776. Someone who does not know the symbolic meanings of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, thyine wood, ¹ ivory vessels, precious wood, bronze, iron, marble, and vessels in general, cannot but wonder that these things are listed, and may think they are simply words piled up to enhance the matter. But it can be seen from our explanations that not one single word is without meaning, and that the words constitute a full description of the fact that those Roman Catholics who have confirmed themselves in the dogmas of that religion possess not one single truth, and if not one single truth, then not one single good that is a good of the church.

[2] I have spoken with Roman Catholics who have confirmed themselves in that religion, even with some who were legates at the Council of Nicaea, ² the Lateran Council, ³ and the Council of Trent, ⁴ and to begin with they believed that what they had decided were pure and sacred truths. After being instructed, however, and being granted then an enlightenment from heaven, they confessed that they did not see one truth. But because they had confirmed themselves in their decrees more than others, following their state of enlightenment - which they themselves extinguished - they returned to their prior faith.

They believed especially that what they had decreed regarding baptism and justification were truths. Yet when they were still in a state of enlightenment, they saw, and from that enlightened sight confessed, that no one derives original sin from Adam, but from the successive generations of his own ancestry, and that this is not taken away in baptism by the imputation and application of the Lord's merit; that an imputation and application of the Lord's merit is a man-made fiction, because it is impossible; and that faith is never infused into any infant at its mother's breast, because faith requires thought.

[3] They saw that baptism is a still a holy sacrament, because it serves as a sign and reminder that a person can be regenerated by the Lord through truths from the Word - as a sign for heaven, and a reminder for the person - and that by baptism a person is introduced into the church, as by crossing the Jordan the children of Israel were introduced into the land of Canaan, and as the inhabitants of Jerusalem were prepared to receive the Lord by the baptism of John. For without that sign in heaven in the sight of angels, the Jews could not have continued and gone on living at the coming of Jehovah, that is, of the Lord in the flesh.

Similar to this was what they had decreed regarding justification.

That no imputation of the Lord's merit occurs or is possible may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 18.

Also, that the evil heredity called original sin is derived not from Adam, but from the successive generations of a person's ancestry - this may be seen in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence 277. What Adam means in the Word may be seen in no. 241 of that same work.

脚注:

772. 18:12 "Merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these things because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths to which these things correspond.

Their merchandise symbolizes just the things listed here, for we know that the Roman Catholic hierarchy possesses gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls in abundance, and that they have acquired them by the sanctities of their religion which they have presented as Divine and sacred.

Those coming from Babylon had these things before the Last Judgment, for it was then granted them to form for themselves apparent heavens and by various arts to procure for themselves such things from heaven, indeed to fill their storerooms with them as they did in the world. However, after the Last Judgment, when their counterfeit heavens were destroyed, all of these were then reduced to dust and ash and were carried away by an east wind and strewn over their hells as a profane dust. But on this subject, read what we witnessed and described in the short work, The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed (London, 1758).

[2] Since the overthrow of that religion and its adherents' being cast down into hell, they are in such a wretched state that they do not know what gold, silver, precious stones and pearls are. That is because gold, silver and precious stones correspond to spiritual goods and truths, and pearls to concepts of these; and since they do not have any of these truths and goods, nor any concepts of them, but instead of them have evils and falsities and concepts of these, they cannot have what they had before, but only such things as correspond, which are cheap and ugly-colored materials. They also have some seashells, and they set their heart on them, as they did previously on the valuables listed above.

[3] It should be known that the spiritual world contains everything found in the natural world, the only difference being that everything in the spiritual world is a correspondent form, for these forms correspond to the interior qualities of the inhabitants, being splendid and magnificent in the case of people governed by wisdom gained from Divine truths and goods from the Lord through the Word, and being the opposite in the case of those governed by irrational thinking arising from falsities and evils.

This correspondence from creation exists when the spiritual component of the mind descends into the sensory component of the body. Consequently, in the spiritual world everyone knows the character of another when he enters the other's own room.

[4] It can be seen from this that no one's buying their merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls means symbolically that they no longer have these material gains, because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths, or any concepts of these, to which these things correspond.

To be shown that gold by correspondence symbolizes goodness, and silver truth, see nos. 211, 726 above. That a precious stone symbolizes spiritual truth, nos. 231, 540, 726. That pearls symbolize concepts of truth and goodness, no. 727.