Faith Cometh By Hearing

Selections from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There are two lives in man; one is of the will, the other of the understanding.  They become two lives when there is no will, but cupidity in place of a will.  Then it is the other or intellectual part that can be reformed; and afterwards through this a new will can be given, so that the two may still constitute one life, namely, charity and faith....

The case is this: When a man is being reformed, which is effected by combats and temptations, such evil spirits are associated with him as excite nothing but his things of knowledge and reason [scientifica ejus et rationalia]; and spirits that excite cupidities are kept entirely away from him.  For there are two kinds of evil spirits, those who act upon man's reasonings, and those who act upon his cupidities.  The evil spirits who excite a man's reasonings bring forth all his falsities, and endeavor to persuade him that they are true, and even turn truths into falsities.  A man must fight against these when he is in temptation; but it is really the Lord who fights, through the angels who are adjoined to the man.  As soon as the falsities are separated, and as it were dispersed, by these combats, the man is prepared to receive the truths of faith.  For so long as falsities prevail, a man never can receive the truths of faith, because the principles of falsity stand in the way.  When he has thus been prepared to receive the truths of faith, then for the first time can celestial seeds be implanted in him, which are the seeds of charity.  The seeds of charity can never be implanted in ground where falsities reign, but only where truths reign.  Thus is it with the reformation or regeneration of the spiritual man....

This agrees with what is at this day known in the churches: that faith comes by hearing.  But faith is by no means the knowledge [cognitio] of the things that are of faith, or that are to be believed.  This is only memory-knowledge [scientia]; whereas faith is acknowledgment.  There can however be no acknowledgment with anyone unless the principal of faith is in him, which is charity, that is, love toward the neighbor and mercy.  When there is charity, then there is acknowledgment, or faith.  He who apprehends otherwise is as far away from a knowledge of faith as earth is from heaven.  When charity is present, which is the goodness of faith, then acknowledgment is present, which is the truth of faith.  When therefore a man is being regenerated according to the things of knowledge, of reason, and of understanding, it is to the end that the ground may be prepared - that is, his mind - for receiving charity; from which, or from the life of which, he thereafter thinks and acts.  Then he is reformed or regenerated, and not before.

(Arcana Coelestia 652 - 654)

Why Humiliation and Submission Must Be In Presence of the Divine When Man is in Worship

A Portion of a Passage in Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

They who are not in the knowledge of interior things cannot believe otherwise than that the Divine wills the humiliation and submission of man, as a man does who is in the lust of glory; and consequently that the Divine wills glory therefrom, and is affected with the glory which man ascribes to Him. But the case is altogether different.

The Divine is not in any affection of glory, for what glory has the Divine from man?

But He wills humiliation and submission, not for His own, but for man's sake.  For when man is in humiliation he feels aversion for the evil and falsity in him, and thus removes them, and on their removal the Divine can flow in with good and truth.  Everyone may be aware of this in himself.  He who is of elated mind is in the love of self, and not only sets himself above others, but also cares nothing for the Divine, and consequently rejects the influx of good, and thence its conjunction with truths.  This is the genuine reason for man's humiliation before the Divine.

(Arcana Coelestia 4347)

In All Evil There is Anger Against the Lord and Against the Holy Things of the Church

A Portion of a Passage from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The goods and truths of heaven penetrate into the internals only with such as make the holy things of heaven and the church their ends, that is, make them to be of their love, and thence of their intention and will; when these are made ends, then the spiritual mind is opened, and through this man is led by the Lord. But it is the exact opposite when the goods and truths of heaven and the church are not made ends, but means; - ends belong to the ruling love of man - and when this is love of self it is also love of his own [proprium], and this regarded in itself is nothing but evil, and so far as man acts from it he acts from hell, and thus against the Divine.

(Apocalypse Explained 693:3)

Divine Good Cannot Do After the Manner of Truth Separated from Good

A Portion of a Passage from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... there are two things which constitute the order of the universal heaven, and thence in the universe, namely, Good and Truth. Good is the essential of order, all the things of which are mercies. Truth is the secondary of order, all the things of which are truths. The Divine good adjudges all to heaven, but the Divine truth condemns all to hell; and therefore unless the Lord's Mercy, which is of good, were eternal, all men, however many, would be condemned. This is what is signified by the statement that the Divine good cannot do this after the manner of truth separated from good.

[There are two things which are predicated of the Lord, namely, that He is King, and that He is Priest. A king, or the royalty, signifies the holy which is true; and a priest, or the priesthood, signifies the holy which is good; the former is the Divine spiritual, the latter the Divine celestial.  The Lord as King governs each and all things in the universe from Divine truth; and as Priest, from Divine good.  Divine truth is the very order of His universal kingdom, all the laws of which are truths, or eternal verities; Divine good is the very essential of order, all things of which are of mercy.  Both of these are predicated of the Lord. If Divine truth alone were His, no mortal could be saved, for truths condemn everyone to hell; but Divine good, which is of mercy, uplifts from hell to heaven. These are what the kings and priests in the Jewish Church represented and these likewise Melchizedek represented, as king of Salem, and priest to God Most High. (Arcana Coelestia 1728)]

That the evil are nevertheless condemned to hell, is not because the Divine good is separated from the Divine truth, but because the man separates himself from the Divine good.  For the Lord in no case sends anyone down into hell, but the man sends himself.... 

