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1 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

DEVOTED TO THE DOCTRINE OF GENUINE TRUTH

OUT OF THE LATIN WORD

ORGAN OF NOVA DOMINI ECCLESIA QUAE EST NOVA HIEROSOLYMA-THE LORD'S NEW CHURCH WHICH IS NOVA HIEROSOLYMA

EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUES SEPTEMBER 1936 TO JULY 1938 (ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND ENGLISH ORIGINALS)

SEVENTH FASCICLE

s-GRAVENHAGE SWEDENRORG GENOO'ISCHAP NASSAOPLEIN 2i

1939

APOCALYPSIS REVELATA 918

Et tenl,plum non vidi in ea, qu.ia Dmninus Deus Onlnipotens Temptum ejus est et Agnus, significat quod in hac Eccles;a non aliquod externu", separatum ab interno erit.

APOCALYPSE REVEALED 918

And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty is the Temple of it and the Lamb, signifies that in this Church there will be not any external separated from the internal.

3 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR SEPTEMBER 1936

"AND I SAW A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA"

AN ADDRESS BY N. A. RIDGWAY AT DURBAN ON 19TH JUNE 1936.

“And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”

APOCALYPSE XXI : 1.

In introducing this subject, it should be remembered that all religion is of life, and the life of religion is to do good. With that truth before us we shall hold the correct perspective, because there is a positive application of the text, as in all truths of religion, to our daily life.

Observe also, that it was JOHN who saw all these things. John signifies love to the Lord. If we have a John in us, that is love to the Lord- we shall see, and if we have no John in us, we shall not see, a New Heaven and a New Earth, with the passing of the first or spurious heaven and earth. And, without a John in us, there still will be the sea.

In order to get a starting point on this vision, attested to and seen by John, and so that we may obtain a focus on the dominant feature in relation to the lives of men, we can classify this teaching under two main heads: its effect on the Church on earth, which is important, because it is

our responsibility and duty; and, its effect on the individual Church in man, our very selves, which is vital, as being our foremost responsibility.

As men and women of the organized New Church we understand, from study of the Latin Word, that t.his vision and prophesy, foretold in the correspondential way of the Word, means that, in the place of the imaginary heavens which had been gathering the peoples of this earth for hundreds of years, and which, in fact, they had created for themselves out of their own false doctrines - in the

place of these false heavens, and by means of a Judgment, the Last Judgment, the Lord Himself created a New Heaven, consisting, as a nucleus, of those people who were of the old church and holding the old Christian faiths, but not in them; by virtue of this distinction that they were those "who had worshipped the Lord and lived according to His Commandments in the Word; in whom therefore there is charity and faith; in which Heaven also are all the infants of Christians", A.R. 876.

We note here however that this New Heaven was not formed by the Lord until "the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea", which has a very definite hearing on what we in ourselves must first accomplish, as of ourselves, before progress can be made.

We must therefore get away fmm the situation as it existed in heaven, or rather, in the spiritual world, and the external view of the text, as past history, and pass on to the higher plane namely, the vital bearing of this teaching on the Church on earth - vital because it is our responsibility and duty. It is from us as individuals that the Church as a whole is either living or dying. Our general tendency is to consider the Latin Word historically, to regard most things in it as interesting events that have passed - very interesting indeed, but nevertheless, passed events - although, on second thoughts, so to speak, we realize, that in some way, they have a bearing on our everyday mode of life. Is there not, right here, the necessity for a very definite shifting of values - a moving of the mental point of concentration? For, although there has been a passage of events of great importance that are recorded, the lesson does not lie in the past - it lies most decidedly in the present; the all important present.

If we stop to consider the present, we find that nothing is so existent. As with the Lord all things of time are present, so with man the only actuality of time is the present. What is actual of the past is present in the present, or it no longer exists; and the future will only become actual as it lives in the prespnt. I emphasize the all-importance of the present '0 that we may better appreciate that all things of the Word apply most emphatically to what is now, as also to what is tomorrow when

that in turn becomes today, if we are to live, and if we are to become inmates of the New Heaven.

But before this can happen the first heaven and the first earth in us must pass away, an there must be no more sea, there must be no more externals of Heaven only, without the internal infilling them with use.

That the first heaven and the first earth in the spiritual world have actually passed away, is only a matter of passing historical interest, yet it is a teaching of the Word of the Lord, and therefore must be in some way of vital interest to us, in our daily lives; so we must seek and find that which is of vital interest to us as living men and women of the organized New Church.

If we truly search, we shall find that there are within us, the false or first heaven and earth. Here we see a closer association with the two headings or plan"" first mentioned in this paper, namely, what concerns the Church on earth, and what concerns the things dealing with the effect of the text on the individual Church in man, which latter is vital, as being our foremost responsibility.

To repeat: if we truly search we shall find the false or first heaven within our very selves, which must pass away before the New Heaven can enter, for the Lord said that no man puts new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine runneth out, but they put new wine into new bottles and both are preserved.

