PROLOGUE. At this day nothing else than the self-evidencing reason of love will reestablish [the church], because they have fallen. The church of this day errs concerning God; it errs concerning faith; it errs concerning charity; and it knows nothing of eternal life; thus it is in thick darkness. The whole of religion is founded upon the idea of God; and that the former follows according to the latter. This church is that to which all churches, from the first in order, have aimed; and concerning which Daniel prophesied. The New Church could not be established before the Last Judgment was accomplished, is for the reason that holy things should not be profaned. Then it was promised that the spiritual sense of the Word would be revealed, also that the Lord alone is the Word, whose Coming then takes place. The reason that few at this day have religion is: (1) It is not known concerning the Lord that He is the Only God, in Person and Essence, in whom is the Trinity; when nevertheless all religion is founded upon the knowledge of God and adoration and worship of Him: (2) It is not known that faith is nothing else than truth, and it is not known whether that which they call faith is truth or not: (3) It is not known what charity is nor what evil and good are: (4) It is not known what eternal life is. In the degree in which the truths of life become of life, in that degree the truths of faith become of faith and not the least more or less. Some things are of knowledge and not of faith.
IN THIS WORK IS CONTAINED THE WHOLE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW CHURCH WHICH IS MEANT BY THE "NEW JERUSALEM" IN THE APOCALYPSE.
I. GOD. SUMMARY. [I. There Is One God. II. This One God Is the Esse Itself, Which Is Jehovah. III. This God Himself Is from Eternity; and therefore Is Eternity itself. IV. God, Because He Is Esse Itself, and Is from Eternity, Is the Creator of the Universe. V. This Only God Is Love Itself, and Wisdom Itself; thus Life Itself. VI. He Created the Universe from the Divine Love through the Divine Wisdom, or Which Is the Same, from the Divine Good through the Divine Truth. VII. The Creation of the Universe with Him Had for an End an Angelic Heaven from the Human Race: VIII. Consequently the Communication and Conjunction of His Love and His Wisdom with Men and Angels, and from It Their Blessedness and Felicity to Eternity. IX. This End Was in God the Creator from Eternity and Is to Eternity, and thence the Preservation of the Created Universe Is from Him. X. God through His Divine Proceeding Is Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience.-(Apoc. Rev., n. 31.)] 3-1
CHAPTER I THE UNITY OF GOD; OR, THERE IS ONE GOD. 1. The highest and inmost of all the doctrinals of the church, and hence the universal of them all, is the knowledge and acknowledgment that God is one. 2. Unless there were one God, the universe could not have been created and preserved. 3. In the man who does not acknowledge God there is no church, and thus no heaven. 4. In the man who does not acknowledge one God, but several, nothing of the church coheres together. 5. There is a universal influx from God, and out of the angelic heaven, into the soul of man, that there is a God, and that He is one. 6. Human reason, if it will, can perceive from many things in the world that there is a God, and also that He is one. 7. Hence it is, that in the whole world, there is no nation, which has religion and sound reason, that does not acknowledge and confess one God. 8. The Sacred Scripture, and hence the doctrines of the churches in the Christian world, teach that there is one God. 9. But as to the quality of that one God, peoples and nations have differed, and still differ. 10. They have differed, and still differ, concerning God and His unity, arises from many causes.
CHAPTER II. THAT ONE GOD Is ESSE ITSELF, WHICH Is JEHOVAH; OR, OF THE ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE OF GOD IN HIMSELF. 1. That one God is called "Jehovah" from Esse, thus from this circumstance, that it is He "Who is, was, and is to come;" or, what is the same thing, that He is "the First and the Last, the Beginning and the Ending, the Alpha and the Omega" (Rev. i. 8, 11; xxii. 13; Isa. xliv. 6). 2. Consequently, the one and only God is Essence, Substance, and Form; and men and angels are spiritual essences, substances, and forms, or images and likenesses, as far as they derive [this] from that only Divine. 3. This Divine Esse is Esse in itself. 4. The Divine Esse in itself is, at the same time, the Divine Existere in itself. 5. The Divine Esse and Existere in itself, cannot produce another Divine which is Esse and Existere in itself. 6. Consequently, another God of the same Essence with the one God is not possible. 7. A plurality of gods in ancient times, and partly also in modern times, has derived its origin from no other source than that of not understanding the Divine Essence.
CHAPTER III. THE INFINITY OF GOD. 1. God, since He was before the world, and thus before there were spaces and times, is infinite. 2. God, since He is and exists in Himself, and all things in the world are and exist from Him, is infinite. 3. Since God, after the world was made, is in space without space, and in time without time, is infinite. 4. Since God is the all in all things of the world, and, in particular, the all in all things of heaven and the church, is infinite. 5. The infinity of God, by way of correspondence with spaces, is called Immensity; and that His infinity, by way of correspondence with times, is called Eternity. 6. Although the Immensity of God is by way of correspondence with spaces, and His Eternity by way of correspondence with times, still there is nothing of space in His Immensity, and nothing of time in His Eternity. 7. By the Immensity of God is meant His Divinity as to Esse; and by the Eternity of God His Divinity as to Existere; both in itself, or in Himself. 8. Every created thing is finite; and the infinite is in finite things as in its receptacles. 9. Angels and men, because they are created and hence finite, cannot comprehend the Infinity of God, neither His Immensity and Eternity, such as they are in themselves. 10. Nevertheless, when enlightened by God, they can see, as through lattice-work, that God is Infinite. 11. An image of the infinite is also impressed on varieties and propagations in the world; on varieties, in that there is not one thing precisely like another; and on propagations, both animate and inanimate, in that the multiplication of one seed is to infinity, and prolification to eternity; besides many other things. 6-1 (3) There are certain forms-as the squaring of the circle, the hyperbola, series of numbers which tend to the infinite; the diversities of the human countenance, also of minds; also the angelic heaven of light can be infinitely increased; from the starry heaven, etc. 12. In the degree, and according to the manner, in which man and angel acknowledge the Unity and Infinity of God; in the same degree, and in the same manner, if he lives well, he becomes a receptacle and image of God. 13. It is vain to think what was before the world, also what is outside the world; since before the world there was no time, and outside the world there is no space. 6-2 14. A man from thought concerning these things may fall into delirium, unless he is to a certain extent withdrawn by God from the idea of space and time, which inheres in each and all things of human thought, and adheres to angelic thought.
CHAPTER IV. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE BY THE ONE AND INFINITE GOD. 7-1 1. No one can conceive in idea, and perceive that God created the universe, unless he knows first something concerning the spiritual world and its sun, and also concerning the correspondence, and thence the conjunction, of spiritual things with natural. 2. There are two worlds; a spiritual world where spirits and angels are; and a natural world where men are. 3. There is a sun in the spiritual world, and another in the natural world; and the spiritual world has existed and subsists from its sun, and the natural world from its sun. 4. The sun of the spiritual world is pure love, from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it, and the sun of the natural world is pure fire. 5. All that proceeds from the sun of the spiritual world is alive; and all that proceeds from the sun of the natural world is dead. 6. Hence everything which proceeds from the sun of the spiritual world is spiritual; and everything which proceeds from the sun of the natural world is natural. 7. Jehovah God, through the sun, in the midst of which He is, created the spiritual world; and mediately through this, He created the natural world. 8. Spiritual things are substantial, and natural things are material; and the latter have existed and subsist from the former, like posterior from prior, or exterior from interior. 9. Hence all things which are in the spiritual world are also in the natural world, and vice versa, with a difference of perfection. 10. The natural, since it originates from the spiritual, as the material from the substantial is everywhere together [with the spiritual]; and thus the spiritual exercises its activities and performs its functions through the natural. 11. In the spiritual world an idea of creation perpetually exists; since all things which there exist and are made are created in a moment by Jehovah God. 12. Around every angel in heaven there is an idea of creation. 7-2 13. There is a correspondence between those things which are of the spiritual world and those which are of the natural world, and by correspondence conjunction of both. 14. From these things it is evident, that the creation of the universe by the one and infinite God can in no wise be conceived without a previous knowledge of the spiritual world and its sun, and of correspondence; and therefore hypotheses have been put forth concerning the creation of the universe, founded upon naturalism, which are foolish.
CHAPTER V. THE DIVINE LOVE AND THE DIVINE WISDOM IN GOD. 1. Love and Wisdom are the two essentials and universals of life; Love, the Esse of life, and Wisdom, the Existere of life from that Esse. 2. God is Love itself and Wisdom itself because He is Esse itself and Existere itself in Himself. 3. Unless God were Love itself and Wisdom itself, there would be nothing of love and nothing of wisdom with the angels in heaven, and with men in the world. 4. So far as angels and men are united to God by love and wisdom, so far they are in true love and true wisdom. 5. Two things, namely, heat and light, proceed from Jehovah God through the sun in the midst of which He is; and the heat thence proceeding is love, and the light wisdom. 6. The light thence proceeding is the splendor of love, which in the Word is meant by "glory." 7. That light is life itself. 8. Angels and men are so far alive as they are in wisdom from love from God. 9. It is the same whether it be said, that God is Good itself and Truth itself, or Love itself and Wisdom itself; since all good is of love and all truth is of wisdom. 10. Love and wisdom are inseparable and indivisible; likewise good and truth; wherefore such as the love is with angels and men, such is the wisdom with them; or, what is the same, such as the good is, such is the truth, but not contrariwise.
CHAPTER VI. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE BY THE ONE AND INFINITE GOD, FROM THE DIVINE LOVE THROUGH THE DIVINE WISDOM. 1. Enlightened reason may see, that the first origin of all things of the world is Love, and that the world is created out of it through Wisdom. Hence it is, and from no other cause, that the world, from its firsts to its ultimates, is a work cohering to eternity. 2. The world is created out of Love through Wisdom, thus through the sun, which is pure Love, in the midst of which is Jehovah God, can be seen from the correspondence of love with heat, and of wisdom with light. By these two, namely, heat and light, the world subsists, and every year all things are created upon its surface; and if these two were withdrawn, the world would fall into chaos, and thus into nothing. 3. There are three things which follow in order, and which proceed in inseparable consort, namely, love, wisdom, and use. 4. Love through wisdom exists and subsists in use. 5. These three are in God, and these three proceed from God. 6. The created universe consists of infinite receptacles of these three. 7. Because love and wisdom exist and subsist in use; the created universe is a receptacle of uses, which, from their origin, are infinite. 8. Since all good is from God, and good and use are one, and since the created universe is the fulness of uses in forms, it follows that the created universe is the fulness of God. 9. Creation was effected from the Divine Love through the Divine Wisdom, is meant by these words in John:- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him-and the world was made by Him (i. 1, 3, 10). By "God" is there meant the Divine Good of Love; and by the Word, which also was God, the Divine Truth of Wisdom. 10. Evils, or evil uses, did not exist until after creation.
