Week 2    Day 6

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Various Experiences Regarding the Heavenly Doctrine in the Spiritual World

Sketch of an Ecclesiastical History of the New Church

1. A new ecclesiastical history must be written because now is the Lord’s Advent, predicted in Matthew 24.

2. The church was different before the Council of Nice, as long as the Apostles Creed was in force. It became changed after the Council of Nice, and still more after the Athanasian Creed was composed. The cardinal point of doctrine respecting the Triune God and the Lord was subverted in the church, especially by the dogma of three [Divine] persons from eternity.

3. The books are to be enumerated which were written, from the beginning to the present day, by the Lord through me [a Domino per me].

4. The writing there is such that it shines brightly before those who believe in the Lord and in the new revelation, but it appears dark and of no consequence to those who deny them, and who are not in favor of them on account of various external reasons....

7. When the “Brief Exposition” was published, the angelic heaven from the east to the west and from the south to the north appeared of a deep scarlet color with the most beautiful flowers. This took place before me and before the kings of Denmark and others. At another time it appeared flamy, most beautiful.

8. In the spiritual world there was inscribed on all these books: “The Lord’s Advent.” The same I also wrote by command on two copies in Holland.^*

TCR 112. I came into the spirit, and I heard certain spirits conversing who said, “Oh, that we might be permitted to talk with the innovator who has thrown among the leaders of the church that apple of discord after which so many of the laity have been running, and which they have picked up and held up for us to look at.” By that apple they meant the little work entitled, A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church. And they said, “It is certainly a schismatical writing, such as no man ever before conceived of.” And then I heard one of them exclaim, “Schismatical? It is heretical!”

TCR 461. I was once carried away in spirit to the southern quarter of the spiritual world, and into a certain paradise there; and I saw that this paradise excelled all that I had explored before. This was because a garden signifies intelligence, and because all those who are pre-eminent in intelligence are conveyed to the south. The garden of Eden, in which were Adam and his wife, has no other significance; so their expulsion therefrom involved expulsion from intelligence, and thus also from integrity of life. While I was walking in this southern paradise, I noticed certain people sitting under a laurel eating figs. I turned to them and asked them for some figs, which they gave me; and behold, in my hand the figs became grapes....

TCR 461:8. I plucked some twigs from a vine and handed them to them, saying, “Do you believe that this is from me, or from the Lord?” And they said that it was by [ex] me, but from [a] the Lord. And lo, the twigs put forth grapes in their hands. But when I was leaving, I saw a cedar table on which there was a book, under a green olive tree, the trunk of which was entwined with a vine. I looked and behold, it was a book written by [per] me, entitled Arcana Coelestia. And I said that it was fully shown in that book that man is not life but an organ receptive of life; also that life cannot be created and when so created be in man, any more than light in the eye.

AR 875.15. I saw a cedar table, on which was a book, under a green olive tree, the trunk of which was entwined with a vine. I looked, and behold, it was a book written by me, called Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, and also Concerning Divine Providence.

DSE 5946. The Africans.

I was brought by the Lord, through changes of state which went on for about half an hour, in a southerly direction, as far as to the wiser African sort, and it was granted me to converse with them about various matters. And from my conversation with them, it was granted me to perceive that they knew the truths of the Church in themselves. They ran over the things which I knew and stated that they knew all these and more. I imagined that they were of those who indeed perceive the truths of the Church when they hear others [utter them], but still do not talk about them; but it was noticed that these likewise speak of them. I also spoke to them about the knowledges which are representatives and correspondences. Of these they knew little, but it was shown them what these contribute to wisdom and happiness, namely, when they are conjoined. Various things were pointed out about that matter; these things also delighted them greatly....

Afterwards, also, the work Heaven and Hell was given to them, which they likewise received and preserved; in like manner also The Last Judgment and The Earths in the Universe, and likewise The White Horse, and, lastly, The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, in order that they may take from them those things which they consider useful.

CLJ 76. Such being the character of the Africans even in the world, there is, at the present day, a revelation with them. Commencing in the center, it is communicated around, but does not reach the seas. They acknowledge our Lord as the God of heaven and earth, and they laugh at the monks in those parts they visit, and at the Christians who talk of a threefold Divinity, and of salvation by mere thinking, saying that there is no man who has any worship who does not live according to his religion, and that whoever does not must become stupid and wicked, because then he receives nothing from heaven. Ingenious wickedness they also call stupidity, because in it there is not life but death. I have heard the angels rejoicing over this revelation, because, by means of it, a communication is opened for them with the human rational, until now closed up by the blindness which has been drawn over the things of faith. It was told me from heaven that the truths now published in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord, Concerning the Word, and in The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, are orally dictated by angelic spirits to the inhabitants of that country.

SS 97:5. Divine truth in the Word, and the quality of it, are described by the cherubs in the first, ninth, and tenth chapters of Ezekiel. But as no one can know what is signified by the individual aspects of the description of them except someone to whom the spiritual sense has been opened, it has been disclosed to me what in brief is signified by all the things said about the cherubs in the first chapter of Ezekiel, which are as follows:

• The external Divine sphere of the Word is described (Ezek. 1:4).
• It is represented as a man (Ezek. 1:5),
• And conjoined with spiritual and celestial things (Ezek. 1:6).
• The natural of the Word, its quality (Ezek. 1:7).
• The spiritual and the celestial of the Word conjoined with its natural, their quality (Ezek. 1:8-9).
• The Divine love of the good and truth, celestial, spiritual, and natural, in it, separately and also together (Ezek. 1:10-11).
• They all look to the one thing (Ezek. 1:12).
• The sphere of the Word from the Lord’s Divine good and Divine truth, from which the Word is alive (Ezek. 1:13-14).
• The doctrine of good and truth in the Word and from the Word (Ezek. 1:15-21).
• The Divine of the Lord above the Word and in it (Ezek. 1:22-23),
• And from it (Ezek. 1:24-25).
• The Lord is above the heavens (Ezek. 1:26),
• And Divine love and Divine wisdom are His (Ezek. 1:27-28).

These summaries have been compared with the Word in heaven, and are in conformity with it.

^* One of these copies has been found. On the inside page of the wrapper which is bound up with the volume there is the following inscription in Swedenborg’s own handwriting:

[This book is the Advent of the Lord, written by command.]

In another hand is inserted AR n. 626. See Documents Concerning Swedenborg, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pages 756-757.

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