In the following respect also the Divine good is conjoined with the Divine truth: that unless the evil were separated from the good, the evil would do harm to the good, and would be continually endeavoring to destroy order: thus that the good may not be harmed, is of Mercy. This stands just as in the kingdoms of the earth. If evils were not punished, the whole kingdom would be infected with evils, and so would perish; for which reason kings and judges show more mercy in punishing evils and in expelling from society those guilty of them, than by exercising in their behalf an unseasonable clemency.

(Arcana Coelestia 2258)

Good Cannot Die, Because Evil Can Be Separated From It

A Portion of a Passage from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Be it known that all the good a man has thought and done from infancy even to the last of his life, remains; in like manner all the evil, so that not the least of it completely perishes. Both are inscribed on his book of life (that is, on each of his memories), and on his nature (that is, his native disposition and genius).  From these he has formed for himself a life, and so to speak a soul, which after death is of a corresponding quality.  But goods are never so commingled with evils, nor evils with goods, that they cannot be separated; for if they should be commingled, the man would eternally perish.

In relation to this the Lord exercises His providence, and when a man comes into the other life, if he has lived in the good of love and of charity, the Lord then separates his evils, and by what is good with him elevates him into heaven.  But if he has lived in evils, that is, in things contrary to love and charity, the Lord then separates from him what is good, and his evils bring him into hell.  Such is the lot of everyone after death; but it is a separation, and in no wise a complete removal.

Moreover, as the will of man, which is the one part of his life, has been utterly destroyed, the Lord separates this destroyed part from the other which is his intellectual part, and in those who are being regenerated, implants in this intellectual part the good of charity, and through this a new will; these are they who have conscience.

(Arcana Coelestia 2256)

To What Purpose is the Doctrine of Faith?

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The church is called spiritual when it acts from charity, or from the good of charity-never when it says that it has faith without charity, for then it is not even a church. For what is the doctrine of faith but the doctrine of charity? And to what purpose is the doctrine of faith, but that men should do what it teaches? It cannot be merely to know and think what it teaches, but only that what it teaches should be done. The spiritual church is therefore first called a church when it acts from charity, which is the very doctrine of faith. Or, what is the same thing, the man of the church is then first a church. Just in the same way, what is a commandment for? not that a man may know, but that he may live according to the commandment. For then he has in himself the kingdom of the Lord, since the kingdom of the Lord consists solely in mutual love and its happiness.

Those who separate faith from charity, and make salvation consist in faith without the good works of charity, are Cainites who slay the brother Abel, that is, charity. And they are like birds which hover about a carcass; for such faith is a bird, and a man without charity is a carcass. Thus they also form for themselves a spurious conscience, so that they may live like devils, hold the neighbor in hatred and persecute him, pass their whole life in adulteries, and yet be saved, as is well known in the Christian world. What can be more agreeable to a man than to hear and be persuaded that he may be saved, even if he live like a wild beast? The very Gentiles perceive that this is false, many of whom abhor the doctrine of Christians because they see their life. The real quality of such a faith is evident also from the fact that nowhere is there found a life more detestable than in the Christian world.

(Arcana Coelestia 916)

Alternations of NO Life and of REAL Life in Regeneration

A portion of a passage from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When man is being regenerated, he receives life from the Lord; for before this he cannot be said to have lived, the life of the world and of the body not being life, but only that which is heavenly and spiritual. Through regeneration man receives real life from the Lord; and because he had no life before, there is an alternation of no life and of real life, that is, of no faith and charity, and of some faith and charity; no charity and faith being here signified by "cold" and some faith and charity by "heat."

As regards this subject the case is this: Whenever man is in his corporeal and worldly things, there is then no faith and charity, that is, there is "cold" for then corporeal and worldly things, consequently those which are his own, are at work, and so long as the man is in these, he is absent or remote from faith and charity, so that he does not even think about heavenly and spiritual things. The reason of this is that heavenly and corporeal things can never be together in a man, for man's will has been utterly ruined. But when the things of man's body and will are not at work, but are quiescent, then the Lord works through his internal man, and then he is in faith and charity, which is here called "heat." When he again returns into the body he is again in cold; and when the body, or what is of the body, is quiescent, and as nothing, he is then in heat, and so on in alternation. For such is the condition of man that heavenly and spiritual things cannot be in him along with his corporeal and worldly things, but there are alternations. This is what takes place with everyone who is to be regenerated, and it goes on as long as he is in a state of regeneration; for in no other way is it possible for man to be regenerated, that is, from being dead to be made alive, for the reason, as already said, that his will has been utterly ruined, and is therefore completely separated from the new will, which he receives from the Lord and which is the Lord's and not the man's. Hence now it is evident what is here signified by "cold and heat."

That such is the case every regenerated man may know from experience, that is to say, that when he is in corporeal and worldly things, he is absent and remote from internal things, so that he not only takes no thought about them, but feels in himself cold at the thought of them; but that when corporeal and worldly things are quiescent, he is in faith and charity. He may also know from experience that these states alternate, and that therefore when corporeal and worldly things begin to be in excess and to want to rule, he comes into straits and temptations, until he is reduced into such a state that the external man becomes compliant to the internal, a compliance it can never render until it is quiescent and as it were nothing.

The last posterity of the Most Ancient Church could not be regenerated, because - with them the things of the understanding and of the will constituted one mind; and therefore the things of their understanding could not be separated from those of their will, so that they might in this manner be by turns in heavenly and spiritual things, and in corporeal and worldly things; but they had continual cold in regard to heavenly things and continual heat in regard to cupidities, so that they could have no alternation.

(Arcana Coelestia 933)