The process of finding in ourselves and seeing the false heavens and earths is not simple, for in the early stages we are very blind. We begin by seeing them outside of ourselves and indeed we must so see them before we can see them within ourselves.

In order to find the first heaven or falsities within .ourselves, so as to combat them, it will be found necessary to examine the old church, and its conduct, and it is more than probable that we shall find sympathy with its conduct. Herein lies the secret of discovering- the evils of our own life, for by that means we find that which is witbin ourselves_l our organizations, and our lives. which we then for the first time recognize to be in opposition to the New Order: Behold I make all things New. If at tbis stage we are unwilling to see things as they really are, we shall, on finding what mnst be disorderly, falsify it from our

proprial wills and interpret it into what is orderly, because these things of discord are in accord with our propriums; and, in our propriums is the very resting place af the first heaven or false faith and life. The more convincing the propnum's confirmation, the more sure we may be that what it canfirms is in discord with all thing new, and with the living Ward of the Lord.

The search mnst be first for falsities outside of ourselves that we may find the things that are false within ourselves; and until we find and condemn the evils and falsities of the world; we cannot see, and will not find these evils and falsities within ourselves. Not seeing them within ourselves we will not recognize them to be evil, but from our propriums will call them good, and will continue to think aurselves and our organizations to be the New Church. We need nat think that we can just loak around for some superficial evils and falsities, find them in ourselves, condemn them, and call it a day. These evils will not be so easy to find, they will be like king Agag who came forth delicately, and whom Saul and the people spared. These evils will thus remain fixed in one's heart and mind as the normalities of life, intermingled in the very social life of the organized Church, and passed by as everyday necessities they will be found in our education, in our recreation, and in our business life, tied up with the few good things we think we have accomplished .

We must find these evils, and, having found them, we must fearlessly condemn them and point them out. This discovering them, from the Word, is the ever present Doctrine of the Church, and, in finding evils and falsities outside of ourselves we must realize that they are within ourselves.

We must not be tolerant of evils and falsities, whether outside or within ourselves. Tolerance of what is evil and false is a very ineffective weapon to use for combating it. We may and must have internal tolerance of the person perpetrating an evil or expounding a falsity, but not external tolerance. An instance in point is the method adopted 1n dealing with a child who has in some way transgressed. To the child, the parent or teacher, who is seeking to cure, appears stern, angry, and intolerant, although, if he is a wise parent or teacher, he is internally forgiving. It was

also so with the Lord, who often appeared in wrath, yet we know He was and is infinitely forgiving.

This external state of intolerance should apply also to disorders, evil and false, seen within the whole Church. We first see them within the old Christian church, and, until we have seen them there we shall not see them within the New Church; and until we have seen them within the New Church we shall not see them within our families; and until we see them within our families we shall not see them within ourselves. But we must be fighting against these evils outside of and within ourselves the whole way; and the more we fight, the more will our interior evils manifest themselves.

In analysing falsity and evil we shall find it easier to be intolerant of them in the old church, and increasingly more difficult to maintain this intolerance as the focus of truth comes down through all the circles of the target, nearer and nearer home, until, finally, its light concentrates on the central point: EGO. There we may even find that what should be intolerance has changed to sweet tolerance. Yet, in reality, here, in ourselves individually, lies the very battlefield, victory on which can only be achieved by right intolerance of falsities and then of evils. But the road to discovery starts tar aheld, and when we have found it there, we must go on finding it, nearer and nearer home, until we see it in our very selves. And here the temptations and combats are the real battle, to the end that all religion may have'relation to life.

To illustrate this, let us fairly and squarely- consider some of the things that we have, as it were, regarded as accomplishments within the Church, achievements we believe we have made by drawing Doctrine from the Word, and to which we are prone to point with satisfaction, as accomplished facts.

Among these are distinctive social life, and distinctive New Church education. These are, in truth, essentials of the Church, and are accepted by all as such. But, take our New Church social life, and fearlessly examine it, shall we not find the dry rot of the spurious first heaven right in our midst, and in our individual selves, violating the sense of touch, violating the sense of hearing, and abusmg the faculty of speech. We need not be self-righteous to do

this. Indeed we should risk being so called, risk almost anything, for the end, and try to face the truth in its nakedness. When we have seen these facts clearly, and only then, can we cooperate with the Lord in the passing away of the first heaven and earth, so that New ones can replace them, and so that there shall be no more sea.

The proprium loves these evil things, and wishes and hopes that they be not discovered in the New Church social life, but they are there. Yes, and there are no doubt even more subtle evils later to come to view, and more difficult to remove, both within and outside of ourselves, within and outside the New Church.

Take also distinctive New Church education. This is a subject that has to be worked on, and doubtless very good work is being done. But surely some of it, more of it, must be done by ourselves. We must educate ourselves in a new way, and find that way in the Word and by living the Word.