CHAPTER VII. THE END ITSELF OF CREATION; IT IS AN ANGELIC HEAVEN FROM THE HUMAN RACE. 1. In the created world there are perpetual progressions of ends; from first ends, through mediate ends, to ultimate ends. 2. The first ends are of love, or relations to love; mediate ends are of wisdom, or relations to wisdom; ultimate ends are of use, or relations to use. These things are so, because all things which are infinite in God and from God are of love, wisdom, and use. 3. These progressions of ends proceed from firsts to ultimates, and return from ultimates to firsts, and they proceed and return by periods which are called the circles of things. 4. These progressions of ends are more or less universal, and they are the aggregate of particular ends. 5. The most universal end, which is the end of ends, is in God; and it proceeds from God, from the firsts of the spiritual world to the ultimates of the natural world; and from these ultimates it returns to those firsts, and thus to God. 6. This most universal end, or that end of ends from God, is an angelic heaven from the human race. 7. That most universal end is the complex of all ends, and of their progressions in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural. 8. 10-1 That most universal end is the inmost, and, as it were, the life and soul, the force and endeavor, in all and each created thing. 9. Thence there is a continued connection of all things in the created universe, from firsts to ultimates, and from ultimates to firsts. 10. From this end implanted in created things, in general and in particular, is the preservation of the universe.
On the Other Hand. 1. Love is spiritual conjunction. 2. True love cannot be quiescent in itself, and be restrained within its own limits, but it wills to go forth and embrace others with love. 3. True love wills to be conjoined to others, and to communicate with them, and to give of its own. 4. True love wills to dwell in others, and in itself from others. 5. The Divine Love, which is Love itself, and God Himself, wills that it may be in a subject which is His image and likeness; consequently He wills to be in man, and man to be in Him. 6. In order that this may be effected, it follows from the very essence of Love, which is in God, and hence from an urgent cause, that the universe must needs be created by God, in which are earths, and upon them men, and in the men minds and souls, with which the Divine Love can be conjoined. 7. Therefore all things which are created regard man as the end. 8. Since the angelic heaven is formed from men, from their spirits and souls, all things which are created regard the angelic heaven as the end. 9. The angelic heaven is the habitation itself of God with men, and of men with God. 10. Eternal beatitudes, felicities, and delights together, are the ends of creation, because they are of love. 11. This end is the inmost; thus as it were, the life and soul, and as force and endeavor in each and all created things. 12. That end is God in them. 13. This end implanted in created things, in general and in particular, causes the universe to be preserved in the created state, in so far as the ends of an opposite love do not obstruct and destroy. 14. God from His Divine Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience, continually provides lest opposite ends from opposite loves should prevail, and the work of creation be ruined even to destruction. 15. Preservation is perpetual creation, as subsistence is perpetual existence.
CHAPTER VIII. THE OMNIPOTENCE, OMNISCIENCE, AND OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD. 1. The Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence of God do not fall within the human understanding; because the Omnipotence of God is Infinite Power, the Omniscience of God is Infinite Wisdom, and the Omnipresence of God is Infinite Presence, in all things which have proceeded, and which do proceed, from Him; and the Divine Infinite does not fall within the finite understanding. 12-1 2. That God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, is acknowledged without a rational investigation; since this flows in from God into the higher region of the human mind and thence into an acknowledgment with all who have religion and sound reason. That it also flows in with those who have no religion; but with them there is no reception, and hence no acknowledgment. 3. That God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, man can confirm from innumerable things which are of reason, and at the same time of religion, as from the following:- 4. First.-God alone is and exists in Himself; and every other being and every other thing exists from Him. 5. Second.-God alone loves, is wise, and lives and acts from Himself; and every other being and every other thing does so from Him. 6. Third.-God alone has power from Himself; and every other being and every other thing has power from Him. 7. Consequently, God is the Soul of the whole; from whom all beings and all things are, live, and move. 8. Unless each and all things in the world and in heaven, relate to the One who is, lives, and has power from Himself, the universe would be dissipated in a moment. 9. Hence the universe created by God is the fulness of God; wherefore He Himself said that:- He Is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, who was, is, and will be, the Omnipotent (Apoc. 1. 8, 11). 10. The preservation of the universe, which is perpetual creation, is a full testimony that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. 11. Opposites, which are evils, are not removed because God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent; since evils are outside of subjects, and outside created things, and do not penetrate to the Divine things which are within. 12. Evils, by the Divine Providence, which also is universal in the most particular things, are more and more removed from the interiors, and are cast out to the exteriors, and thus alienated and separated, lest they should inflict any injury on things internal, which are from the Divine. 12-2
II. GOD THE REDEEMER JESUS CHRIST, AND REDEMPTION. [GOD THE REDEEMER JESUS CHRIST.] SUMMARY. [I. In God There Is Love and Wisdom, or Divine Good and Divine Truth. II. He Descended as to the Divine Truth. III. That Truth Is the Word. IV. What Is the Holy Spirit and the Power of the Most High. V. The Human of the Lord Is the Son of God. VI. The State of the Lord's Exinanition while in the World. VII. The Unition of the Divine Truth and Good in the Human. VIII. After the Unition, He Returned to the Father. IX. He Successively Glorified Himself X. The Unition Is Like that of the Soul and the Body.]
CHAPTER I IN JEHOVAH GOD THERE ARE TWO THINGS OF THE SAME ESSENCE, DIVINE LOVE, AND DIVINE WISDOM; OR, DIVINE GOOD, AND DIVINE TRUTH. 1. Universally and singly, all things in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, relate to love and wisdom, or to good and truth; since God, the Creator and the Establisher of the universe, is Love itself, and Wisdom itself, or Good itself, and Truth itself:- 2. Altogether as, universally and singly, all things in man relate to the will and the understanding; since the will is the receptacle of good or love, and the understanding the receptacle of wisdom and truth. 3. And altogether as all things of the universe, as to existence and subsistence, have relation to heat and light; and heat in the spiritual world, in its essence, is love, and light there, in its essence, is wisdom; and heat and light in the natural world correspond to love and wisdom in the spiritual world. 4. Hence it is that all things in the church relate to charity and faith; since charity is good, and faith is truth. 5. Therefore, in the prophetic Word there are two expressions; of which one relates to good, and the other to truth; and thus to Jehovah God, who is Good itself, and Truth itself. 6. In the Word of the Old Testament "Jehovah" signifies the Divine Esse, which is the Divine Good, and "God" the Divine Existere, which is the Divine Truth; and "Jehovah God" signifies both; likewise "Jesus Christ." 7. Good is good, and truth is truth, according to the quantity and quality of their conjunction. 8. Good exists through truth; consequently truth is the form of good, and hence the quality of good.
CHAPTER II. JEHOVAH GOD DESCENDED AS TO THE DIVINE WISDOM, OR THE DIVINE TRUTH, AND ASSUMED THE HUMAN IN THE VIRGIN MARY. 1. Jehovah God assumed the Human that in the fulness of time He might become the Redeemer and Saviour. 2. He became the Redeemer and Saviour by the Justice, which, as to the Human, He then put on. 3. He could not have become Justice, and thus the Redeemer and Saviour, as to the Human, except by Divine Truth: since by the Divine Truth, from the beginning, all things were made which were made. 4. The Divine Truth could combat against the hells, and could be tempted, blasphemed, reproached, and suffer. 5. But not the Divine Good, neither God, except in the Human, conceived and born according to Divine Order. 6. Jehovah God therefore descended as to the Divine Truth, and assumed the Human. 7. This is according to the Sacred Scripture, and according to reason enlightened there and from it.
CHAPTER III. THIS DIVINE TRUTH IS MEANT BY "THE WORD WHICH WAS MADE FLESH" (John i.). 16-1 1. The Word, in the Sacred Scripture, signifies various things; as that it signifies a thing which really exists; also the thought of the mind, and thence speech. 2. In the first place it signifies everything which exists and proceeds from the mouth of God; thus the Divine Truth; and hence the Sacred Scripture, since the Divine Truth is there in its essence and its form. It is on this account that the Sacred Scripture is called in one term "The Word." 3. "The Ten Words" of the Decalogue signify all Divine truths in a summary. 4. Hence the "Word" signifies the Lord the Redeemer and Saviour, since all things there are from Him: thus Himself. 5. From these things it can be seen, that by the "Word," which was "in the beginning with God, and which was God," and which "was with God before the world," is meant the Divine Truth, which was before creation in Jehovah, and after creation from Jehovah; and lastly the Divine Human, which Jehovah assumed in time; for it is said that "the Word was made flesh," that is, Man. 6. The hypostatic Word is nothing else than Divine Truth.
CHAPTER IV. THE "HOLY SPIRIT," WHICH CAME UPON MARY, SIGNIFIES THE DIVINE TRUTH; AND THE "POWER OF THE MOST HIGH," WHICH OVERSHADOWED HER, SIGNIFIES THE DIVINE GOOD FROM WHICH THAT EXISTS. 1. The Holy Spirit is the Divine proceeding, thus the Divine Truth, teaching, reforming, regenerating, and vivifying. 2. This is the Divine Truth which Jehovah God spoke by the prophets, and which the Lord Himself spoke from His own mouth, while He was in the world. 3. This Divine Truth, which also is the Word, was in the Lord by nativity from conception; and afterwards it was beyond all measure, that is, it was infinitely increased; which is meant by the Spirit of Jehovah resting upon Him. 4. The Spirit of Jehovah is called the "Holy Spirit;" since "holy" in the Word is predicated of Divine Truth. Hence it is that the Human of the Lord born of Mary is called "Holy" (Luke i. [35]); and the Lord Himself is called "Alone Holy" (Apoc. xv. 4); and others are called "holy," not from themselves, but from Him. 5. "The Most High," in the Word, is predicated of the Divine good; wherefore the "power of the Most High" signifies power proceeding from the Divine good. 6. Therefore these two things, "the Holy Spirit coming upon her," and "the power of the Most High overshadowing her," signify both, namely, Divine Truth and Divine Good,- this forming the soul, and that the body,-and communication. 7. Consequently, that these two in the Lord recently born were distinct, as are soul and body, but were afterwards united. 8. In like manner as is done in man, who is born and afterwards is regenerated.
