Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
516. All teaching there is from doctrine drawn from the Word, and not
from the Word apart from doctrine. Christians are taught from
heavenly doctrine, which is in entire agreement with the internal
sense of the Word. All others, as the Mohammedans and heathen, are
taught from doctrines suited to their apprehension, which differ from
heavenly doctrine only in this, that spiritual life is taught by
means of moral life in harmony with the good tenets of their religion
from which they had derived their life in the world.
517. Instruction in the heavens differs from instruction on earth in
that knowledges are not committed to memory, but to life; for the
memory of spirits is in their life, for they receive and imbibe
everything that is in harmony with their life, and do not receive,
still less imbibe, what is not in harmony with it; for spirits are
affections, and are therefore in a human form that is similar to
their affections. [2] Being such they are constantly animated by an
affection for truth that looks to the uses of life; for the Lord
provides for everyone's loving the uses suited to his genius; and
that love is exalted by the hope of becoming an angel. And as all the
uses of heaven have relation to the general use, which is the good of
the Lord's kingdom, which in heaven is the fatherland, and as all
special and particular uses are to be valued in proportion as they
more closely and fully have regard to that general use, so all of
these special and particular uses, which are innumerable, are good
and heavenly; therefore in everyone an affection for truth is so
conjoined with an affection for use that the two make one; and
thereby truth is so implanted in use that the truths they acquire are
truths of use. In this way are angelic spirits taught and prepared
for heaven. [3] An affection for truth that is suited to the use is
insinuated by various means, most of which are unknown in the world;
chiefly by representatives of uses which in the spiritual world are
exhibited in a thousand ways, and with such delights and pleasures
that they permeate the spirit from the interiors of its mind to the
exteriors of its body, and thus affect the whole; and in consequence
the spirit becomes as it were his use; and therefore when he comes
into his society, into which he is initiated by instruction, he is in
his life by being in his use.{1} From all this it is clear that
knowledges, which are external truths, do not bring any one into
heaven; but the life itself, which is a life of uses implanted by
means of knowledges.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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