How the Most Essential Thing of the Church is To Be Understood

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is said in the church that from the three who are called "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," there comes forth one Divine, which is also called "one God;" and that from the Father proceeds the Son, and from the Father through the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit; but what this proceeding or going forth means, is as yet unknown.

Christians in Heart and NOT in Profession Only

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

With those who are in the truth of faith the case is this: No one is admitted into the Lord's kingdom unless he is in the good of faith, for the good of faith is of the life, and the life of faith remains, but not the doctrine of faith, except insofar as it makes one with the life; nevertheless they who are in the truth of faith (that is, who profess faith and call it essential, because they have so learned) and yet are in the good of life (that is, who are Christians in heart and not in profession only), are in the Lord's spiritual kingdom. For anyone may easily be persuaded that faith is the essential when he has been so taught by his instructors and has imbibed this opinion in his childhood, and because they who are reputed most learned and the heads of the church say so, some of whom are afraid to speak of the good of life because their life condemns them; moreover the things that belong to faith flow in perceptibly, but not so those which belong to charity. ...

(Arcana Coelestia 3242)

Anxiety on Account of the Deprivation of the Truth and Good

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Distress of spirit denotes a state near to despair, can be seen from the fact that they who are in a state near to despair are in internal anxiety, and are then actually in shortness of breath. In the external sense this condition is a compression of the breast, and from this as it were a difficulty of breathing; but in the internal sense it is anxiety on account of the deprivation of the truth which is of faith, and of the good which is of charity, and from this is a state near to despair. ... That the deprivation of spiritual truth and good gives birth to such anxiety, and consequently to such distress, cannot be believed by those who are not in faith and charity; for these suppose that to be in distress on this account is weakness and sickliness of mind. The reason is:  they do not place anything real in faith and charity, nor therefore in those things which belong to their souls and to heaven, but only in wealth and eminence, thus in the things of the body and the world. They also think:

"What are faith and charity but mere words? What is conscience even? To feel distressed by these things is the same as being distressed by such things as a man sees within him from the silly creations of his fancy, and which he imagines to have some existence, although they have not any. Wealth and high position we can see with our eyes, and we know that they exist by the pleasure they afford, for they excite in our whole bodies an expansion and a fullness of joy."

So think merely natural men, and so do they speak among themselves.

But spiritual men think differently, for these have their chief life in their spirit, thus in the things that belong to their spirit, that is, in faith and charity; and therefore when they believe themselves deprived of the truths and goods of faith and charity, they are affected with anguish, as are they who are in the anguish of death, for they see before them spiritual death, that is, damnation.

As before said, to the merely natural these persons appear weak and sickly in spirit, but they are strong and healthy; whereas they who are merely natural appear to themselves strong and healthy, and also are so as to the body, but as to the spirit they are quite weakly, because spiritually dead. If they could see what kind of a spirit they have, they would acknowledge it to be so; but they do not see the spirit until the body has died.

(Arcana Coelestia 7217)

When Civil Laws were made Laws of Religion

From Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[O]ne must not kill, must not commit adultery, must not steal, must not bear false witness. These precepts are civil laws of justice in all kingdoms on earth, for without them no kingdom could stand.

But by some they are obeyed from fear of legal penalties, by some from civil obedience, and by some from religion also; and those by whom they are obeyed from religion also, are saved.  The reason is because then God is in them, and the man in whom God is, is saved.

Who does not see that with the sons of Israel, before their departure from Egypt, it was among their laws that one must not kill, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness? for without these laws their community or society could not have stood. And yet the same laws were promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle; but the cause of this promulgation was that these same laws might be made laws of religion also; thus that men might obey them not only for the sake of the good of society but also for the sake of God; and that when they obeyed them from religion for the sake of God, they might be saved.

(Conjugial Love 351)

The Sun of Heaven Never Sets

Excerpt from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... the Lord is the "morning" because He is the Sun of heaven, and the Sun of heaven never sets, but is always rising; hence also the Lord is called the "east" ...

(from Arcana Coelestia 10134:10) 

When Good Reduces Truths into Order, Falsities are Removed

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Before a man by regeneration from the Lord comes to good, and does truth from good, he has very many falsities mixed with truths; for he is introduced by means of truths of faith respecting which in his first age he had no other ideas than those of infancy and childhood; which ideas, as they arise from the external things of the world and the sensuous things of the body, cannot but be classed among fallacies, and consequently among falsities. These also become actual, for what a man believes, he does. ...They remain with a man until he is regenerate, that is, until he acts from good, and then the good that is, the Lord through the good reduces into order the truths so far learned, and when this is done, falsities are separated from the truths and are removed.

Of all this the man is quite ignorant, and yet there is such a removal and rejection of falsities from his earliest childhood even to his last age, and this with every man, but especially with him who is being regenerated. The like takes place even with a man who is not being regenerated, for when he becomes an adult, and his judgment has attained its maturity, he then regards the judgments of his childhood as vain and absurd, and thus as removed far away from him. But the difference between the regenerate man and the unregenerate is that the regenerate regards those things as removed from him which do not agree with the good of faith and charity, but the unregenerate those which do not agree with the delight of the love in which he is. The latter therefore for the most part regards truths as falsities and falsities as truths.

(from Arcana Coelestia 4551)

Man's Regeneration is an Image of the Lord's Glorification

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[A]s the Lord glorified His natural, it was different in the beginning from what it was in the progression, and at the end. ... For the Lord's glorification proceeded from truth to the good of truth, and finally to good....

This was the process when the Lord made His natural Divine, and the process is similar also when the Lord regenerates man; for it pleased the Lord to make His Human Divine in the same order as that in which He makes man new.... Man's regeneration is an image of the Lord's glorification....

When the Lord makes man new He first instructs him in the truths of faith, for without the truths of faith man does not know what the Lord is, what heaven is, and what hell is, nor even that they exist; and still less does he know the innumerable things relating to the Lord, to His kingdom in heaven, and to His kingdom on earth, that is, to the church; neither does he know what and of what nature are the things opposite to these, which relate to hell.

Before he has learned these things, he cannot know what good is, by which is not meant civil good and moral good, for these are learned in the world by means of laws and statutes, and by reflections upon the morals of men, and therefore the nations outside the church also know such things; but by good is meant spiritual good, which good is called in the Word charity; and this good is in general to will and do good to others for no selfish reason, but from the delight of the affection. This good is spiritual good, and to it no man can attain except by means of the truths of faith, which are taught by the Lord by means of the Word and preachings of the Word.

After a man has been instructed in the truths of faith, he is gradually led by the Lord to will the truth, and also from willing to do it. This truth is called the good of truth, for the good of truth is truth in will and act; and it is called the good of truth because the truth which has been of doctrine then becomes of the life. At last, when the man perceives delight in willing good and in doing it from will, it is no longer called the good of truth, but good; for he is then regenerate, and no more wills and does good from truth, but truth from good; and the truth which he then does is also as it were good, for it derives its essence from its origin, which is good. ... No one who is being regenerated by the Lord can be led to these interior things until the truth with him has become good.

(extract from Arcana Coelestia 4538)