621. To these points I will add the following memorable occurrences.
The first memorable occurrence. On one occasion I saw a group of spirits who were all on their knees praying to God to send them angels so that they could speak with the angels face to face and open up to them the thoughts that were in their hearts.
When they got up from praying they saw three angels in fine linen standing nearby. The angels said, "The Lord Jesus Christ heard your prayers and sent us to you. Open up to us the thoughts that are in your hearts. "
"Our priests have told us," they replied, "that in matters of theology the intellect is no help. Faith is what is needed. And an intellectual kind of faith is not well suited in these matters, they say, because it originates from, and smacks of, self rather than God.
[2] "We are English. We have heard many things from our own holy ministers and we believe them; but when we speak with others who also call themselves Protestants, and with others who call themselves Roman Catholics, and with Protestant Dissenters, they all seem well informed and yet on many points they disagree with each other. Nevertheless they all say, 'Believe us!' And some say, 'We are ministers of God - we know these things!'
"What we ourselves know is that the divine truths that are called the truths of faith - the truths of the church - do not come from one's native soil or by heredity; they come out of heaven from God. They show the way to heaven. Along with good actions that come from goodwill, these truths become part of our lives. They lead us to eternal life. [Because we had heard differing views of what is true,] we therefore became anxious and prayed to God on our knees. "
[3] "Read the Word and believe in the Lord," the angels said, "and you will see the truths that are to be part of your faith and your life. The Word is the only common source from which all who are in the Christian world draw their teachings. "
Two members of the group said, "We have read it but we didn't understand it. "
"You did not turn to the Lord, who is the Word," the angels replied, "and you had already convinced yourselves of falsities.
"What is faith without light?" the angels went on. "What is thinking without understanding? It is not human. Ravens and magpies can learn to talk without understanding. This we can assure you: every single human being whose soul desires it has the capability to see the truths of the Word in light. All animals know, just by seeing it, what food will keep them alive. We human beings are animals that are rational and spiritual. We too see the food that will keep us alive - not the food for our body but the food for our soul, which is the truth that relates to faith - if we are hungry for it and ask the Lord for it.
[4] The true substance of any information we take in without understanding will not remain in our memory; only the words will remain.
"For this reason, when we angels look down from heaven at the world [these days], we don't see anything. We just hear sounds, and most of them are discordant.
"Allow us, however, to list some teachings that learned clergy have taken out of the realm of the intellect, because they are unaware that there are two ways of understanding, a worldly way and a heavenly way. When the Lord enlightens people, he lifts up our worldly way of understanding. If we have closed our intellect for religious reasons, however, the heavenly way of understanding is closed, and then we see nothing more in the Word than a blind person would see. We have seen many people of this type fall into pits from which they did not rise again.
[5] "For the sake of illustration, let's take examples of such teachings. Surely you are able to understand what goodwill is and what faith is. Goodwill is treating our neighbor well, and faith is having accurate thoughts about God and about the essential teachings of the church. Therefore, people who treat others well and think properly, that is, who live a good life and believe the right things, are saved. "
The English spirits replied that they did indeed understand those things.
[6] "In order to be saved," the angels went on, "you have to practice repentance from your sins. Those who do not practice repentance remain in the sins they were born with. The practice of repentance is to not will evils, because they are against God. It involves examining yourselves once or twice a year, seeing your evils, confessing them before the Lord, begging for his help, no longer doing them, and launching into a new life. More and more as you do this and believe in the Lord, your sins are forgiven. "
Some from the group said, "We understand this, and this also tells us what 'forgiveness of sins' means. "
[7] The group then asked the angels to tell them more, particularly on the subjects of God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration, and baptism.
"We will not say anything you don't understand," the angels replied, "since otherwise what we say might fall like rain on a sandy place and on seeds there that are bound to shrivel up and die no matter how much water they get from heaven. "
On the subject of God the angels said, "All who come into heaven are allotted a place there, and experience eternal joy, on the basis of their idea of God. One's idea of God is what rules universally in everything having to do with worship. An idea of God as a spirit - if a spirit is believed to be like ether or wind - is a meaningless idea. An idea of God as a human being is a true idea. God is divine love and divine wisdom and all the attributes that go along with them. A human being has love and wisdom; ether and wind do not. The idea of God that we have in heaven is the idea of the Lord our Savior; he is the God of heaven and earth, as he himself taught [Matthew 28:18]. If your idea of God becomes like ours, then we will all be able to be together. "
As the angels said these things the faces of the English spirits shone.
