should consequently bring it forth from himself as his own, although nothing of it is his; that nevertheless such things are imputed to him as his on account of his freedom of choice in which are his willing and thinking, and on account of the knowledges of good and truth given him, which enable him to choose freely whatever conduces to his temporal and his eternal life.

The man who looks askance [with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval] at these truths, or with half an eye only, may draw from them many insane conclusions; but he who looks at them with a straight and direct eye may draw from them many wise conclusions. That this and not the other may be done it was necessary to put forth first decisions and tenets respecting God and the Divine Trinity, and afterward to establish others respecting Faith and Charity, Freedom of Choice, and Reformation and Regeneration, as also Imputation; and then as means, Repentance, Baptism, and the Holy Supper.

But in order that the present article on faith (which is, that the Lord, charity, and faith make one, like life, will, and understanding in man, and that if they are divided each perishes like a pearl reduced to powder) may be seen as truth and acknowledged, it is expedient to consider it in the following order:

(1) The Lord with all of His Divine love, with all of His Divine wisdom, thus with all of His Divine life, flows into every man.

(2) Consequently with the whole essence of faith and charity.

(3) These are received by man according to his form. 

(4) But the man who divides the Lord, charity, and faith, is not a form that receives but a form that destroys them.

(True Christian Religion 362 - 363)

To be continued...

The Cause of Faith Becoming a Dead Affair

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

A church is said to be corrupted when it acknowledges the Word and has a certain worship like that of a true church, but yet separates faith from charity, thus from its essential and from its life, whereby faith becomes a kind of dead affair; the result of which necessarily is that the church is corrupted.

What the men of the church then become, is evident from the consideration that they can have no conscience; for conscience that is really conscience cannot possibly exist except from charity.

Charity is what makes conscience, that is, the Lord through charity.

What else is conscience than not to do evil to anyone in anyway; that is, to do well to all in every way? Thus conscience belongs to charity, and never to faith separated from charity. If such persons have any conscience, it is a false conscience; and because they are without conscience, they rush into all wickedness, so far as outward bonds are relaxed. They do not even know what charity is, except that it is a word significant of something. And as they are without charity, they do not know what faith is. When questioned, they can only answer that it is a kind of thinking; some, that it is confidence; others, that it is the knowledges of faith; a few, that it is life according to these knowledges, and scarcely any that it is a life of charity or of mutual love.

And if this is said to them, and opportunity is given them for reflection, they answer only that all love begins from self, and that he is worse than a heathen who does not take care of himself and his own family. They therefore study nothing but themselves and the world.

(Arcana Coelestia 1076)

Faith (pt. 24)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 24)

V. FAITH WITHOUT CHARITY IS NOT FAITH,
AND CHARITY WITHOUT FAITH IS NOT CHARITY,
AND NEITHER HAS LIFE EXCEPT FROM THE LORD.

When it is thus known that the spiritual is inwardly in the natural in those who are in faith in the Lord, and at the same time in charity toward the neighbor, and consequently the natural in them is transparent, it follows that to the same extent man is wise in spiritual things, and therefrom in natural things; for when he thinks about or hears or reads anything, he sees interiorly within himself whether it is the truth or not. This he perceives from the Lord, from whom spiritual light and heat flow into the higher sphere of his understanding.

So far as faith and charity in man become spiritual, he is withdrawn from his own, and ceases to look to himself or to reward or remuneration, and looks solely to the delight in perceiving the truths of faith and doing the good works of love; and so far as this spirituality increases, that delight becomes blessedness. From this is man's salvation, which is called eternal life. This state of man may be compared with the most beautiful and charming things in the world, and in the Word is compared with them, as for instance, with fruitful trees and the gardens in which they are, with flowery fields, with precious stones, with delicacies, with nuptials and their festivities and rejoicings.

But when the reverse is the case, that is to say, when the natural is inwardly in the spiritual, and consequently the man in his internals is a devil, but in his externals is like an angel, he may be compared to a dead man in a coffin of costly and gilded wood; he may also be compared to a skeleton adorned with clothing like a man, and drawn about in a magnificent carriage; or to a corpse in a sepulchre built like the temple of Diana; and his internal may be pictured even as a nest of serpents in a cavern, and his external as butterflies whose wings are tinted with all kinds of colors, but which nevertheless stick foul eggs to the leaves of useful trees, and so destroy the fruit. Or the internal of such may be compared to a hawk, and their external to a dove, and their faith and charity to a hawk pursuing a fleeing dove, which at length he wearies and then darts upon and devours.

(True Christian Religion 361)

To be continued...