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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #456

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456. But the rest of mankind, who were not killed in these plagues. (9:20) This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who were not as spiritually dead as the former were because of their illusory reasonings and love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts, and yet who made faith alone the chief tenet of their religion.

The rest of mankind mean people who are not like those described, but who still make faith alone the chief tenet of their religion. Their not being killed symbolizes people not so spiritually dead. The plagues in which the former were killed mean a love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts for evil and falsity, because these three are symbolized by fire, smoke and brimstone, as discussed above in nos. 452, 453. We will see below that plagues have this symbolism. But first we must say something about the people:

[2] I have been given to see these people, too, and to speak with them. They live in the northern zone over to the west. Some of them have huts there with roofs, others huts without roofs. Their beds are made of rushes, their clothes of goats' hair. Seen in the light that flows in from heaven, their faces have a leaden color and also lack vitality. The reason is that they know nothing more from their religion than that there is a God, that there are three persons, that Christ suffered the cross for them, and that they are saved by means of faith alone, and in addition by worship in churches and prayers at set times. To anything else pertaining to religion and its tenets they pay no attention. For the worldly and personal concerns that occupy and fill their minds shut their ears to them.

Many of them were church elders, and I asked them what their thinking was when they read about works, love and charity, fruits, precepts for life, repentance - in word, about things that must be done. They replied that they had indeed read these things and so had seen them, but still did not see them, because they kept their mind focused on faith alone. Consequently they said that these all constitute faith, and that they did not think of them as being the effects of faith.

The ignorance and stupidity of people once they have embraced faith alone and made it the whole of their religion is such as to be scarcely believable, even though I have been given to witness it by a good deal of experience.

[3] That plagues symbolize spiritual plagues, which cause a person to die in spirit or as regards his soul, is apparent from the following passages:

Your rupture is hopeless, your plague severe... ...I will restore health to you and heal you of your plagues... (Jeremiah 30:12, 14, 17)

Everyone who goes by Babylon shall... hiss at all her plagues. (Jeremiah 50:13)

...plagues will come (to Babylon) in one day - death and mourning... (Revelation 18:8)

I saw... seven angels having the seven last plagues, by which the wrath of God is to be consummated. (Revelation 15:1, 6)

Woe to a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it. A wound and a scar and a fresh plague - these have not been expressed, bound up, or soothed with ointment. (Isaiah 1:4, 6)

In the day that Jehovah will bind up the fracture of His people and heal the wound of its plague. (Isaiah 30:26)

So, too, elsewhere, as in Deuteronomy 28:59, Jeremiah 49:17, Zechariah 14:12, 15, Luke 7:21, Revelation 11:6; 16:21.

  
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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #77

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77. The third account:

The next day my angel guide and companion came again and said, "Prepare yourself, and let us go to the inhabitants of heaven in the west, who are some of the people who lived in the third period or copper age. The places where they live stretch from the south across the west towards the north, but not extending into the north."

So, having prepared myself, I accompanied him, and entering their heaven from the south side, we found there a magnificent grove of palm trees and laurels. We passed through it, and then on its western border we saw giants twice the height of ordinary people.

They interrogated us. "Who let you in through the grove?"

The angel said, "The God of heaven."

And they replied, "We are guards to the ancient western heaven. But go ahead and pass."

[2] So we passed, and from a watch-tower we saw a mountain rising to the clouds, and between us in the tower and that mountain we saw villages after villages, with gardens, groves and fields in between. We then passed through the villages to the mountain and ascended. And lo, at its summit was not a peak but a plateau, and on it a city widely extended and spread out. All of its houses, moreover, were made out of wood from resinous trees, and their roofs out of wooden planks.

I asked, "Why are the houses here made of wood?"

The angel answered, "Because wood symbolizes natural goodness, and the people of the third age on the earth were in this state of goodness. And because copper also symbolizes natural goodness, therefore the age in which they lived was named after copper by people of earlier times.

