The Bible

 

Genesis 1:3

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Spiritual Experiences #1976

  
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1976. 1 About a wicked sharing

Some female spirits came to me, I presume not long departed from the life of the body, for they were still unaware that they were in the other life, but when it was pointed out to them, they were able to recall.

They first appeared as if they were good, for that was the air they put on, but when they had withdrawn, I heard from others that they were wicked, being among those who think a sharing of sexual intercourse between women and men to be not only allowable, but even holy. They say they had been born in sins, and they could not hold themselves back from this indulgence, so they think it unclean to be joined to any others than those of the same mind. In fact, they revile marriage, because to them it is not holy, even characterizing marriages as unclean.

I was told there are such people of both sexes in human societies, who engage in this sharing without the purpose of marriage, marital love, and having children, thus only to satisfy their lust-a life they called most enjoyable, which they had led since childhood.

Footnotes:

1. A paragraph numbered 1975 does not appear in the original.

  
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Thanks to the Academy of the New Church, and Bryn Athyn College, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2118

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2118. The expression 'Last Judgement' is used to mean the final period of a Church, and also to mean the final phase of each person's life. As regards the final period of a Church, the Last Judgement of the Most Ancient Church, which had existed before the Flood, occurred when their descendants perished, whose destruction is described by the Flood. The Last Judgement of the Ancient Church, which existed after the Flood, took place when almost all who belonged to that Church had become idolaters and had been scattered. The Last Judgement of the representative Church, which followed next, among the descendants of Jacob, came about when the ten tribes were led away into captivity and dispersed among the gentile nations; and later on when the Jews after the Lord's Coming were expelled from the land of Canaan and were scattered throughout the whole world. The Last Judgement of the Church existing at present, which is called the Christian Church, is what 'the new heaven and the new earth' is used to mean in John in the Book of Revelation.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.