Canons of the New Church #44
44. CHAPTER VII
6. 1 What its quality is, is depicted by the image Nebuchadnezzar saw, in respect of its feet, also by the last beast coming up out of the sea, in Daniel [7], and by the dragon and its two beasts, in the Revelation [12, 13].
7. Its quality is manifest moreover from the following arcanum that was revealed to me: Everyone is allotted a place in heaven, i.e. a place in the societies of heaven, in accordance with his idea of God; and everyone in the hells, in accordance with his denial of God; and further, within the ideas of those who have confirmed themselves in the Nicene 2 Trinity, there is present a denial of one God.
8. A true soul and life is in the man of the Church who acknowledges the Lord, the Son of God, as the God of heaven and earth. That He is God of heaven and earth, He Himself teaches in Matthew 28 [18]. That He is the True God and Eternal Life, is in John [1 John 5:20]. That in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead, is according to Paul [Col. 2:9]; and that He is Jehovah, our Redeemer, the only God, indeed the Father of Eternity, is according to Isaiah.
Footnotes:
1. From the "Index of General Subjects" it appears very probable that chapter VI dealt with "Discordant Ideas derived from the Nicene Trinity", and chapter VII explained how that Trinity had perverted the Church. In the Skara Manuscript, these three paragraphs are attached to the preceding chapter, and numbered 8, 9, 10 respectively. Instead of "What its quality is", it reads, "What the state of the Church is, perverted by the Nicene Trinity and by the falsification of the Word". It omits from the beginning of the next paragraph the words before the colon.
2. So in the Skara Manuscript. The Nordenskjold manuscript has Apostolica scored out, and Athanasia added by another hand.
Arcana Coelestia #7353
7353. 'And they will rise up and come into your house, and into your bedchamber' means that they will fill the mind, all the way through to its more internal parts. This is clear from the meaning of 'house' as a person's mind, dealt with in 3538, 4973, 5023; and from the meaning of 'bedchamber' as the more internal parts of the mind. The reason why 'bedchamber' means the more internal parts of the mind is that it is a more internal part of the house. The more internal parts are meant by 'chambers', and those that are even more internal by 'bedchambers', in the following places: In Isaiah,
Go away, O people, enter your bedchambers, and shut your door behind you. Hide yourself, so to speak, for a little moment, until the anger passes over. Isaiah 26:20.
In Ezekiel,
He said to me, Have you not seen, son of man, what the elders of the house 1 of Israel do in the dark, each in the chambers of his own idol? Ezekiel 8:12.
In Moses,
Outside the sword will bereave and out of the chambers terror. Deuteronomy 31:25.
In the second Book of Kings,
Elisha the prophet, who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bed chamber. 2 Kings 6:12.
The ancients compared a person's mind to a house, and the inward parts of a person to chambers. The human mind is indeed like a house, for the things it contains are virtually as distinct from one another as the chambers within a house. Those at the centre are the inmost parts of the mind, while those to the sides are the more external parts there. The ancients compared the latter to forecourts, and the parts which were outside but adjoining parts more internal they compared to porticos.
Footnotes:
1. The Latin means children but the Hebrew means house, which Swedenborg has in another place where he quotes this verse.