"There are also sacred halls here, built out of boards of olive wood, and in the middle of them is a sanctuary, containing in an ark the Word given to the inhabitants of Asia before the Word which the Israelites had. Its narrative books are called the Wars of Jehovah, and the prophetical books, Oracles, both referred to by Moses (Numbers 21:14-15,27-30).

"In the kingdoms of Asia it has now been lost, and it is preserved only in Great Tartary."

The angel then led me to one of the buildings, and looking in, we saw in the middle of it the sanctuary, all bathed in a brilliant white light. And the angel said: "The light comes from that ancient Asiatic Word, for all Divine truth shines with light in heaven."

[3] As we were going out of the building, we heard it had been reported in the city that two strangers were about, and that they were to be investigated to find out where they came from and what their business was here. Moreover, an attendant came running from the court and ordered us to appear for a hearing.

When we were then asked where we came from and what our business was here, we replied, "We passed through a grove of palm trees and then through the abodes of giants, the ones who guard your heaven, and afterwards through a stretch of villages. You may conclude from this that we have come here, not of ourselves, but thanks to the God of heaven. As for our business, the reason for our coming, it is to be instructed regarding your marriages, to find out whether they are monogamous or perhaps polygamous."

They replied, "What are polygamous marriages? Are they not forms of licentiousness?"

[4] Then the panel of magistrates there selected someone intelligent to instruct us in his own home about this matter. And when we arrived at his house, he called his wife to his side and said the following:

"The earliest or most ancient people were in a state of truly conjugial love, and they therefore experienced the strength and power of that love, more than any other peoples in the world. They are now in a most blissful state in their heaven, which is in the east. We have precepts from them regarding marriage which we have preserved among us. We are their descendants, and they have handed down rules of life to us, like fathers to sons, and the rules which have to do with marriage include this maxim:

Children, if you wish to love God and the neighbor, and if you wish to be wise and be happy to eternity, we advise you to live monogamously. If you depart from this precept, all heavenly love will escape you, and with it inward wisdom, and you will become outcasts.

"We have obeyed, like children, this precept of our fathers, and we have perceived the truth in it. The truth we perceived is that a person becomes heavenly and internal to the extent that he loves his married partner only, and that a person becomes natural and external to the extent that he does not love his married partner only. In the latter case, he loves no one but himself and the imaginations of his own mind, and he is foolish and stupid.

[5] "This is why all of us in our heaven are monogamous. And because we are, therefore all the boundaries of our heaven are guarded to keep out polygamists, adulterers and licentious people. If polygamists get in, they are cast out into the darkness of the north. If adulterers get in, they are cast out into the fires of the west. And if licentious people get in, they are cast out into the illusory lights of the south."

Hearing this I asked what he meant by the darkness of the north, the fires of the west, and the illusory lights of the south.

He answered that the darkness of the north was dullness of mind and ignorance of truths; that the fires of the west were loves of evil; and that the illusory lights of the south were falsifications of truth. "These last," he said, "are forms of spiritual licentiousness."

[6] After this he said, "Follow me to our treasure house."

So we followed, and he showed us some written documents of very ancient peoples, telling us that they wrote on wooden and stone tablets and afterwards on polished sheets of wood assembled into books, and that people of the second age wrote their records on parchments of animal skin. Then he brought out a parchment containing maxims of the earliest peoples transcribed from their stone tablets, including also the precept regarding marriage.

[7] When we had seen these records and others from very early antiquity, the angel said, "It is now time for us to go."

Then our host went out into the garden and took some sprigs from a tree, and, tying them into a bundle, he presented them, saying, "These sprigs come from a tree native or peculiar to our heaven, whose sap has the fragrance of balsam."

We took away this bundle of sprigs with us and descended by a way, over to the east, which was not guarded. And behold, the sprigs turned into shiny bronze and their very tips into gold, as a memento that we had been among a people of the third age, which is named after copper or bronze.

  
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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.

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