This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1879. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... tion has for its end, that man may receive new life, or rather that he may receive life, and from being no man, may become a man, or from dead be made living, therefore when his former life, which is merely animal, is destroyed by temptations, he cannot but fluctuate between the true and the false. Truth is of the new life, falsity of the old; and unless the former life be destroyed, and this fluctuation take place, it is impossible tor any spiritual seed to be sown, because there is no ground When, however, all this is effected, man scarcely knows what is true and good, and indeed hardly whether there be such a thing as truth in existence. Thus, for example, when reflecting about the goods of charity, or, as they are commonly called, good works, he considers whether he can do them from himself or not, and that in whatever he does from himself there is merit, then he is in such obscurity and darkness, that when informed no one can do good from himself or from proprium, and still less can any one possess merit, but that all good is from the Lord, and all merit is his alone, he can do nothing but express his astonishment. He is also similarly circumstanced with respect to all the other truths of faith; but however great the obscurity and darkness of his mind, it becomes sensibly, although gradually enlightened. Regeneration is accurately represented by man's birth as an infant. His life is then of the most obscure kind; he knows almost nothing, and therefore at first receives only general impressions from the various objects around him. These impressions, however, by degrees become more distinct as particular ideas are conveyed, which in their turn become the mediums of those which are still more specific. Thus general notions become illustrated by indivi...

Arcana Caelestia: Principally a Revelation of the Inner or Spiritual Meaning of Genesis and Exodus

Swedenborg, E.

The Swedenborg Society

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1882. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... an ark on this account, because in it the Testimony or Law was stored up. 6597. We have now concluded the subject concerning the internal sense of the contents of the Book of Genesis; but as all the things in this book are historical, except in chap, xlviii. and xlix., which are also prophetical, therefore it can scarcely appear, that what has been expounded is the internal sense; for historical things hold the mind down in the literal sense, and thus remove it from the internal sense; and the more so, because the internal sense differs altogether from the literal, inasmuch as the former treats of spiritual and celestial things, but the latter of worldly and terrestrial. But that the internal sense is such as has been expounded, is evident from every thing which has been explained; and especially from this consideration, that it has been dictated to me from heaven. CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT CONCERNING INFLUX, AND CONCERNING THE COMMERCE OF THE SOUL AND BODY. 6598. IT is well known, thai one man excels another in the faculty' of understanding and perceiving that which is honest in.moral life, jusl in civil life, and good in spiritual life; the cause consists in the elevation of the thought to the things of heaven, whereby it is withdrawn from the external things of sense. For they who think only from the things of sense, cannot at all see what is -honest, just, and good; wherefore they trust to others, and speak much from the memory, and hereby appear to themselves wiser than others. But they who are able to think above the things of sense, (if the things in their memory be in orderly arrangement^) are in a superior faculty of understanding and perceiving / and this according to the degree in which tthey view things from an interior principle. 6599. II...

Arcana Caelestia

Last Judgment (1992)

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

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Books by Swedenborg, E.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Swedenborg, E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Arcana Caelestia: Principally a Revelation of the Inner or Spiritual Meaning of Genesis and Exodus

Arcana Caelestia: Principally a Revelation of the Inner or Spiritual Meaning of Genesis and Exodus

Arcana Caelestia

Arcana Caelestia

Last Judgment (1992)

Arcana Caelestia