[8] On the subject of the immortality of the soul they said, "Human beings live to eternity because they are capable of forming a partnership with God through love and faith - absolutely everyone is capable of forming a partnership like this. If you think a little more deeply about it, you can understand that this capability is what allows the soul to be immortal. "
[9] On the subject of regeneration they said, "Who cannot see that everyone (at least everyone who has been taught that God exists) possesses the freedom either to think about God or not to think about God? All people, then, have just as much freedom in spiritual matters as they do in civic and earthly matters. The Lord constantly grants this freedom to everyone. Therefore we are at fault if we do not think about God. Our ability to have such thoughts is what makes us human; the inability of animals to have such thoughts is what makes them animals. Therefore we have the ability to reform and regenerate ourselves as if we are doing so on our own, provided that at heart we admit that the Lord is the one doing the work. Everyone who practices repentance and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. We have to do both of these things as if we are acting on our own, even though the ability to act seemingly on our own comes from the Lord. Now, it is true that left to ourselves we would be able to contribute nothing to our regeneration - absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, you were not created as statues; you were created as human beings so that you would be able to do this with the help of the Lord but as if you were acting on your own. Developing love and faith as our response is the sole thing that the Lord truly wants us to do for him.
"To sum this up: Do these things on your own, but believe that you do them with the help of the Lord; then you will be doing them as if you were acting on your own. "
[10] The group then asked, "Is this 'doing things as if one is acting on one's own' an attribute that human beings have had from creation?"
"It is not that kind of attribute," the angels replied, "because acting on one's own is actually something that belongs to God alone. It is, however, granted to us continually; that is, it is always with us. If we do what is good and believe what is true as if we were doing so on our own, we are angels of heaven. If we do what is evil and therefore believe what is false, however - which is actually something that is also done as if we were acting on our own - we are spirits of hell. You are surprised to hear that this too is done as if we were acting on our own. But you see this, don't you, when you say that familiar prayer to be kept safe so that the Devil does not seduce you and take possession of you the way he took possession of Judas, fill you with all wickedness, and destroy both your soul and your body?
"All who believe that they are acting on their own, regardless of whether the thing they are doing is good or evil, become at fault for what they do. Those who believe they are acting as if they were on their own do not become at fault. If we believe that some good deed comes from ourselves, we claim for ourselves something that actually belongs to God. If we believe that some evil deed comes from ourselves, we attribute to ourselves something that actually belongs to the Devil. "
[11] On the topic of baptism the angels said, "Baptism is a spiritual washing, which is reformation and regeneration. The child is reformed and regenerated when, having become an adult, he or she does the things the godparents promised on his or her behalf. There are two such promises in baptism: repentance, and faith in God. The godparents promise first that the child will renounce the Devil and all his works, and second that the child will believe in God. All children in heaven are initiated into these two practices, although to them 'the Devil' is hell and 'God' is the Lord. For another thing, baptism is a sign to the angels that someone belongs to the church. "
When they had heard all this, some from the group said, "We understand. "
[12] A voice was heard off to the side, however, that shouted, "We don't understand. "
Another voice shouted, "We don't want to understand. "
Someone went to find out who those voices came from and learned that they came from people who had convinced themselves of false beliefs and who wanted to be trusted in as oracles and worshiped on that account.
"Don't be surprised at that," the angels said. "There are a tremendous number of people like that these days. From our point of view in heaven they look like sculptures skillfully made in such a way that the lips can move and they can make sounds as if they were alive. They are unaware, however, of whether the breath that supports their sound comes from hell or heaven, because they don't know whether what they are saying is false or true. They reason and reason and provide one supporting argument after another, but cannot tell at all whether something is true or not. It is important to be aware that human ingenuity can provide arguments to support any assertion it wants, even to the point that the assertion appears to be true. Heretics have this ability; godless people, too; in fact, atheists are able to argue that there is no God except nature alone. "
[13] After that, the group of English spirits was stirred with a desire for wisdom. They said to the angels, "There is such a wide range of opinions on the Holy Supper. Tell us what the truth is. "
"The truth is," the angels replied, "that through that most holy act, people who turn to the Lord and practice repentance form a partnership with the Lord and become part of heaven. "
Some in the group said, "That is a mystery!"
"It is a mystery," the angels replied, "but one that can be understood nevertheless. Bread and wine do not produce this effect - there is nothing holy about them; but physical bread and spiritual bread have a mutual correspondence. So do physical wine and spiritual wine. Spiritual bread is holy love and spiritual wine is holy faith. Each is from the Lord, and each is the Lord. Therefore a partnership of the Lord with us, and of us with the Lord, comes about not through the bread and wine but through the love and faith in the individual who has practiced repentance. To join in a partnership with the Lord is also to become part of heaven. "
After the angels taught them something about correspondences, some in the group said, "Now for the first time we can understand this, too!"
When they said that, to my surprise something flamelike from heaven came down with light and united them with the angels, and the angels and the spirits felt love for each other.