CHAPTER V. THE HUMAN OF THE LORD JEHOVAH IS "THE SON OF GOD SENT INTO THE WORLD." 1. Jehovah God sent Himself into the world whereby He assumed the Human. 2. This Human, conceived from Jehovah God, is called "the Son of God, which was sent into the world." 3. This Human is called "the Son of God," and "the Son of Man"; "the Son of God," from the Divine Truth and the Divine Good in Him, which is the Word; and "the Son of Man," from the Divine Truth and the Divine Good from Him, which is the doctrine of the church from the Word. 4. No other Son of God is meant in the Word, but He who was born in the world. 5. "A Son of God born from eternity," who is a God by Himself, is not from the Sacred Scripture; and it is also contrary to reason enlightened by God. 6. This was invented and made up by the Nicene Council, as an asylum to which those could betake themselves who wished to avoid the scandals disseminated by Arius and his followers, concerning the Human of the Lord. 7. The Primitive Church, which was called the Apostolic Church, knew nothing concerning the birth of any Son of God from eternity.
CHAPTER VI. THE LORD, SO FAR AS HE WAS IN DIVINE TRUTH, AS TO HIS HUMAN, SEPARATELY, SO FAR HE WAS IN A STATE OF EXINANITION; AND SO FAR AS HE WAS CONJOINED WITH DIVINE GOOD, SO FAR HE WAS IN A STATE OF GLORIFICATION. 1. The Lord had two states; one which was called a state of exinanition, the other of glorification. 2. The state of exinanition was also a state of humiliation before the Father; and the state of glorification was a state of unition with the Father. 3. The Lord, when He was in a state of exinanition, or of humiliation, prayed to the Father as though absent or remote; and when He was in a state of glorification, or unition, He spoke with Himself, when with the Father; altogether as with man there are states of the soul and body, before and after regeneration. 4. The Lord, when He was in Divine Truth separately, was in a state of exinanition, since that could be attacked by the hells, or by the devils there, and be reproached by men; wherefore the Lord, when He was in that separately, could be tempted and suffer. 5. But on the other hand, the Lord, when He was in Divine Good conjointly, could not be tempted and suffer by devils in hell, nor by men in the world, since that could not be approached, still less invaded. 6. The Lord, when in the world, was alternately in these two states. 7. The Lord could not otherwise have become Justice and Redemption. 8. The same takes place with the man who is regenerated by the Lord. 9. This [is to be proved] from experience, reason, and the Sacred Scripture.
CHAPTER VII. THE LORD UNITED DIVINE TRUTH WITH DIVINE GOOD, AND DIVINE GOOD WITH DIVINE TRUTH, THUS THE HUMAN WITH THE DIVINE OF THE FATHER, AND THE DIVINE OF THE FATHER WITH THE HUMAN, THROUGH TEMPTATIONS, AND FULLY BY THE PASSION OF THE CROSS. 1. The Lord in the world, admitted into Himself and underwent grievous and dreadful temptations from the hells, and at length the last of them, which was the passion of the cross. 2. The Lord in temptations combated with the hells and overcame and subjugated them. 3. By this means He reduced the hells to order, and then at the same time the heavens where the angels are, and the church where men are; since the state of one continually depends upon the state of the other. 4. The Lord also by temptations and rejections, and lastly by the passion of the cross, represented the state of the church, such as it then was, as to Divine truth, thus as to the Word. 5. The Lord by fulfilling the Word, and by temptations, and fully by the last of them, which was the passion of the cross, glorified the Human. 6. Thus He took away the universal damnation which threatened not only the Christian world, but also the whole universe, and likewise the angelic heaven. 7. This is meant by "His bearing and taking away the sins of the world." 8. He underwent temptations and rejections while He was in the state of truth separately, which was the state of His exinanition. 9. The conjunction of the spiritual man with the natural, and of the natural man with the spiritual, is effected by temptations.
CHAPTER VIII. AFTER THE UNITION WAS ACCOMPLISHED HE RETURNED INTO THE DIVINE IN WHICH HE WAS FROM ETERNITY, TOGETHER WITH AND IN THE GLORIFIED HUMAN. 1. Jehovah God from eternity had a Human such as the angels in the heavens have, but of infinite essence, thus Divine; and He had not a human such as men have on the earths. 2. Jehovah God assumed a Human such as men have on the earths, according to His own Divine order, which is, that it should be conceived, born, grow up, and successively be imbued with Divine Wisdom and Divine Love. 3. Thus He united this Human with His Divine from eternity; and thus He went forth from the Father, and returned to the Father. 4. Jehovah God in this Human, and by it, exercised justice, and made Himself the Redeemer and Saviour. 5. And by its unition with His Divine, He made Himself the Redeemer and the Saviour to eternity. 6. Jehovah God, by the union of this Human with the Divine, exalted His Omnipotence; which is meant by "sitting on the right hand of God." 7. Jehovah God in this Human is above the heavens, illuminating the universe with the light of wisdom, and inspiring into the universe the virtue of love. 8. They who approach Him as Man, and who live according to His precepts, receive these two principles freely from Him. 9. Jehovah God alone is a full Man with the angels.
CHAPTER IX. JEHOVAH GOD SUCCESSIVELY PUT OFF THE HUMAN FROM THE MOTHER, AND PUT ON THE HUMAN FROM THE FATHER; AND THUS HE MADE THAT HUMAN DIVINE 1. The soul of the offspring is from the father, and in the womb it clothes itself with the body from the substance of the mother; analogically as seed in the earth, and from the substance of the earth. 2. Hence the image of the father is implanted in the body, first obscurely, then more and more evidently, as the son applies himself to the studies and offices of the father. 3. The body of Christ, so far as it was from the substance of the mother, was not life in itself, but a recipient of life from the Divine in Him, which was Life in itself. 4. Christ, as He successively exalted the Divine Wisdom and the Divine Love in Himself, took upon Himself, the Divine Life which is Life in itself. 5. Christ, in the degree that He took upon Him life in Himself, from the Divine in Himself, in that degree He put off the human from the mother, and put on the Human from the Father. 6. Christ, by this means, made His Human Divine, and from the Son of Mary He made Himself the Son of God. 7. Jesus Christ could thus and not otherwise be in angels and men, and angels and men in Him. 8. But because Mary, His mother, afterwards represented the church, that in this respect she is to be called His mother. 9. Christ, when He was in the human of the mother, was in the state of exinanition, and could be tempted, reproached, and suffer. 10. In this state He prayed to the Father, because He was then as though absent from Him.
CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE FROM ETERNITY AND THE HUMAN IN TIME, UNITED AS SOUL AND BODY, ARE ONE PERSON, WHO IS JEHOVAH. 1. In Jesus Christ, the Divine from eternity, and the Human in time, are united as soul and body in man. 2. Unition was and is reciprocal, and thus full. 3. Consequently God and Man, that is, the Divine and the Human, are one Person. 4. All the Divine things of the Father are at the same time in the Human of the Lord. 5. Thus the Lord is the one and only God, who had all power in the heavens and on the earths from eternity, and will have to eternity. 6. He is "the First and the Last," "the Beginning and the End," "who was, who is, and who is to come," "the Alpha and the Omega," "the Almighty." 7. He is "the Father of eternity," "Jehovah our Justice," "Jehovah the Saviour and Redeemer," "Jehovah Zebaoth." 8. They who go to Him, as Jehovah and as the Father, and are united to Him, become His sons, and are called "the sons of God." 9. These are receptacles of His Divine Human.
III REDEMPTION. SUMMARY. [I. The Church Declines Successively from Good to Evil. II. The End of the Church Is when the Power of Evil and of Hell Is Over Good and of Heaven. III. In Like Manner the Church Wanders from the Internal to the External. IV. A Description of the End and Progression, in the Word. V. Then a Total Damnation Threatens. VI. The Lord Redeemed Men and Angels. VII. The Temptations of the Lord the Christ. VIII. Redemption Is Not Possible except by God Incarnate.] CHAPTER I. IN PROCESS OF TIME THE CHURCH DEPARTS FROM THE GOOD OF CHARITY, AND THEN TO FALSITIES OF FAITH, AND DIES. 1. There is a church in the heavens, and a church on the earths, and they constitute a one, like the internal and external with man. 2. The church in both worlds is together before the Lord, and appears before the angels as one man. 3. Hence the church can be compared to a man; who is at first an infant, next a youth, afterwards a man, and lastly an old man. 4. While the church is an infant, it is in the good of charity; while a youth and man it is in the truths of faith from that good; and when an old man it is in the marriage of charity and faith. 5. The church, while it is and remains such, endures to eternity; but otherwise, if it recedes from the good of charity of its infancy. 6. If the church recedes from the good of charity of its infancy, it becomes involved in thick darkness as to truths, and falls into falsities, like a blind man into a pit. 7. The four essentials of the church are,-the knowledge of God, the knowledge of the goods of charity, the knowledge of the truths of faith, and life according to them. 8. When the church recedes from charity, it also recedes from these four; and then falsities flow in concerning God, concerning charity, concerning faith, and concerning worship. 9. These flow into the primates of the church, and from them into the people, as from the head into the body. 10. There are two causes why falsities flow into the primates of the church, and flow forth from them: one is the love of ruling from the love of self; the other is intelligence from the proprium, and not from the Sacred Scripture. 11. Then from one falsity there flow forth falsities in a continuous series, and this until nothing of truth remains. 12. The Sacred Scripture, while it is applied to confirm those things, is then wholly falsified, and thus the church perishes.
CHAPTER II. THEN THE END OF THE CHURCH IS AT HAND, WHEN THE POWER OF EVIL BY FALSITIES BEGINS TO PREVAIL OVER THE POWER OF GOOD BY TRUTHS, IN THE NATURAL WORLD, AND THEN AT THE SAME TIME THE POWER OF HELL OVER THE POWER OF HEAVEN. 1. Every man after death comes into his own good, and thence truth, in which he was in the world; in like manner into his own evil, and thence falsity. 2. They who are in good and thence in truth enter into heaven; and they who are in evil and thence in falsity enter into hell. 3. They who are in good on the earths are interiorly in truths; and if in falsities, they can receive truths conformable to their good even after death. But the contrary is the case with those who are in evils. The reason is, because good and evil are of the will; and the will is the esse of man, and the understanding thence exists. 4. From the state of heaven and hell, in the spiritual world, it is known how much good prevails over evil, or evil over good, on the earths; since every man after death is gathered to his own, that is, comes into his own evil or good, and heaven and hell are from the human race. 5. This could by no means be known upon the earths, for many reasons. 6. Between heaven and hell there is an interspace, into which evil exhaling from hell ascends, and good descends from heaven; and there they meet. 7. In the midst of this interspace there is an equilibrium between good and evil. 8. From this equilibrium, it is known how much good prevails over evil, or evil over good. 9. The Lord there weighs it as in a balance. 10. This equilibrium is elevated towards heaven as evil prevails over good, and is depressed towards hell as good prevails over evil; since good from heaven depresses it, and evil from hell elevates it. 11. This equilibrium is as a footstool to the angels of heaven, in which their good terminates, and upon which it rests. 12. According to the degree in which this equilibrium is elevated, the happiness of the angels of heaven, from their goods and thence truths, is diminished. 13. When evil prevails over good on the earths, at the same time hell prevails over heaven. 14. From these things it is evident that the end of the church is at hand, when the power of evil prevails over the power of good. 15. It is called the power of good by truths, and the power of evil by falsities, because good has power by truths, and evil has power by falsities.
