The Bible

 

Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #130

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130. 11. Conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person, because it depends on the state of his wisdom. We have said several times before that conjugial love depends on the state of wisdom in a person, and we will be saying it several times again after this. We will explain here, therefore, what wisdom is, and show that it is inseparably bound up with the church.

People are capable of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge has to do with concepts, intelligence with reason, and wisdom with life.

Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with concepts, reason and life at the same time. Concepts come first; reason is formed by means of them, and wisdom by both concepts and reason together - and this when a person lives reasonably or rationally according to truths formed as concepts.

Wisdom, therefore, has to do with both reason and life together. It is on the way to becoming wisdom when it is a matter of reason first and consequently of life; but it is wisdom when it has become a matter of life first and consequently of reason.

The most ancient people in this world did not acknowledge any other wisdom than wisdom of life. This was the wisdom of those who were formerly called sages. The ancients, however, who came after those most ancient people, recognized as wisdom a wisdom of reason, and they were called philosophers. But today, many even call knowledge wisdom, for the educated, the learned, and the merely knowledgeable are called wise. Thus has wisdom fallen from its peak to its valley.

[2] Nevertheless, something must also be said respecting what wisdom is in its rise, progress, and then full state.

Concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost recesses in a person. Concerns that have to do with the civil state and are called political occupy a position below them. And concerns that have to do with knowledge, experience and skill and are called natural - these form their footstool.

Concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost recesses in a person, because they are connected with heaven and through heaven with the Lord. For it is just these concerns that enter a person from the Lord through heaven.

Concerns that have to do with the civil state and are called political occupy a position below spiritual matters, because they are connected with the world, since they have to do with the world. For they are the statutes, laws and regulations by which men are bound, in order that they may be formed into a stable and united society and state.

Concerns that have to do with knowledge, experience and skill and are called natural - these form the footstool, because they are closely connected with the five senses of the body, and the senses are the lowest elements, on which rest, so to speak, the interior elements that have to do with the mind and the inmost elements that have to do with the soul.

[3] Now because concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost regions, and whatever has its seat in the inmost regions forms the head, and because the concerns that follow next below them, which are called political, form the body, and the lowest concerns which are called natural form the feet, it follows that when these three come one after the other in their proper order, a person is a proper human being. For one level then flows down into the next, in a manner similar to the way activities of the head flow down into the body and through the body to the feet. So do spiritual concerns flow down into political concerns, and through political concerns into natural ones.

Furthermore, because spiritual concerns reside in the light of heaven, it is apparent that they illumine with their light the concerns that follow in order, and animate them with their warmth (which is love), and that when this happens, a person has wisdom.

[4] Since wisdom is, as we said above, a matter of life first and consequently of reason, the question arises, what wisdom of life is. In brief summary, it is this: to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul, harmful to the civil state, and harmful to the body, and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body.

This is the wisdom that is meant by the wisdom to which conjugial love attaches itself. For it attaches itself through wisdom's shunning the evil of adultery as a pestilence injurious to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body. And because this wisdom springs from spiritual concerns which have to do with the church, it follows that conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person, because it depends on the state of his wisdom. This also means, as we have frequently said before, that a person is in a state of truly conjugial love to the degree that he becomes spiritual. For a person becomes spiritual through the spiritual things of the church.

More on the wisdom to which conjugial love joins itself may be seen below in nos. 163, 164, and 165.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

The Bible

 

Exodus 26:1

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1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.