Things that Remain in the Memory

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is easy to see that nothing can possibly enter into man's memory and remain there, unless there is a certain affection or love which introduces it. If there is no affection, or what is the same, no love, there will be no observation. It is this affection, or love, with which the thing that enters connects itself, and being connected remains; as is evident from the fact that when a similar affection or love returns, the thing itself recurs, and is presented to view along with other things that had before entered by virtue of a similar affection or love; and this in a series. From this comes man's thought; and from this thought his speech. In like manner also when the thing itself returns, if this is effected by objects of the senses, or by objects of the thought, or by the discourse of another, the affection also with which the thing had entered is reproduced. This is the teaching of experience, and on reflection everyone may be confirmed in it.

(from Arcana Coelestia 3336)

When Knowledges Become Truths

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Knowledges are nothing else than the truths of the natural man, but which have not yet been made his own...

Knowledges do not become truths in man until they are acknowledged by the understanding, which takes place when they are confirmed by him; and these truths do not become his own until he lives according to them; for nothing is made man's own except that which becomes of his life, for thus he himself is in the truths, because his life is in them.

(from Arcana Coelestia 5276)

The Hinge of the Determinations

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There are with man two determinations of the things of the understanding and of the will — one determination is outward toward the world, and the other is inward toward heaven.

• With natural and sensuous men, the determination of the things of the understanding and of the will, thus of the thoughts and affections, is toward the world;

• With spiritual and celestial men the determination of these things is toward heaven, and also alternately toward the world.

The hinge of the determinations turns inward when the man is being regenerated, and so far as it can then be turned inward, so far the man can be raised by the Lord toward heaven to Himself, and consequently be in the same proportion imbued with wisdom, faith, and love. For the man then lives in the internal man, consequently in his spirit, and the external man is subordinate thereto. But if a man does not suffer himself to be regenerated, then all his interiors remain determined toward the world, and then his life is in the external man, and the internal man is subordinate thereto. This is the case when the external man supplies reasonings which favor evil lusts. These men are called natural, and they who abide in things most external are called sensuous; from which it can be seen what is meant by "the sensuous."

(from Arcana Coelestia 9730)

The Holy Spirit is Neither Given or Lost

Selection from Invitation to the New Church ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Posthumous Work

The soul is the inmost man, and thence according to the ancients it is in the whole and in every part of the body, because the beginning of life resides in the soul; that part of the body in which the soul does not inmostly reside, does not live. Wherefore there is a reciprocal union; and hence the body acts from the soul, but not the soul through the body.

Whatever proceeds from God partakes of the human form,
because God is Himself the Man

this is especially the case with the soul, which is the first of man.

Nothing is more common in the whole heaven and in the whole world, than for one thing to be within another; thus there is an inmost, a middle, and an outmost; and these three intercommunicate, and the power of the middle and outmost are derived from the inmost.

That there are three things, one within the other, appears from each and all things in the human body.

• Around the brain there are three tunics, which are called the dura mater, the pia mater, and the arachnoid; and over these is the skull.
• Around the whole body there are tunics, one within the other, which taken all together are called the skin.
• Around each artery and vein there are three tunics; likewise around each muscle and fiber; in like manner around all the rest which are there.

In the vegetable kingdom the case is the same.

How these parts intercommunicate, and how the inmost enters the middle, and the middle the ultimate, is shown by anatomy, etc.

Thence it follows that the same is the case with light; that spiritual light which in its essence is truth, is interiorly in natural light; likewise that spiritual heat which in its essence is love, is in natural heat. By natural heat is meant natural love, because that love becomes warm; and this is clothed with the heat of the blood.

All things which people speak concerning the Holy Spirit fall to the ground, as soon as it is believed that man is not life, but only an organ of life; and thus that God is constantly in man, and that He strives, acts, and urges that those things which belong to religion, and consequently those which belong to the church, to heaven and salvation, shall be received. Therefore it is wrong to say that the Holy Spirit is given, or that it is lost. For the Holy Spirit is nothing else than the Divine which proceeds out of the Lord from the Father, and this Divine causes a man's life, and also his understanding and his love; and the presence of this Divine is perpetual. Without the presence of the Lord or the Holy Spirit, man would be nothing but a kind of beast; yea he would not have any more life, than salt, a stone, or a stock. The reason of this is, that man is not born with instinct, like a beast; wherefore a pullet one day old knows the order of its life better than an infant.

(from Invitation to the New Church 48-50)

Why The Church Has Immersed Itself Into So Many Falsities

Selection from Invitation to the New Church ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Posthumous Work

The sole cause why the church has immersed itself into so many falsities, that not a single truth has remained in it, and why it is like a ship that has suffered shipwreck, of which the top of the mast only protrudes, is this:

that hitherto they have not approached the Lord immediately; and so long as the Lord is not approached immediately, not a single truth can appear in its own light.

The reason of this is, that the Lord is the Word, that is, the all of Divine truth in the Word, and that He alone is the Light which enlighteneth all, as He Himself teaches; and further, that every truth of the Word shines from no other source than from the Lord alone. This light is what is meant by the spiritual; when, therefore, this light is not present, there is nothing spiritual in man's understanding, but what is merely natural; and all things which contain the spiritual, the natural man sees only invertedly; he sees falsity instead of the truth. On reading the Word, therefore, he bends all things towards his own falsities, and thus falsifies truths; and he takes delight in them. For the natural human mind is in such things as belong to the world and to self; it is delighted solely by such things; wherefore, unless in the above things there is spiritual light, the natural man transfers them to those things which belong to the world and to self, and he puts these in the first place. He thus not only shuns spiritual things, and hides them away, but he also scoffs at them. Faith is spiritual from no other source, that is, it cannot be called spiritual, except from the truths which it contains, and thus by virtue of light from the Lord. Unless faith is from this source, it is natural faith which does not conjoin, and which is not saving.

(from Invitation to the New Church 40)

It is Slavery to be Led by the Devil, and Freedom to be Led by the Lord

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Romans 6:16-18

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and [going about to establish their own righteousness], have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Romans 10:3

He who is in interior truth knows that all truth and good are from the Lord, and also that all freedom from his own, or from the man himself, is infernal; for when a man thinks or does anything from his own freedom, he thinks and does nothing but evil. In consequence he is a servant of the devil, for all evil flows in from hell. He also feels delight in such freedom, because it agrees with the evil in which he is, and into which he was born. Wherefore this freedom from one's own must be put off, and heavenly freedom must be put on instead, which consists in willing what is good and thence doing it, and in desiring what is true and thence thinking it. When a man receives this freedom he is a servant of the Lord, and is then in freedom itself, and not in the bondage in which he was before, and which appeared like freedom.

(from Arcana Coelestia 5763)

Those Who Have Faith Also Have Conscience

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Faith is inseparable from conscience, so inseparable indeed that whether you say faith or conscience it is the same. By faith is meant the faith by means of which there is charity, and which is from charity, thus charity itself; for faith without charity is no faith; and as faith is not possible without charity, so neither is conscience.

(From Arcana Coelestia 2325)