CHAPTER III. AS THE CHURCH WANDERS FROM GOOD TO EVIL, THUS ALSO IT WANDERS FROM INTERNAL WORSHIP TO EXTERNAL. 1. In the degree that evil increases in the church, in the same degree the man of the church becomes external. 2. In the degree that the man of the church becomes external, in the same degree he becomes double-minded; that is, evil in internals, and apparently good in externals. 3. Every man after death at length becomes such as he was in internals, but not such as he was in externals. 4. Hence also it is that the world, because it judges from externals does not know what is the state of the church; thus also, neither how the church decreases and verges to its end. 5. Every man has an internal and an external, which is called the internal and external man. 6. In the internal man the will governs, thus love, the principle of life; but in the external man the understanding governs, which either manifestly, prudently, or cunningly favors the internal. 7. If the internal man is evil and the external man good, in this he is a dissembler and a hypocrite. 8. No man is good, as to his internal man, except from the Lord.
CHAPTER IV. THE PROGRESSION OF THE CHURCH TO ITS END, AND THE END ITSELF, ARE DESCRIBED IN VERY MANY PLACES IN THE WORD. 1. The successive decrease of good and truth, and increase of evil and falsity in the church, are called in the Word "vastation" and "desolation." 2. The last state, when nothing of good and truth remains, is there called "consummation" and "cutting off." 3. The end itself of the church is the fulness (of time). 4. Similar things are likewise meant in the Word by "evening" and "night;" 5. And also by these words in the Prophets and Evangelists:- Then shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken [Matt. xxiv. 29; Isa. xlii. 10; Ezek. xxxii. 7; Joel ii. 10; ii. 31; iii. 15; Amos v. 20; viii. 9; Mark xiii. 24; Luke xxi. 25)]. 6. Then there is no longer a church, except as to name; but still this residue is there, namely, that man may know and understand truths, and do goods, if he will.
CHAPTER V. IN THE END OF THE CHURCH A TOTAL DAMNATION THREATENS MEN ON THE EARTHS AND ANGELS IN THE HEAVENS. 1. Every man is in the equilibrium which is between heaven and hell, and thence in the freedom of looking and turning himself either to heaven or to hell. 2. Every man after death comes first into this equilibrium, and thus into a similar state of life to that in which he was in the world. 3. They who in the world looked and turned themselves to heaven or to hell, in like manner look and turn themselves after death. 4. In the end of the church, when the power of evil prevails over the power of good, this equilibrium is distended and filled by the evil who depart from the world. 5. Hence this equilibrium is elevated more and more towards heaven, and according to its approach infests the angels there. 6. All they who are in this elevated equilibrium, are interiorly infernal and exteriorly moral. 7. These, because they are such, perpetually endeavor to destroy heaven, which is above them; which also they do by cunning devices from hell, with which, as to their interiors, they make a one. 8. Hence it is that in the end of the church, destruction, and hence damnation, threaten even the angels of heaven. 9. Unless judgment were then executed, no man upon the earths could be saved, nor could any angel in the heavens remain in his state of safety.
CHAPTER VI. JEHOVAH GOD, BY HIS ADVENT INTO THE WORLD, TOOK AWAY THAT TOTAL DAMNATION; AND BY THAT REDEEMED MEN ON THE EARTHS AND ANGELS IN THE HEAVENS. 1. Jehovah God Himself came into the world, to deliver men and angels from the assault and violence of hell, and thus from damnation. 2. He effected this by combats against hell, and by victories over it; and He subjugated it, reduced it to order, and subjected it to obedience to Himself. 3. After this judgment He also created, that is, formed, a new heaven, and through this a new church. 4. By these Jehovah God put Himself in the power of saving all who believe in Him, and do His precepts. 5. Thus He redeemed all in the whole world, and all in the whole heaven. 6. This is the Gospel, which He commanded should be preached throughout the whole world. 7. This is the Gospel to those who repent, but not to those who purposely transgress His precepts.
CHAPTER VII. THE LORD, IN THE WORLD ENDURED THE MOST GRIEVOUS TEMPTATIONS FROM THE HELLS, AND ALSO FROM THE JEWISH CHURCH; AND BY VICTORIES OVER THEM, HE REDUCED ALL THINGS TO ORDER, AND AT THE SAME TIME GLORIFIED HIS HUMAN; AND THUS HE REDEEMED ANGELS AND MEN, AND REDEEMS THEM TO ETERNITY. 1. All spiritual temptations are combats against evils and falsities, therefore against the hells; and these temptations are more grievous in the degree in which they invade the spirit of man, and at the same time his body, and torment both. 2. The Lord sustained the most grievous temptations of all, because He fought against all the hells, and also against the evils and falsities of the Jewish Church. 3. His temptations are little described in the Evangelists, only by combats with beasts, that is with satans in hell, forty days in the wilderness, and afterwards by infestations from the devil, and lastly by His sufferings in Gethsemane, and by the dreadful passion upon the cross. [(Mark i. 12, 13; Matt. iv. 1-11; Luke iv. 1-13; Matt. xxvi. 36-46; Mark xiv. 32-42; Luke xxii. 40-46; John xviii. 1; Matt. xxvii. 26-50; Mark xv. 15-37; Luke xxiii. 25-46; John xix. 1-30.)] But that His temptations or combats with the hells, which, because they were invisible, could not be manifested, were more particularly and more fully described in the Prophets and in David (Isa. lxiii.). 4. The Lord underwent these temptations, in order that He might subjugate the hells which infested heaven and at the same time the church; and that He might deliver angels and men from that infestation, and thus save them. 5. The end of all spiritual temptation is the thorough subjugation of evil and falsity, thus also of hell; and at the same time, the entire subjugation of the external man, for into him evils and falsities from hell flow. For in temptations there is a contest for the dominion of evil over good, and of the external man over the internal; wherefore, on whichever side victory remains, on that side also dominion remains. When therefore victory is on the side of good, good holds dominion over evil, and also the internal man over the external. 6. The Lord suffered these temptations from His boyhood even to the last age of His life, and thus He successively subjugated the hells, and successively glorified His Human; and in the last temptation upon the cross, which was the most grievous of all, He fully conquered the hells, and made His Human Divine. 7. The Lord fought with the hells and also against the falsities and evils of the Jewish Church, as the Divine Truth itself, or the Word, which He was; and He suffered Himself to be reproached, to be assailed with insults, and to be slain, just as the church then did with the Word. Almost the same was done with the prophets, because they represented the Lord as to the Word, therefore with the Lord, who was the Prophet Himself, because the Word itself. That it was so done was according to Divine order. 30-1 8. An image of the victories of the Lord over the hells, and of the glorification of His Human, by temptations, is presented in the regeneration of man; for as the Lord subjugated the hells and made His Human Divine, so with man He subjugates them and makes him spiritual, and thus regenerates him. 9. It is known that the Lord snatches man from the jaws of the devil, that is, of hell, and raises him to Himself in heaven; and that He does this with man by withdrawing him from evils, which is effected through contrition and repentance. These two are the temptations which are the means of regeneration. 30-2
CHAPTER VIII. REDEMPTION COULD NOT HAVE BEEN EFFECTED, AND HENCE NEITHER COULD SALVATION HAVE BEEN GIVEN, EXCEPT BY GOD INCARNATE. 1. The Word of the Old and of the New Testament teaches that God became incarnate. 2. All the worship of the church before God became incarnate, foreshadowed and regarded Him after He was incarnate; and hence and from no other source was that worship Divine. 3. God Incarnate is "Jehovah our Justice," "Jehovah our Redemption," "Jehovah our Salvation," and "Jehovah our Truth;" and all these are meant by the two names, Jesus Christ. 4. God not incarnate could not have fought against the hells, and could not have conquered them. 5. God not incarnate could not have been tempted, still less could He have suffered the cross. 6. God not incarnate could not have been seen and known; thus He could not have been approached, and so could not have been conjoined to men and angels, unless through Himself incarnate. 7. Faith in God not incarnate is impossible, but only in Him incarnate. 8. Hence it is that it was said by the ancients, that no one can see God and live, and by the Lord, that no one hath seen the shape of the Father nor heard His voice. 9. Also, that by means of angels God manifested Himself to the sight of the ancients in the human form, which form was representative of God incarnate. 10. Every operation of God is effected from firsts by ultimates, thus from His Divine through His Human. Hence God is the "First and the Last, who was, who is, and who is come." 11. In the ultimates of God are all things Divine together; thus, in our Lord Jesus Christ are all things of His Father. 12. From these things it follows, that redemption could by no means have been effected except by God incarnate. 13. And there could have been no salvation except by God incarnate, thus by the Lord, the Redeemer and Saviour; which salvation is perpetual redemption. 14. Hence it is, that they who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ have eternal life; and they who do not believe in Him have not that life. 31-1
THE HOLY SPIRIT. UNIVERSALS. I. The Holy Spirit is the Divine, which proceeds from the One, Infinite, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God. II. The Holy Spirit, in its essence, is that God Himself; but in subjects in which it is received, it is the Divine Proceeding. III. The Divine, which is called the Holy Spirit, proceeds from that God Himself through His Human; comparatively as that which proceeds from man, that is, as what he teaches and operates proceeds from his soul through his body. IV. The Divine, which is called the Holy Spirit, proceeding from God through His Human, passes through the angelic heaven, and through this into the world, thus through angels into men. V. Thence [it passes] through men to men, and in the church chiefly through the clergy to the laity, what is Holy is continually given, and it recedes if the Lord is not approached. VI. The Divine Proceeding, which is called the Holy Spirit, in its proper sense is the Holy Word, and the Divine Truth therein; VII. And its operation is instruction, reformation, and regeneration, and hence vivification and salvation. VIII. In the degree that any one knows and acknowledges the Divine Truth which proceeds from the Lord, in that degree he knows and acknowledges God; and in the degree that any one does this Divine Truth, in that degree he is in the Lord, and the Lord in him. IX. The Spirit, in respect to man, is his intelligence, and whatever thence proceeds
CHAPTER I. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE DIVINE, WHICH PROCEEDS FROM THE ONE, INFINITE, OMNIPOTENT, OMNISCIENT, AND OMNIPRESENT GOD, THROUGH HIS HUMAN ASSUMED IN THE WORLD. 1. The Holy Spirit is not God by itself, or singly; neither does it proceed from God through the Son as a Person from Persons, according to the doctrine of the church at the present day. 2. This is utterly inconsistent; because a person is defined as being not a part and quality in another, but as subsisting separately. 3. And [it is said] that although the property and quality of the one are separate from that of the other, yet they are from an essence one and indivisible. 4. Thence inevitably results not only the idea, but also the confession of three Gods, which however from the Christian faith, according to the Athanasian Creed, are not to be called three but one. 5. The truth is, that from eternity, or before creation, there were not three Persons, each of which was God; thus there were not three infinite, three uncreate, three immense, eternal, omnipotent ones, but One. 6. But after creation there arose a Divine Trinity, since then from the Father was born a Son, and from the Father through the Son proceeds the Holy, which is called the Holy Spirit. 7. Hence, because the Father is the soul and life of the Son, and the Son is the Human body of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the Divine proceeding, it follows that they are con-substantial, and hence that they subsist not singly, but conjointly. 8. And because the property of the one, according to order, is derived and passes over into the other, and from this to the third, they are one Person, thus one God. 9. Comparatively as in every angel, and in every man, from the soul by the body proceeds every operation. 10. Reason enlightened by the Sacred Scripture may perceive this, namely, that there is a Trinity of Person, which is a Trinity of God, but not a trinity of Persons, because this is a trinity of gods.
