Without the Spiritual Sense, Heresy is Confirmed

An Excerpt From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Word is such in the sense of its letter that it may be drawn aside to confirm any heresy whatever.

The sense of the letter consists of appearances of truth, which hold enclosed in them the genuine truths of heaven, which are called spiritual truths, and unless these truths are revealed and laid bare, that is, unless they are taught in the doctrines of the church, the appearances they present may be drawn over and perverted to favor any falsity whatever, and even to favor evil. For the genuine truths of the Word are like a man, and the appearances of truth, of which the sense of the letter consists, are like his garments, from which alone no judgment can be formed respecting who the man is or what he is. If a man were judged from his garments alone, a king might be called a servant, and a servant a king, and a good man might be called an evil man, and an evil man a good man; and so on.

Those who arrogate to themselves dominion over all things of the church and heaven can apply the sense in its letter a thousand ways to favor their dominion. And this is an easy task, because all things of the church, which are called holy, they place above the human understanding, and when this is assented to and no genuine truth is taught, infernal falsities may be called truths, and devilish evils may be called goods; and the simple may even be persuaded that the edicts of the Pope are just as holy as the commandments of the Word, and even more holy, and yet these are from heaven, while those edicts are for the most part from hell.

For every edict respecting government, faith, and worship in the church, that has for an end dominion in the world, however it may appear in the external form, and may sound as if from the Word, is from hell; while every commandment from the Word, because it has for its end the salvation of souls by the Lord, is from heaven.

(from Apocalypse Explained 1033)

The Distinction Between Uses Done By Devils and Uses Done By Angels

A Portion from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How can one know whether he is performing uses from the love of self or from the love of uses?

Every man, good or evil, does uses and does them from some love. Suppose there were in the world a society composed entirely of devils, and a society composed entirely of angels:  I am of the opinion that the devils in their society, from the fire of self-love and the glamour of their own glory, would perform as many uses as the angels in theirs. Who then can know from which love or from which source the uses are?

Devils do uses for the sake of themselves and for the sake of fame in order to achieve honors or to amass wealth. But not for these ends do angels perform uses, but for the sake of the uses from love of them.

Man cannot distinguish between these uses, but the Lord does. Everyone who believes in the Lord and shuns evils as sins does uses from the Lord; but everyone who does not believe in the Lord and does not shun evils as sins, performs uses from himself and for the sake of himself. This is the distinction between uses done by devils and uses done by angels.

(from Conjugial Love 266)

Who is the God of Heaven?

Selection from Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

THE LORD IS THE GOD OF HEAVEN

The first essential is to know who the God of heaven is, since everything else depends upon that.

Throughout the whole of heaven no other than the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of heaven. There they declare as He Himself taught,

That He is one with the Father; that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, that he who sees Him sees the Father, and that everything that is holy goes forth from Him.  John 10:30, 38; 14:10, 11; 16:13-15.

I have quite often talked with angels on this matter and they have constantly declared that in heaven they are unable to distinguish the Divine into three because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and that it is one in the Lord. They even said that people who come from this world from the Church having an idea of three Divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven because their thought wanders from one to another, and it is not allowable there to think of three and say one. This is because everyone in heaven speaks from the thought, for there they have a cogitative speech or thought speaking. Consequently, those who in this world have distinguished the Divine into three and have adopted a separate idea of each, and have not made that idea one in the Lord and centred it there, cannot be received. For in heaven, they have a communication of the thoughts of all, so that if anyone came there, thinking of three and saying one, he would immediately be discovered and rejected. It ought to be known, however, that all those who have not separated truth from good, or faith from love, receive, when instructed in the other life, the heavenly idea of the Lord, that He is the God of the universe. It is indeed otherwise with those who have separated faith from life, that is, who have not lived in accordance with the precepts of a true faith.

Those, within the Church, who have denied the Lord and have acknowledged only the Father, and have confirmed themselves in that faith, are outside heaven; and because no influx from heaven where the Lord alone is worshipped, reaches them, they are gradually deprived of the faculty of thinking what is true about anything at all. And at length they become as though they were dumb, or else they talk stupidly and wander about with their arms dangling and swinging as if lacking strength in their joints. In the same way, those who have denied the Divinity of the Lord and, like the Socinians,* have acknowledged only His Human are outside heaven. They are brought forward a little towards the right, and let down into the deep and are thus completely separated from the rest of those from the Christian world.

Moreover, those who profess belief in an invisible Divine which they call the soul of the universe [Ens universi], from which all things came into existence, but who reject a faith regarding the Lord, are found to have no belief in any God, since to them this invisible Divine is like nature in its first principles which faith and love cannot reach because it cannot be thought about. Such are relegated among those called naturalistic.

Things happen in a different manner with those born outside the Church and called Gentiles.

All little children, of whom a third part of heaven is formed, are initiated into the acknowledgment and faith that the Lord is their Father, and afterwards that He is the Lord of all, therefore God of heaven and earth. Little children that grow up in the heavens and, by means of cognitions, are perfected even to angelic intelligence and wisdom. Those who are from the Church cannot doubt that the Lord is the God of heaven, for He Himself taught, that

all things of the Father are His. Matt. 11:27; John 16:15; 17:2.

and that

All power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth. Matt. 28:18.

He says "in heaven and in earth" because He who rules heaven rules the earth also, for the one depends upon the other. To rule heaven and earth means to receive from Him every good pertaining to love and every truth pertaining to faith, thus all intelligence and wisdom and so all happiness, in short, eternal life. This also the Lord taught when He said,

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life. John 3:36.

Again:

I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. John 11:25, 26.

And again,

I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6.

There were certain spirits who, while they lived in the world, acknowledged the Father, without having any other idea of the Lord than as of another man, and who therefore did not believe that He was the God of heaven. For this reason they were permitted to wander about and enquire wherever they wished whether there were any other heaven than the Lord's heaven. They searched for several days but nowhere found any. These spirits were amongst such as placed the happiness of heaven in glory and in domination, and because they could not get possession of what they desired and were told that heaven does not consist of such things, they were indignant and wished to have a heaven where they could lord it over others and be eminent in a glory like that in the world.

(Heaven and Hell 2-6)

* an adherent of a 16th and 17th century theological movement professing belief in God and adherence to the Christian Scriptures but denying the divinity of Christ and consequently denying the Trinity