Spiritual Life and the Word of GodSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Spiritual Life and the Word of God
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Spiritual life; Ten commandments; Word of God (Christian theology)
This commandment was given because honor to parents represented and thus
signified love to the Lord and love toward the church, for "father" in
the heavenly sense, that is, the Heavenly Father, is the Lord; and
"mother" in the heavenly sense, that is, the heavenly mother, is the
church; "honor" signifies good of love; and "length of days," which such
will have, signifies the happiness of eternal life. So is this
commandment understood in heaven, where no father but the Lord is known,
and no mother but the kingdom of the Lord, which is also the church.
For the Lord gives life from Himself, and through the church He gives
nourishment. That in the heavenly sense no father in the world can be
meant, and indeed, when man is in a heavenly idea, can be mentioned, the
Lord teaches in Matthew:
"Call no man your father on earth; for one is your Father who is in the
heavens" (xxiii. 9).
That "Father" signifies the Lord in relation to Divine good may be seen
in the Apocalypse Explained (n. 32, 200, 254, 297). That "mother"
signifies the Lord's kingdom, the church, and Divine truth, may be seen
in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 289, 2691, 2717, 3703, 5581, 8897); that
"length of days" signifies the happiness of eternal life (n. 8898); and
the "honor" signifies good of love (n. 8897), and Apocalypse Explained
(n. 228, 345). All this makes clear that the third and fourth
commandments involve arcana relating to the Lord, namely, acknowledgment
and confession of His Divine, and worship of Him from good of love.
(A.E., n. 966.)
V. The Fifth Commandment
The fifth commandment is, "Thou shalt not steal." By "thefts" both open
thefts and those not open are meant, such as unlawful usury and gains,
which are effected by fraud and craft under various pretenses to make
them appear lawful, or so done clandestinely as not to appear at all.
Such gains are commonly made by higher and lower managers of the goods
of others, by merchants, also by judges who sell judgments and thus make
justice purchasable. These and many other things are thefts that must
be abstained from and shunned, and finally renounced as sins against
God, because they are against the Divine laws that are in the Word and
against this law, which is one among the fundamental laws of all
religions in the whole globe. For these ten commandments are
universals, given to the end that in living from these a man may live
from religion, since by a life from religion man is conjoined with
heaven, while a life according to these from obedience to civil and
moral law conjoins man with the world and not with heaven, and to be
conjoined with the world and not with heaven is to conjoined with hell.
(A.E., n. 967.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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