CHAPTER II THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHICH PROCEEDS FROM THE ONE GOD THROUGH HIS HUMAN IN ITS ESSENCE IS THE SAME GOD, BUT THAT APPARENTLY TO SUBJECTS, WHICH ARE IN SPACES, IT IS THE DIVINE PROCEEDING. 1. What God was before creation, such He is after it; thus such as He was from eternity, such He is to eternity. 2. Before creation God was not in extended space, so neither is He after creation, to eternity; 3. Consequently, God is in space without space, and in time without time. 4. Thus the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the one God through His Human is the same God. 5. Concerning God, since He is everywhere the same, it cannot be said that He proceeds, except apparently, in respect to spaces, because these proceed, thus apparently to subjects which are in spaces. 6. And since these are in the created world, it follows that the Holy Spirit there is the Divine proceeding. 7. The Omnipresence of God fully proves that the Holy Spirit is the Divine proceeding from the one and indivisible God, and not a God as a Person by Himself.
CHAPTER III. THE DIVINE WHICH IS CALLED THE HOLY SPIRIT, PROCEEDING FROM GOD THROUGH HIS HUMAN, PASSES THROUGH THE ANGELIC HEAVEN INTO THE WORLD, THUS THROUGH ANGELS INTO MEN. 1. The one God in His Human is above the angelic heaven, appearing there as a sun, from which proceed love as heat, and wisdom as light. 2. Thus the Holiness of God, which is called the Holy Spirit, flows in order into the heavens; immediately into the supreme heaven, which is called the third heaven; immediately and also mediately into the middle heaven, which is called the second heaven; similarly into the ultimate heaven, which is called the first heaven. 3. It flows through these heavens into the world, and through this into men there. 4. Nevertheless the angels of heaven are not the Holy Spirit. 5. All the heavens together with the churches on the earths, in the sight of the Lord are as one Man. 6. The Lord alone is the soul and life of that Man, and all who are animated and live from Him are His body. Hence it is said, that the faithful constitute the body of the Lord, and they are in Him, and He in them. 7. The Lord flows into the angels of heaven, and into the men of the church, in a certain likeness to the manner in which the soul flows into the body with man.
CHAPTER IV. THENCE IT PASSES THROUGH MEN TO MEN, AND IN THE CHURCH CHIEFLY THROUGH THE CLERGY TO THE LAITY. 1. No one can receive the Holy Spirit except from the Lord Jesus Christ, because it proceeds from God the Father through Him. And by the Holy Spirit is meant the Divine proceeding. 2. No one can receive the Holy Spirit, that is, the Divine Truth and the Divine Good, unless he goes to the Lord immediately, and at the same time is in the love [of Him]. 3. The Holy Spirit, that is, the Divine proceeding, never becomes man's; but it is constantly the Lord's with him. 4. Therefore the Holy, which is meant by the Holy Spirit, does not inhere; neither does it remain, except so long as the man who receives it believes in the Lord, and at the same time is in the doctrine of truth from the Word, and in a life according to it. 5. The Holy, which is meant by the Holy Spirit, is not transferred from man to man, but from the Lord through man to man. 6. God the Father does not send the Holy Spirit, that is, His Divine, through the Lord into man; but the Lord sends it from God the Father. 36-1 7. The clergyman, because he is to teach doctrine from the Word concerning the Lord, and concerning redemption and salvation from Him, is to be inaugurated by the promise, [sponsionem] of the Holy Spirit, and by the representation of its transfer; but it is received by the clergyman according to the faith of his life. 8. The Divine, which is meant by the Holy Spirit, proceeds from the Lord through the Clergy to the laity by preaching, according to the reception of the doctrine of truth thence. 36-2 9. And by the sacrament of the Holy Supper, according to repentance before it.
CHAPTER V THE DIVINE PROCEEDING, WHICH IS CALLED THE HOLY SPIRIT, IN ITS PROPER SENSE IS THE WORD, WHEREIN IS THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 1. The Word is Holiness itself in the Christian Church, from the Divine of the Lord which is therein, and which is therefrom; wherefore the Divine proceeding which is called the Holy Spirit, in its proper sense, is the Word and the Holiness of God. 2. The Lord is the Word because it is from the Lord, and concerning the Lord, and thus in its essence is the Lord Himself. 3. The Lord, because He is the Word, is alone Holy; and He is the "Holy One of Israel," who is so often mentioned in the Prophets, concerning whom it is also there said that He alone is God. 4. Hence it is that the place where the ark was in the tabernacle,-because in it was the law, the beginning of the Word, over which was the propitiatory, and over this the cherubim, all which signified the Lord as the Word,-was called the "Sanctuary," and the "Holy of Holies." 5. Hence it is also that the New Jerusalem, which is the church that approaches the Lord alone, and derives truths from His Word, is called "holy," and also the "city of holiness"; and the men in whom that church is are called a "people of holiness"; also this church is the "kingdom of saints," in Daniel, which will endure forever. 6. The Prophets and Apostles are called "holy" because the Word was written through them. 7. The Holy Spirit since it is taught by the Lord from the Holy Word is called the "Spirit of Truth," of whom the Lord says that He shall not speak from Himself but from the Lord, and that it is He Himself. 8. To him "who speaks a word against the Holy Spirit it is not remitted," because he denies the Divinity of the Lord and the holiness of the Word; for he has no religion. 9. To him who speaks a word against the "Son of man" it is remitted, because he denies this and that to be Divine Truth from the Word in the church, but believes that in the Word and from the Word are Divine truths. The "Son of man" is the Divine Truth from the Word in the church, and this cannot be seen by all. [AN ANNOTATION FROM THE MARGIN WHICH PERHAPS BELONGS TO THIS PLACE.] The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Lord through the Word. CHAPTER VI. [Chapters VI., VII., and VIIL of this Treatise could not be found, when this tractate was copied from the autograph.] THE DIVINE VIRTUE AND OPERATION WHICH ARE MEANT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT ARE INSTRUCTION, REFORMATION, REGENERATION AND ACCORDING TO THESE VIVIFICATION, SANCTIFICATION, AND JUSTIFICATION; AND ACCORDING TO THESE PURIFICATION FROM EVILS, REMISSION OF SINS, AND SALVATION. CHAPTER VII. IN THE DEGREE THAT ANY ONE KNOWS AND ACKNOWLEDGES THE DIVINE TRUTH WHICH PROCEEDS FROM THE LORD, IN THE SAME DEGREE HE KNOWS AND ACKNOWLEDGES GOD; AND IN THE DEGREE THAT ANY ONE DOES THIS DIVINE TRUTH, IN THE SAME DEGREE IS HE IN THE LORD AND THE LORD IN HIM. See UNIVERSALS VIII., number 32. CHAPTER VIII. THE SPIRIT IN RESPECT TO MAN IS HIS INTELLIGENCE AND WHATEVER THENCE PROCEEDS, AS HIS OPERATION AND VIRTUE. See UNIVERSALS IX., number 32. [ANNOTATION FROM THE MARGIN, WHICH PERHAPS IS TO BE READ HERE.] By the spirit of man is meant his intelligence, and thus also whatever proceeds from it as his operation and virtue.
V. THE DIVINE TRINITY. SUMMARY. [I. There Is a Divine Trinity. II. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Are Three Essentials of One God. III. There Was Not a Trinity Before the World Was Created. IV. The Trinity Came Into Existence in Jesus Christ After the World Was Created. V. This Trinity Appears from the Word, as also from the Apostles' Creed, but Not from the Nicene. VI. Absurd Ideas Derived from the Nicene Trinity. VII. This Trinity Has Perverted the Church. VIII. It Has also Falsified the Word. IX. Thence There Is that "Affliction" and "Desolation" Foretold by the Lord. X. There Is No Salvation Unless a New Church Is Established by the Lord. XI. The Trinity Is in the Lord the Saviour; hence He alone Is To Be Approached, as He Is Salvation or Life Eternal.] [TO BE NOTED.] 1. The idea of the common people of the Divine Trinity, is, that God the Father sits on high, and His Son at His right hand, and that they send the Holy Spirit to men. 2. The idea of the clergy in respect to the Trinity is, that there are three Persons, each of whom is God and Lord, and that to the three there is one and the same essence. 3. The idea of the wise among the clergy is, that there are three communicable properties and qualities; but by three Persons are meant what are incommunicable. 4. There is a Divine Trinity; from the Sacred Scripture and from reason. 5. From a trinity of Persons there inevitably follows a trinity of Gods. 6. If God is one the Trinity of God is necessary, and thus a Trinity of a Person. 7. The Trinity of God, which is also a Trinity of a Person, is in God incarnate, or in Jesus Christ. 8. This is confirmed from the Sacred Scripture; 9. And also from reason, since there is a trinity in every man. 10. The Apostolic Church never thought of a trinity of Persons, as is evident from their Creed. 11. A trinity of Persons was first invented by the Nicene Council. 12. It was derived therefrom into the churches after that time, even to the present time. 13. That doctrine could not be corrected before this day. 14. The trinity of Persons has inverted the whole church, and has falsified each and all things thereof. 15. All say that it is beyond comprehension, and that the understanding is to be held under obedience to faith. What is "a Son born from eternity"? 16. In the Lord there is a Trinity, and in the Trinity is Unity.
