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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture#26

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26. 5. The Word’s spiritual meaning is granted after this only to someone who possesses genuine truths from the Lord. The reason is this: because no one can see the spiritual meaning unless he is enabled to do so by the Lord alone, and unless he possesses genuine truths from Him. For the Word’s spiritual meaning deals with the Lord alone and His kingdom, and that sense is the one possessed by His angels in heaven. It is, indeed, His Divine truth there. It is possible for a person to violate that truth if he has a knowledge of correspondences and tries to use it to explore the Word’s spiritual meaning in accord with his own intelligence. Applying some of the correspondences he knows, he may twist its meaning and use it to confirm even falsity, which would be to do injury to Divine truth, and to heaven as well. If someone tries to lay open that sense on his own, therefore, and not from the Lord, heaven is closed, and when heaven is closed, a person either sees nothing, or he becomes spiritually irrational.

[2] There is also another reason. Because the Lord teaches everyone by means of the Word, and teaches him in accordance with the truths the person already possesses and does not infuse new truths directly, therefore if the person is without any Divine truths, or if he possesses only a few truths and is caught up at the same time in falsities, it would be possible for him to use those falsities to falsify the truths — as is also commonly known to be the case with every heretic as regards just the Word’s literal sense.

Consequently, to keep people from entering into the Word’s spiritual meaning, or from twisting the genuine truth found in that sense, the Lord has set protections, meant in the Word by cherubim.

[3] That protections have been set was represented to me in the following way:

I was given to see large purses, looking like sacks, which had stored away in them a great deal of silver. Since they were open, it seemed as if anyone might take some of the silver deposited in them, even to make off with it. However, next to the purses two angels were sitting as guards. The place where the purses rested looked like a manger in a stable. In the next room I saw modest maidens, together with a chaste wife. Near that room were two little children, and I heard it said they were not to be played with in a childish way, but wisely. Afterward a harlot appeared, then a horse lying dead.

4] On seeing these images I was informed that they represented the literal meaning of the Word, which has a spiritual meaning within. The large purses full of silver symbolized concepts of truth there in great abundance. The purses’ being open and yet guarded by angels symbolized that anyone might draw concepts of truth there, but that people should take care not to falsify the spiritual meaning, which contains only truths. The manger in the stable where the purses were sitting symbolized spiritual instruction for the intellect. (A manger has this symbolism, because a horse, which feeds from it, symbolizes the intellect.)

5] The modest maidens I saw in the next room symbolized affections for truth, and the chaste wife the conjunction of truth and good. The little children symbolized the innocence of the wisdom in it (they were angels from the third heaven, all of whom appear like little children). The harlot together with the dead horse symbolized the falsification of the Word by many people today, by which all understanding of the truth has been extinguished. (A harlot symbolizes falsification, and a dead horse no understanding of truth.)

  
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Thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Apocalypse Revealed#456

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456. But the rest of mankind, who were not killed in these plagues. (9:20) This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who were not as spiritually dead as the former were because of their illusory reasonings and love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts, and yet who made faith alone the chief tenet of their religion.

The rest of mankind mean people who are not like those described, but who still make faith alone the chief tenet of their religion. Their not being killed symbolizes people not so spiritually dead. The plagues in which the former were killed mean a love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts for evil and falsity, because these three are symbolized by fire, smoke and brimstone, as discussed above in nos. 452, 453. We will see below that plagues have this symbolism. But first we must say something about the people:

[2] I have been given to see these people, too, and to speak with them. They live in the northern zone over to the west. Some of them have huts there with roofs, others huts without roofs. Their beds are made of rushes, their clothes of goats' hair. Seen in the light that flows in from heaven, their faces have a leaden color and also lack vitality. The reason is that they know nothing more from their religion than that there is a God, that there are three persons, that Christ suffered the cross for them, and that they are saved by means of faith alone, and in addition by worship in churches and prayers at set times. To anything else pertaining to religion and its tenets they pay no attention. For the worldly and personal concerns that occupy and fill their minds shut their ears to them.

Many of them were church elders, and I asked them what their thinking was when they read about works, love and charity, fruits, precepts for life, repentance — in word, about things that must be done. They replied that they had indeed read these things and so had seen them, but still did not see them, because they kept their mind focused on faith alone. Consequently they said that these all constitute faith, and that they did not think of them as being the effects of faith.

The ignorance and stupidity of people once they have embraced faith alone and made it the whole of their religion is such as to be scarcely believable, even though I have been given to witness it by a good deal of experience.

[3] That plagues symbolize spiritual plagues, which cause a person to die in spirit or as regards his soul, is apparent from the following passages:

Your rupture is hopeless, your plague severe... ...I will restore health to you and heal you of your plagues... (Jeremiah 30:12, 14, 17)

Everyone who goes by Babylon shall... hiss at all her plagues. (Jeremiah 50:13)

...plagues will come (to Babylon) in one day — death and mourning... (Revelation 18:8)

I saw... seven angels having the seven last plagues, by which the wrath of God is to be consummated. (Revelation 15:1, 6)

Woe to a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it. A wound and a scar and a fresh plague — these have not been expressed, bound up, or soothed with ointment. (Isaiah 1:4, 6)

In the day that Jehovah will bind up the fracture of His people and heal the wound of its plague. (Isaiah 30:26)

So, too, elsewhere, as in Deuteronomy 28:59, Jeremiah 49:17, Zechariah 14:12, 15, Luke 7:21, Revelation 11:6; 16:21.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

©2025 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from <span style="text-decoration:underline;">newchristianbiblestudy.org</span>

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