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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 #796

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796. Luther, Melanchthon and Calvin in the spiritual world.

I have held many conversations with these three leaders, who were the reformers of the Christian church, and thus I learned what has been the condition in which they lived from the beginning down to the present day. As for Luther, as soon as he arrived in the spiritual world, he was at once a keen propagator and defender of his dogmas, and as the numbers of his supporters coming from the earth increased, so did his zeal for those dogmas. He was given a house there similar to the one he had lived in while in the bodily life at Eisleben. In the middle of this he set up a slightly raised platform, where he took his seat. The door was open to admit listeners, whom he arranged in rows, the strongest supporters nearest to him, and those less favourable behind him. Then he spoke continuously, from time to time allowing questions, in order to be able to begin again by picking up the thread of the discourse he had just finished.

[2] As a result of this general support he finally adopted a false conviction; this is so potent in the spiritual world that no one can resist it or speak against what it prescribes. But because this was a kind of incantation as used by the ancients, he was forbidden to go on talking seriously on the basis of that conviction, and after that he taught as before from memory and at the same time the use of his understanding. A conviction of this sort which is a kind of incantation wells up from self-love. This ends up by making a person so disposed that, when anyone contradicts him, he not only attacks the subject under debate, but the other person himself.

[3] He lived like this up to the Last judgment, which took place in the spiritual world in 1757. A year later he was moved from his first house to another, at the same time moving into a different state. On hearing that I, although in the natural world, spoke with those who were in the spiritual world, he was one of a number who came to see me. After some questions had been put and answered, he perceived that the present time is the end of the former church and the beginning of the new church foretold by Daniel's prophecy, and also by the Lord Himself in the Gospels. He also grasped that it is this new church which is meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation, and by the everlasting gospel which the angel flying in the midst of heaven announced to dwellers upon earth (Revelation 14:6). He became very indignant and abused me; but as he grasped that there was a new heaven, which was and is being made from those who acknowledge the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth, as His words in Matthew 28:18 state, and noticing that the size of his audience grew less day by day, he stopped being abusive, and then came closer to me and began to talk with me in a more intimate fashion. Once he had been convinced that he had drawn his principal dogma about justification by faith alone not from the Word, but from his own intelligence, he allowed himself to be instructed about the Lord, charity, true faith, free will and so on to redemption, all of this from no source but the Word. Finally when he had been convinced, he began to take a favourable view, and more and more to convince himself of the truths on which the new church is being founded.

[4] At this time he was with me daily, and then, whenever he recalled as being those truths, he began to laugh at his previous dogmas, as being something completely opposite to what the Word says. I heard him say: 'You should not be surprised that I seized upon faith alone as justifying, shut off charity from its spiritual essence and also took away from people all free will in spiritual matters, not to mention other things which hang like hooks from a chain on faith alone, once it is accepted. My aim was to make a split with the Roman Catholics, and there was no other way to achieve and accomplish this aim. I am not surprised therefore that I myself went astray, but I am surprised that one madman could drive so many others mad.' He glanced round here at some dogmatic writers who had been famous in his time, faithfully following his teaching, for failing to see the contradictions contained in Holy Scripture, evident though they were.

[5] The examining angels told me that this leader was in a better position to be converted than many others who had convinced themselves of justification by faith alone, because in childhood, before he started making the reformation, he had absorbed the dogma of the preeminence of charity. This was why both in his writings and his sermons he gave excellent teaching about charity. It is to be deduced from these facts that his belief in justification was implanted in his external natural man, not rooted in his internal spiritual man. The case is quite different with those who while young convince themselves that there is no spirituality in charity; and this also happens automatically, when justification by faith alone is well grounded upon arguments.

[6] I talked with the prince of Saxony with whom Luther had been in the world. He told me how he had often criticised him, in particular for separating charity from faith, and declaring faith and not charity as the means to salvation, when Holy Scripture not only links them as the two universal means to salvation, but Paul too puts charity above faith, saying that there are three things, faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity (1 Corinthians 13:13). Luther, however, replied every time that he could do no other because of the Roman Catholics. This prince is among the blessed.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #155

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155. 13. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless a love for the truly conjugial life is present and remains in them. There is no ascribing of chastity to people like this, because after a vow of perpetual celibacy, they cast aside conjugial love, and yet chastity is applicable only to this love.

Moreover, there is still an attraction to the opposite sex in them from creation and so from birth, and when this is restrained and suppressed, it inevitably happens that the attraction turns into a feeling of warmth and in some cases into a state of heat, which, rising from the body into the spirit, torments it and in some people corrupts it. It can happen as well that the spirit thus corrupted in turn corrupts matters of religion and casts them down from their proper internal abode, where they are held in reverence, to an external abode, where they become merely words and gestures.

Because of this, the Lord has therefore provided that celibacy of this kind occur only among people who have an external worship, which they are in because they do not go to the Lord or read the Word. In their case, eternal life is not put in peril by conditions of celibacy imposed along with a vow of chastity, as it would be in the case of people who have an internal worship.

In addition, many of these people do not enter that kind of life of their own free will, but some do so before they reach a state of freedom arising from reason, and some do so as a result of seductive influences from the world.

[2] Among people who adopt that way of life in order to free their minds from the world so as to have time for Divine worship, only those are chaste in whom a love for the truly conjugial life either was present before the celibate state or came into being afterwards and then remained, because a love for the truly conjugial life is the love to which chastity applies.

For this reason, too, after death, all monastics are finally released from their vows and allowed to go free, in order that they may be led to choose either married or unmarried life according to the inner prayers and longings of their love. If they then choose to enter married life, those who have at the same time loved the spiritual things of worship are allowed to marry in heaven. But those who choose an unmarried life are sent to others like themselves, who live in the outskirts of heaven.

[3] With respect to women who devoted themselves to a life of piety, giving themselves up to Divine worship and thus withdrawing themselves from the illusions of the world and the lusts of the flesh, and who had therefore taken a vow of perpetual virginity, I have asked angels whether they are received into heaven, and whether they become first among the happy there, according to their belief. But the angels replied that they are indeed received, but when they feel the atmosphere of conjugial love there, they become unhappy and distressed. And then, the angels said, they leave or are sent away, some of them going on their own, some after asking permission, and some by being told to go. Moreover, when they are outside the heaven they had been in, a way opens before them leading to companions who had lived in a similar state of life in the world. And then they become no longer distressed but cheerful, and they rejoice with one another.

  
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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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