CHAPTER I. THERE IS A DIVINE TRINITY; NAMELY, THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1. The Unity of God is acknowledged and received throughout the whole world, wherever there is religion and sound reason. 2. Therefore the Trinity of God could not be known; for if it had been known, yea, if only declared, concerning the Trinity of God, man would have thought of a plurality of Gods, which both religion and also sound reason abhor. 3. Therefore the Trinity of God could not be known except from revelation, thus not otherwise than from the Word; neither could it be received unless the Trinity of God were also the Unity of God, for otherwise there would be a contradiction which begets a nonentity. 4. The Trinity of God did not actually exist before the Son of God the Saviour of the world was born; and before that there was not Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. 5. The salvation of the human race depends upon the Trinity of God, which at the same time is Unity. 6. By the Trinity of God which at the same time is Unity, is meant the Divine Trinity in one Person. 7. The Lord the Saviour of the world taught that there is a Divine Trinity, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; For He commanded His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; He also said that He would send to them the Holy Spirit from the Father; He moreover oftentimes mentioned by name the Father, and called Himself His Son, and He breathed upon His disciples, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Furthermore, when Jesus was baptized in Jordan there came forth a voice from the Father, saying, "This is my beloved Son," and the Spirit appeared over Him in the form of a dove. The angel Gabriel also said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, and the Holy One that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." "The Most High" is God the Father. The Apostles likewise in their epistles often name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and John in his First Epistle Says, "There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit," etc.
CHAPTER II. THESE THREE, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT, ARE THREE ESSENTIALS OF ONE GOD, SINCE THEY ARE ONE, AS SOUL, BODY, AND OPERATION WITH MAN ARE ONE. 1. The Divine Trinity, which at the same time is Unity, can by no means be comprehended by any one, except as the soul, body, and proceeding operation with man; consequently unless the Divine itself which is called the Father is the Soul, the Human which is called the Son is the Body of the Soul, and the Holy Spirit is the proceeding operation. 2. Therefore in the Christian Church everywhere it is acknowledged that in Christ God and Man, that is, the Divine and the Human, are one Person, as the soul and the body in man. This is there acknowledged from the Athanasian Creed. 3. Wherefore he who comprehends the union of the soul and body and the resulting operation, comprehends the Trinity and at the same time the Unity of God, in a kind of shadow. 4. The rational man knows, or may know, that the soul of the son is from the father, and that the soul clothes itself with a body in the womb of the mother, and that afterwards all operation proceeds from both. 5. He who knows the union of the soul and body, knows also or may know that the life of the soul is in the body, and that thus the life of the body is the life of the soul. 6. Consequently that the soul lives, and therefore feels and operates, in the body and from the body; and that the body lives, feels, and operates from itself while from the soul. 7. This is because all things of the soul are of the body, and all things of the body are of the soul; hence and from no other origin is their union. 8. It is only an appearance that the soul operates separately, from itself through the body, when yet it operates in the body and from the body. 9. From these things the rational man, who knows the intercourse of the soul and the body, can comprehend these words of the Lord; that:- The Father and He are one; All things of the Father are His, and all His are the Father's; All things of the Father come to Him; The Father hath given all things into the Son's hand; As the Father works, so the Son also works; He that sees and knows the Son, sees and knows the Father also; They who are one in the Son are one in the Father; No one hath seen the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who hath manifested Him; The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father; No one cometh to the Father except through the Son; As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself; In Jesus Christ all the fulness of the Divinity dwells bodily; and many other things besides. There by the "Son" is meant the Human of the Father. 10. From these things it follows, that the Divinity and the soul of the Son of God, our Saviour, are not distinctly two, but one and the same. The Son of God is the Human of God the Father, is fully shown above; for what else did Mary, the mother, bring forth than the Human in which was the Divine from the Father? Hence from nativity He was called the "Son of God;" for the angel Gabriel said to Mary:- The Holy One that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God, and the Holy which was born from Mary was the Human in which was the Divine from the Father.
CHAPTER III. BEFORE THE WORLD WAS CREATED THE TRINITY OF GOD WAS NOT. 1. The Sacred Scripture teaches that God is one, and reason enlightened by the Lord sees it there and thence. But that God was triune before the world was created, the Sacred Scripture does not teach, and reason enlightened therefrom does not see. What is said in David concerning the Son, "This day have I begotten thee," is not from eternity, but in the fulness of time; for the future in God is present, thus to-day; in like manner as in Isaiah:- Unto us A Boy is born, unto us a Son is given, whose name is God, Hero, the Father of eternity. 2. What rational mind, when it hears that before the creation of the world there were three Divine Persons, called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does not say within itself while thinking of them, "What is meant by a Son born from God the Father from eternity? How could He be born? And what is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God the Father through the Son from eternity? And how could He proceed and become God by Himself? Or how could a person beget a person from eternity? and both produce a person? Is not a person a person? How can three Persons, of which each is God, be conjoined into one God, otherwise than into one person? And yet this is contrary to theology, and this to that. How can the Divinity be divided into three Persons, and yet not into three Gods, when yet each Person is God? How can the Divine essence, which is one, the same, and indivisible, fall into number, hence be either divided or multiplied? And how can three Divine Persons be together and take counsel together in a non-extense of space, such as was before the world was created? How, from Jehovah God, who is One, and thence Sole, Infinite, Immense, Eternal, and Omnipotent, could there be produced three equals to Himself? How can a Trinity of Persons be conceived of in the Unity of God, and the Unity of God in a Trinity of Persons? Besides the idea of plurality destroys the idea of unity, and vice versa. Perhaps it would have been possible for the Greeks and Romans also to unite all their gods into one, which were many, by identity only of essence." 3. The rational mind, in revolving and reflecting upon a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity, might also consider of what use was it that a Son was born, and that the Holy Spirit went forth from the Father through the Son before the world was created? Was there a use for three to consult how the universe should be created? And thus that three should create it? When yet the universe was created by the one God? Neither was there occasion that the Son should redeem, when yet redemption was effected after the world was created, in the fulness of time; nor that the Holy Spirit should sanctify, because as yet there was no man to be sanctified. Therefore if there were those uses in God's idea, still they were not [realized] before the creation of the world, but after it actually existed; from which it follows, that the Trinity from eternity was not a real Trinity, but ideal, and still more so is a Trinity of Persons. 4. Who in the church, while reading the Athanasian Creed, is able to understand this? That it is of the Christian verity, that each Person by Himself is God, and yet that it is not lawful by the Catholic religion to account them three Gods? Is not religion thus to him something other than truth? and that in truth three Persons are three Gods, but that from religion they are one God? 5. A trinity of Persons in the Divinity before the world was created, did not come into the mind of any one from the time of Adam down to the advent of the Lord, as is clear from the Word of the Old Testament, and from histories concerning the religion of the ancients. Neither did it come into the mind of the Apostles, as is evident from their writings in the Word. Neither did it come into the mind of any one in the Apostolic Church, which was before the Council of Nice, as appears from the Apostles' Creed, in which no Son from eternity is mentioned, but a Son born from the Virgin Mary. A Trinity of Persons from eternity is not only above reason, but opposed to it. It is against reason that three Persons created the universe; that there were three Persons, and each one God, and not three Gods but one, and then three Persons and not one Person. Will not the New Church about to come call this age of the old church benighted or barbarous, when they worshiped three Gods? Similarly irrational are those things which are derived from that Trinity. 6. A Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity was first taught by the Nicene Council, as appears from the two Creeds, the Nicene and the Athanasian. And afterwards it was received by the churches as the principal dogma, and as the head of the doctrines, after that time even to the present day. There were two reasons why that Trinity was given forth by the Council of Nice; the first was, that they knew not how otherwise to dissipate the scandals of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Lord; the other, because they did not understand what is written by the evangelist John (Chap. i. 1, 2, 10, 14; xvi. 28; xvii. 5). How these things are to be understood may be seen above. 7. The Divinity before the world was created as believed according to the Nicene Council and the churches after that, to consist of three Persons each of which was God, and that from the first Person was born a second, and from these two went forth a third, is not only above the understanding, but contrary to it, and the faith of a paradox, which is opposed to the rational understanding. It is a faith in which there is not anything of the church, but a persuasion of the false, such as obtains with those who are insane in religious matters. But still it is not here said of those who do not see [these things to be] contradictory and contrary to the Sacred Scripture and yet believe them, that they are insane in religious matters; thus it is not said of the Council of Nice, nor of the churches derived from it after that time, because they did not see.
