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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

 

True Christian Religion #664

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664. The fourth experience.

I once looked out into the spiritual world towards the right, and observed some of the elect 1 talking to one another. I went up to them and said: 'I saw you from a distance, and you had a sphere of heavenly light around you. I knew from this that you belong to the people who are called in the Word the elect.' So I came to you to hear what is the heavenly matter you are talking about.'

'Why,' they replied, 'do you call us "the elect"?'

'Because,' I answered, 'in the world, where I am in the body, they know no better than that the elect in the Word means those who, either before they were born or after birth, were chosen by God and predestined for heaven. To them alone is faith given as a token of their election. The remainder are disapproved and left to themselves, to take whatever way they like to hell. Yet I know that no election takes place before birth or after it, but that all are chosen and predestined for heaven, because all are called. After death the Lord chooses those who have lived good lives and held a proper belief, and these only after they have been examined. I have been permitted to know that this is so by much experience. Since I saw that you had a sphere of heavenly light encircling your heads, I perceived that you belong to the elect who are being prepared for heaven.'

'What you report,' they replied, 'is something unheard of. Is there anyone who does not know that there is no person born who is not called to heaven, and that after death those of them are chosen who have believed in the Lord and have lived in accordance with His commandments? To acknowledge any other election would be to accuse the Lord not only of inability to save, but also of injustice.'

Footnotes:

1. Or 'the chosen'.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #151

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151. 9. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who are born eunuchs or who have been made eunuchs. 1 By people who are born eunuchs we mean chiefly people in whom the outmost impulse of love is missing from birth. And because the highest and intermediate impulses then lack a foundation on which to rest, neither do these impulses develop. Or if they do, the people are not concerned with distinguishing between chaste and unchaste states, since either one is a matter of indifference to them. The diversities among people like this, however, are many.

The case with people who have been made eunuchs is almost the same, as with some who are born eunuchs; only that having become eunuchs, and being such, whether men or women, therefore they cannot help but regard conjugial love as a fantasy and its delights as fairy tales. If anything of the inclination remains in them, it becomes silent, which is neither chaste nor unchaste; and being neither, it is incapable of being classed in one category or the other.

Footnotes:

1. Cf. Matthew 19:12.

  
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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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