CHAPTER IV. THE TRINITY OF GOD CAME INTO EXISTENCE AFTER THE WORLD WAS CREATED, AND ACTUALLY IN THE FULNESS OF TIME, AND THEN IN GOD INCARNATE, WHO IS THE LORD THE SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 1. The Trinity of God did not and could not exist before the world was created; also that there are three essentials of one Person in God Man, of which the Trinity of God is predicated, has been shown above. 2. God as the Word came into the world and assumed the Human in the Virgin Mary, and the Holy One thence born was called the "Son of the Most High," the "Son of God," the "Only Begotten," is known from the Old Word where it is predicted, and from the New where it is described. 3. Since therefore God the Most High, who is the Father, by His Divine proceeding which is the Holy Spirit, conceived the Human in the Virgin Mary, it follows that the Human born of that conception is the Son, and the conceiving Divine is the Father, and that both together is the Lord, God, the Saviour, Jesus Christ, God and Man. 4. It follows also that the Divine Truth, which is the Word, and in which is the Divine Good, was the seed from the Father from which the Human was conceived. The soul is from the seed, and by the soul is the body. 5. In confirmation this arcanum shall be mentioned: The spiritual origin of all human seed is truth from good, but not Divine Truth from Divine Good in its own essence, infinite and uncreate as in the Lord, but in its own form finite and created. See the Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love (n. 220, 245). 6. It is known that the soul adjoins to itself a body, which may serve it for performing uses, and afterwards it conjoins itself to the body as it serves, and this even until the soul becomes of the body, and the body of the soul. This is what the Lord says, that He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. 7. From these things it follows that the Trinity of God came into existence after the world was created, and then in God Incarnate, who is the Lord, the Saviour, Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER V. THE TRINITY OF PERSONS IN THE DIVINITY IS FROM THE COUNCIL OF NICE, AND WAS DERIVED THENCE INTO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND [THE CHURCHES] AFTER IT, AND IS THEREFORE TO BE CALLED THE NICENE TRINITY. BUT THE TRINITY OF GOD IN ONE PERSON, THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOUR, IS FROM CHRIST HIMSELF, AND WAS THENCE IN THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, AND THEREFORE IS TO BE CALLED THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY; AND THIS TRINITY OF GOD IS THE TRINITY OF THE NEW CHURCH. 1. There are three summaries of doctrine of the Christian Church concerning the Divine Trinity and at the same time Unity, which are called the Apostolic, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds. The Apostles' Creed was written by men who are called the Apostolic Fathers; the Nicene Creed, by an assembly of bishops and priests who were called together by the emperor Constantine in the city of Nice, with a view to dissipate the scandals of Arius concerning his denial of the Divinity of the Son of God; and the Athanasian Creed, by a certain person or persons after that council. These three Creeds were acknowledged and received by the Christian Church as ecumenical and catholic, that is, as the universals of doctrine respecting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 2. The Apostolic Creed teaches thus:- "I believe In God the Father Almighty, the God of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. I believe in the Holy Spirit," etc. The Nicene Creed teaches thus:- "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born from the Father before the ages; begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made; who came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, and became Man. And [I believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son, together is adored and glorified; who spake through the prophets." The Athanasian Creed teaches thus:- "The Catholic Faith is this: We venerate one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. . . . There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. . . . The Father is uncreate, immense, eternal, omnipotent, God and Lord; in like manner the Son, and in like manner the Holy Spirit; and yet there are not three uncreate, immense, eternal, omnipotent Gods and Lords, but One. . . . The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. In this Trinity none is before or after, and none is greater or less, but all the three Persons are co-eternal and co-equal. But as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there be three Gods and Lords." Furthermore, it thus teaches concerning the Lord Jesus Christ:- "Although He be God and Man, yet there are not two, but one Christ." 3. From these things declared in the three creeds it may be gathered how in the understanding of each there is a Trinity of God in Unity, and a Unity in Trinity. For the Apostolic Creed teaches concerning God the Father, that He is the Creator of the Universe; concerning His Son, that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary; and concerning the Holy Spirit, that He is. Moreover, the Nicene Creed teaches concerning God the Father, that He is the Creator of the Universe; concerning the Son, that He was begotten before all ages, and that He descended and became incarnate; and concerning the Holy Spirit, that He proceeds from both. But the Athanasian Creed teaches concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that they are three Persons co-eternal and co-equal, and that each of them is God, and yet that there are not three Gods, but one; and that although from the Christian verity each Person by Himself is God, yet from the Catholic religion it is not allowable to say there are three Gods. 4. From these three Creeds it appears that two Trinities are taught, one which existed before the world was created, another, which was after it; the Trinity before the world was created, in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, but the Trinity after it, in the Apostolic Creed; consequently the Apostolic Church knew nothing of a Son from eternity, but only of a Son born in the world, and thus that it invoked the latter and not the former; and, on the other hand, the church after the Nicene Creed, as if established anew, acknowledged a Son from eternity as God, but the Son born in the world not so. 5. These two Trinities differ as much from each other as evening and morning, yea, as night and day, and thus that both together can by no means be confirmed in one man of the church; because religion would perish with him, and with religion sound reason. The reason is, that from the Nicene and Athanasian Trinity God cannot be thought of as one, but in the Apostolic Trinity He can be; and He is so thought of in this, because it is given in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God born in the world. 6. The Divine Trinity is in the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ, He Himself teaches, for He says that:- He and the Father are one (John x. 80). He is in the Father, and the Father in Him (John xiv. 10, 11). All things of the Father are His (John iii. 35 ; xvi. 15). He that seeth Him seeth the Father, and He that believeth in Him believeth in the Father ([John xii. 44]). And according to Paul:- In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Divinity bodily (Col. ii. 9). According to John:- He is the true God and eternal life (1 Epis. v. 20). And according to Isaiah:- He is the Father of eternity (ix. 5). And in other places in the same prophet, where it treats of Him, it is said: "He is Jehovah the Redeemer," "the only God," and that from redemption "He is Jehovah our Justice," and that He is "God the Father" where He is spoken of; that "He will not give His glory to another;" and that the "Holy Spirit is from Him." Now because God is one, and because there is a Divine Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to the Lord's words (Matt. xxviii.), it follows that the Trinity is in one Person, and in the Person of Him who was conceived of God the Father and born of the Virgin Mary, and thence was called the "Son of the Highest," the "Son of God," the "Only Begotten Son" (Luke i. 31-35; John i. 18; xx. 34; Matt. iii. 17; xvi 16; xvii. 5). In all these and in the above cited passages, no Son from eternity is meant, is evident to both the internal and external sight. Since therefore this Divine Trinity (which is also the fulness of the Divinity dwelling in Him bodily, according to Paul) is in the Lord God, the Saviour Jesus Christ, it follows that He alone is to be approached, invoked, and worshiped, and that when this is done, at the same time the Father is approached, and [thus the man] receives the Holy Spirit; for He teaches that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one cometh to the Father but by Him, and that he that entereth not by Him as the door into the sheepfold (that is, into the church), is not a shepherd, but a thief and a robber; and also that they who believe in Him have eternal life, and that they who believe not shall not see life (John iii. 15, 16, 36; vi. 40; xl. 25, 26; 1 John v. 20). 7. Since the Divine Trinity and at the same time the Divine Unity is in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour of the world, this is the Trinity of the New Church. [When the two copies were transcribed, two leaves containing Chapters VI. and VII. were already wanting at this part of the autograph. But of Chapter VII., articles n. 6, 7, 8 were still there. These may be seen just below.] [CHAPTER VI.] [DISCORDANT IDEAS DERIVED FROM THE NICENE TRINITY.] [CHAPTER VII.] [THIS TRINITY HAS PERVERTED THE CHURCH.]
6. The nature or quality of this is described by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, as to its feet, and by the last beast that went up out of the sea, in Daniel, and by the dragon and his two beasts in the Apocalypse. 7. It may also be seen from this arcanum revealed to me, that every one is allotted a place in heaven, that is, in its societies, according to his idea of God; and every one in the hells according to his denial of God; moreover, that the denial of one God inheres in the ideas of those who have confirmed themselves in the Athanasian 44-1 Trinity. 8. A true soul and life is in that man of the church who acknowledges the Lord the Son of God as the God of heaven and earth. That He is the God of heaven and earth, He Himself teaches in Matthew, and that He is the true God and eternal life, in John, and that in Him dwells all the fulness of the Divinity, according to Paul, and that He is Jehovah our Redeemer, the only God, yea, the Father of eternity, according to Isaiah.
CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFIRMATION OF A TRINITY OF PERSONS FROM ETERNITY, OF WHICH EACH IS GOD, ACCORDING TO THE NICENE AND ATHANASIAN CREEDS, HAS FALSIFIED THE WHOLE WORD. 1. Every heretic can confirm and does confirm his heresy by the Word, since this is written by appearances and correspondences, wherefore the Word is called by some the book of all heresies. 2. After confirmation a man sees no otherwise than that his dogmas are true, although they are false. 3. A plurality of Gods may be confirmed by many things from the Word; also the imputative faith of Christ's merit, in which three Gods severally have their part; as likewise that the works of charity contribute nothing to faith, and thus to salvation. 4. A plurality of Gods may be confirmed from these things: A Trinity is mentioned by the Lord; there appeared to be a Trinity when the Lord was baptized. There are "three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit." Jehovah God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness." Three angels appeared to Abraham who are called Jehovah. In the New Word, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are often named by the Lord in the Evangelists, and by the Apostles in the Epistles, and yet it is not there said that they are one. Likewise [there is a] faith imputative of Christ's merit, and this faith alone is saving; and that the works of charity do not conduce to salvation; to which may be added, that a mind prone to ratiocination may add to them creeds of its own and establish them. 5. Each and all these cannot be seen to be false, and thus cannot be dissipated, unless reason enlightened by the Lord shall confirm by means of the Word that God is one, and that there is a conjunction of charity and faith. 6. When this is done, it may appear clearly that a theology founded upon a Trinity of Persons, of which each one is God, and upon a faith directed to each separately, and also upon charity as of no avail to salvation, has falsified the entire Word; mainly because these three, God, charity, and faith, are together the universals of religion, to which all and each thing of the Word, and thence of heaven and the Church, relate. 7. Hence results this enormity, that the confirmer, wherever he reads of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, yea, wherever he reads Jehovah and God, thinks of three Gods, because of one from three; also wherever he reads faith, he thinks of no other faith than what is imputative of Christ's merit; and wherever he reads charity, he thinks of it as not contributing anything to salvation, or thinks of that faith instead of it. Confirmation once fixed brings this with it.
CHAPTER IX. HENCE THERE IS THAT AFFLICTION AND THAT DESOLATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, WHICH WERE PREDICTED BY THE LORD IN THE Evangelists, AND IN Daniel. 1. The Lord, when He spoke with the disciples concerning the consummation of the age, and concerning His own advent, that is, concerning the end of the church of this day and the beginning of the New Church, predicted these things:- There will then be great affliction such as was not from the beginning of the world till now, nor ever shall be (Matt. xxiv. 21). Also that there would be:- The abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel; for after the affliction of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken (Matt. xxiv. 15, 29). 2. That there is such an affliction and desolation in the church is utterly unknown and unseen in the world, because it is everywhere said therein that they are in the light itself of the Gospel, to such a degree that if an angel were to descend from heaven and teach anything else, he would not be believed. That thus the Roman Catholic and the Greek Churches teach, and thus each of the three Reformed Churches distinguished by the name of their leaders, Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, and in like manner each heretical sect, which sects are manifold. 3. But this predicted affliction and desolation appears in clear light in the spiritual world 46-1 since all men after death come into that world, and remain in the religion in which they were in the natural world; for the light there is spiritual light, which discloses all things. 4. When the clergy are there interrogated concerning God, concerning faith, and concerning charity, which are the three essentials of the church and thence of salvation, they answer scarcely otherwise than as blind men in pits. Concerning God they answer that He is one, and that there are three who are unanimous; and when they say that the three are one they are commanded to speak as they think, then, because thought and speech with those who are in the spiritual world, act as one they utter, with a clear voice, three Gods. As to faith, they reply that it is a faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; and that God the Father gives it, the Son mediates it, and the Holy Spirit operates it, thus in three Gods in order. 46-2 When further interrogated respecting that faith, whether they know its sign when it enters, and the sign that it is within, they reply, "What is it to know a sign? Is not this faith from the good pleasure, from the election of that one God only, and nothing from the man mixed up with it?" When asked whether that faith, since it is directed to three, and thus to three Gods, and man is in plenary ignorance concerning it, is anything, they reply that it is not only something, but the all of the church and the all of salvation. If asked whether that is possible, at this they laugh. As to charity, they say this is where that faith is, and that it is separate from it and not separate, and that it contributes to salvation and does not contribute. 5. When the laity are questioned concerning God, faith, and charity, they know almost nothing, except that a few have acquired some enigmas from the clergy which they call articles of faith, and which are in general that God the Father has mercy on account of the passion of His Son, and that He remits sins and justifies. 6. When these two classes are explored as to whether they have anything of God, of faith, and of charity in themselves, it is perceived that they have nothing, consequently nothing of heaven, of the church and of salvation, only with those who have done goods from religion, since these, in the spiritual world, are receptive of faith in the Lord God the Saviour. 7. From the few things above adduced, it appears whence there is that "great affliction such as was not from the beginning of the world nor shall be," and whence that "abomination of desolation" which the Lord foretold would be at the end of the church, which is at this day. 8. Such an affliction has not been from the beginning of the world, nor shall be, is because the Gentiles and the Jews themselves were ignorant of the Lord God the Saviour, as the fountain of salvation, and ignorance excuses; but the case is otherwise with Christians after His Advent, to whom this [truth] is laid open in the Word of both Testaments.
CHAPTER X. UNLESS A NEW CHURCH EXIST, WHICH SHALL ABOLISH THE FAITH OF THE OLD CHURCH, WHICH IS IN THREE GODS, AND INTRODUCE A NEW ONE WHICH IS A FAITH IN ONE GOD, THUS IN THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST, NOT ANY FLESH CAN BE SAVED, ACCORDING TO THE LORD'S WORDS. 1. The Lord, when He spake with the disciples concerning the consummation of the age and His coming, that is, concerning the end of the church of the present day and then the beginning of the New Church, after describing the desolation and affliction, said:- Unless those days were shortened no flesh could be saved (Matt. xxiv. 21, 22). That is, would altogether perish in eternal death. 2. No flesh could be saved unless that affliction and the abomination of desolation were removed, is because through the faith of the church of the present day there is no conjunction with God, and thence no salvation; for this depends solely upon conjunction with God, yea, that conjunction is salvation. 3. Through the faith of the church of the present day there is no conjunction with God, because that faith is a faith in three Gods, and a faith unless it is in one God, does not conjoin; also because that faith is in God the Father, who is inaccessible; and also in the Son born from eternity, who is likewise inaccessible, since He is of the same essence with the Father, and likewise in the Holy Spirit; and because, there was no Son nor Holy Spirit from eternity, the faith in these two is [a faith] in no God. Add to this, that the faith of the present day cannot be united with charity, and faith not united with charity, thus alone, does not conjoin. Hence it follows that unless the New Church be established by the Lord, which shall abolish that faith and teach a new one, namely, a faith which is in one God, and which is at the same time united with charity, not any flesh could be preserved, that is, not any man could be saved. 4. The faith of the present day has destroyed the entire church and has falsified the whole Word has been shown above. Wherefore unless the New Church be established by the Lord, which shall restore both the church and the Word to its integrity, not any flesh can be preserved. 5. Those who are in the faith of the church of the present day are meant by the "dragon" and the "false prophet," and that faith itself by the "pit of the abyss" from which the locusts issued, as also by the "great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," where the two witnesses were slain, is shown in the Apocalypse Revealed; likewise that by the "New Jerusalem" the New Church is meant. [See Apoc., Cap. ix., xi., xii., xx., xxi.] Since it is there said that after the dragon and the false prophet were cast into hell, the New Jerusalem descended from God out of heaven, it is evident that after the faith of the church of the present day is condemned, the New Church from the New Heaven will descend from the Lord and be established. 6. From these things it is evident that unless the New Church exist which shall abolish the faith in three Gods, and receive a faith in one God, thus in the Lord Jesus Christ, and which at the same time, conjoins this faith with charity into one form, not any flesh could be saved. 7. It may also be seen above (Chap. viii.) that redemption could not be effected, nor salvation thence be given, except by God incarnate, thus by no other than God, the Redeemer, Jesus Christ; for salvation is perpetual redemption. It was shown moreover that God, faith, and charity are three essentials of the church, and that upon them universal theology, and thus the church, depends. Wherefore when falsities are taught and imbibed in respect to these three essentials, man has no salvation. 7. Minor clause. No one can hereafter come into heaven unless he be in the doctrine of the New Church as to faith and life. The reason is, that the New Heaven which is now being established by the Lord, is in faith and life according to that doctrine. CHAPTER XI. THE DIVINE TRINITY IS IN THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOUR, AND THEREFORE THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOUR IS ALONE TO BE APPROACHED, IN ORDER THAT THERE MAY BE SALVATION OR ETERNAL LIFE. 47-1
3-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] Theological subjects occupy the highest region of the human mind. These are Innumerable. God is in the midst of them. There is Influx from Hire below into each and every thing as from a sun. Hence speech, like knowledge of Him, pervades and fills all those things. Conjunction with Him makes man His image. Conjunction is effected through love and wisdom.
6-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] OF THE ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE OF GOD; OF THE IMMENSITY AND ETERNITY OF GOD, or chiefly such things as shall illustrate them.
6-2 ("Mundus") "world" is here used in the broad sense of the Latin term, meaning "the order of the universe, the heavens and the heavenly bodies."-Tr.
7-1 See above concerning Jehovah, or concerning the Esse of God; also n. 1; what is here lacking may be taken therefrom.
7-2 [ANNOTATION FROM THE MARGIN.] In the spiritual world creation can be seen by the eye. In that world everything is created by the Lord instantaneously; houses and domestic utensils, foods and garments are created; fields, gardens, and plains are created, flocks and herds are created. These and innumerable other things are created according to the affections and perceptions of the angels thence arising, and appear around them and continue as long as they are in those affections, and are removed as soon as those affections cease. In the hells also noxious serpents, wild beasts, and birds are created; not that they are created by the Lord, but that goods are there turned into evils. Hence it is evident that all things in the world are created by the Lord and are fixed by means of natural things which encompass them.
10-1 In the Autograph, the three paragraphs now following were deleted by the author by a line drawn through them. So Nordenskold says. See following article. n. 11.-Ed.
12-1 [ANNOTATION FROM THE MARGIN.] All things proceed according to order. God is order.
12-2 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] The Divine Omnipotence is [exercised] by means of His Human. This is "to sit at the right hand," and to be "The First and the Last" as is said of the Son of man in the Apocalypse, and there [it is said] that He is "Omnipotent." The reason is because God acts from firsts through ultimates and thus embraces all things. The Lord acts from firsts through ultimates with men; not through anything belonging to the man but through His own in the man. With the Jews He acted through the Word, thus through His own; through the Word also He performed miracles through Elijah and Elisha; but because the Jews perverted the Word, God Himself came and made Himself the "Last." Then He performed miracles from Himself. Order was first created according to which God acts, wherefore God made Himself order.
16-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] HYPOSTATIC WORD. The Son could not call Himself God, thus the Father. No "Son of God from eternity" could descend, according to the statements of the doctrine of the church of this day. Since it is evident: (1) He could not call Him His Father. (2) Nor say that all things of the Father were His. (3) He who sees Him, sees the Father. (4) At His baptism and at His Transformation God the Father could not say, "This is My beloved Son" (Matt iii. 17; xvii. 5). (Besides many more passages in the Word of the Old Testament concerning the Lord's Coming, collected in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord (n. 6); and there, that Jehovah would come.)
30-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] Of the representation of the state of the church by the prophets and also by Ezekiel, of whom four times it is said that "He bears the iniquities of the house of Israel" and that the Lord was called the "Greatest Prophet"-see Doctrine of the Lord (n 15-17).
30-2 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] The Lord, as Prophet, bore the iniquities of the Jewish Church and did not take them away. His glorification or union with the Divine of His Father which was in Him as the soul In man, could not be effected except through a reciprocal operation; the Human cooperates with the Divine, nevertheless it is chiefly from the Divine, but still reception, action, or reaction from the Human as from Himself. But so far as it is conjoined He acted at the same time from both. In like manner as man is regenerated and becomes spiritual from the Lord. When an infant He was as an infant; while a boy [He was as a boy] and from boyhood. He increased in wisdom (Luke ii. 40-50). He could not be born wisdom but could become it according to order. He advanced to full conjunction.
31-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN.] Redemption itself was the subjugation of the hells and the arrangement of the heavens into order, and thus a preparation for a new spiritual church. Without this redemption no man could have been saved, nor angels have subsisted in their state of happiness. The Lord not only redeemed men, but also angels [see Chapter vi.]. Redemption was a work purely Divine. This redemption could not have been effected except by God incarnate [see Chapter viii.]. The passion of the cross was the last temptation, which, as the Greatest Prophet, He endured and through which also He truly subjugated the hells and glorified His Human: thus that it was not redemption, but the means of redemption. That the passion of the cross was redemption itself, is a fundamental error of the church. This error together with the error of three Divine Persons from eternity, has perverted the whole church to such a degree that there is not any spiritual residue of it remaining:- The errors flowing from [the doctrine] of redemption [held] at the present day [namely] that it is the passion of the cross are to be enumerated. The falsities of faith cannot be conjoined with the good of charity. Predictions in Daniel and the Prophets concerning those successive states. Concerning Christ (Matt. xxiv.).
36-1 [ANNOTATIONS FROM THE MARGIN WHICH PERHAPS BELONG HERE.] The Holy Spirit is the Divine Operation and virtue proceeding from the one God. It proceeds out of the Lord and from God the Father. It proceeds out of the Lord from God the Father and not contrariwise.
36-2 It proceeds to the clergy and from them to the laity. It flows into men who believe in the Lord, and if according to order, into the clergy, and thus through them into the laity.
44-1 In Nordenskjold's copy it is "Apostolic," in another handwriting, "Athanasian."
46-1 [NOTE FROM THE MARGIN.] And He now appears to me in most splendid light in London of the natural world.
46-2 Dr. Tafel has, "De fide respondent, quod sit in Deum Patrem, Deum Filium, et Deum Spiritum Sanctum; et quod Deus Pater illam det, Filius illam mediat, et Spiritus Sanctus illam operetur, ita ordine in tres Deos. Dr. Worcester omits this clause.
47-1 [ANNOTATIONS OF THE AUTHOR] These things are explained according to the contents in the following numbers-Of the Sacred Scripture (n. 13. etc.). From the doctrine of the church of this day it follows that the Lord has no power, since the Father alone imputes His merit, and that in Himself He intercedes and prays that He [the Father] may do this; and they do not remember that [the Lord] said that all things of the Father are His; and that all things of the Father come to Him, and that He has all power over flesh and all power over heaven and earth. The Lord is the head of the church, and the church is His body. Wherefore He who is its Head, is to be approached by the body. [The rest could not be found, when this treatise was copied from the autograph.-Ed.]