As it is, we find, by examining the so called distinctive New Church education, that most of it is old church education taught in New Church buildings amongst people of the organized New Church. And our propriums tell us that this is quite right, for the simple reason that that proprium is in the old church or the spurious first heaven. Weare in this way in the sea of which there must be no more. By this sea is meant the externals of heaven that are not infilled with the internals of Heaven.

These things of education must first and foremost have things eternal as their ends; and somehow we must find a way of making our education really and vitally of the New Church. We must look for things eternal in all things of life, so discovering our faith which is within the Word, and applying this faith to our education.

As in education, so in all things of ourselves, our societies, our Church as a whole, we must look to the Lord in His Word, and shun evils M sins against God. And, if there is to be no more sea, we must find wherein we are only in the externals of faith not infilled with the internals of faith.

And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.

9 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR DECEMBER 1936

USE AND ENJOYMENT

BY ANTON ZELLING.

"According to the uses the natural man also becomes as it were spiritual which happens when the natural man feels the enlivening of the use out of the spiritual".

DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, n. 251.

The end is the all of the cause and the all of the effect, so that it is said the first end, the middle eud, and the last end; not three ends but one, as soul, body, and action; as love, wisdom, and use are one. To think three gods is to set three ends - with an intention; which intention is to deny, of the one End, the all which rules through cause and effect; the all, thus the essence. The universe has been created from tbat all; the denial of that all leads inevitahly to a creation out of nothing, as much nothing as the proprium of which in the delusive idea it is the equal. Three gods or three ends cannot be one and remain one. but always one will rule over the two others and gradually destroy them. The old churches, which think three gods, therefore have, each of them a definite preference; the Protestant for a father alone, the Roman Catholic for a son alone, the Quakers and other heretical sects for a holy spirit alone. Each of those churches indeed assumes the two other gods of the trine, but only as negligible quantities.

To think three gods is necessarily to elect one god, according to the ruling infernal love. The entire man may be known from that election. That the Angels at the first approach of a spirit perceive of what religion he is, is because the Angels are Angels out of this that they think and believe in ends, in causes, Of in effects; the celestial in the ends, the spiritnal in the causes, the natural in the effects. And to think in those is to be in the all thereof. Otherwise it is not in those or in themselves, but concerning those or outside themselves. It is the all, or the fnll presence

of the Lord, that gives the perception. Now the end is not the all of the cause except for the purpose of being the all of the effect. The celestial Angels, who are in the ends, therefore at the first approach or from the sphere of the spirit perceive whether, yea yea, nay nay, the effect or his life - and this is the religion - essentially answers the first end, the Love; the spiritual Angels, who are in the causes, perceive how the effect answers the middle end, Wisdom; the natural Angels, who are in the effects, perceive in what the effect answers the' last end, Use. It is, in a threefold degree, always by the effect or by the fruit that the tree is known, a tree planted along streams of water or a tree in hell.

For this reason they who think three gods purpose to take from the last end, which is the effect, the all out of the first end, and this is just what matters; in order that it may become a natural separated from its prior, more interior or higher parts, these being the middle and the first ends; which separated effect afterwards serves to counterfeit the conjoined effect with art and study, in order to justify or to sanctify the propriallife or the life of the proprium in the eyes of one's self and of the world. To think three gods therefore is done with an evil intention, evil and therefore dark, for which reason it is written that they think three gods, but do not dare to say so openly for fear of ridicule by sound reason, and of thus losing honour and gain. For sound reason has it from the universal influx that there is one God, or that God is one, Of, what is the same, that there is one End, or that the End is one. As has been said, to think three gods is to set three ends, not one end of three degrees, but a triple end; not the first, the middle, and the last end, but a first, a second, and a third end. End and cause are father and mother of the effect. They who think three gods, trespass against the fourth Commandment by lwt honouring Father and Mother. And, because the trespassing against one commandment is the trespassing against all commandments, they who think three gods or set three ends, in addition to being desecrators are also thieves and murderers. They are to be understood by the husbandmen who, when the time of the fruit drew near, killed the son and heir of the travelling householder to keep the vineyard for themselves, MATT. XXI: 33--41. Tha.t the

householder had travelled abroad signifies that the Lord leaves the free and the rational of man untouched as if hi, own; the time of the fruit drawing near, has reference to the effect, and the all of that is the Son's from the Father. The evil husbandmen are the thinkers of three gods who deny the threefold end by robbing the effect of its all or its soul, spirit, and life out of the first end. Then when the lord of the vineya.rd shall come, that is, the Second Coming of the Lord, "He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons". To let out is to endow with the celestial proprium; the vineyard signifies the Doctrine of the Church; and concretely, they who live following the Doctrine; the life following the Doctrine is the fruits in their seasons, the effects which are purely of the first End or of the one God, that is, the Lord's and thus will all be given to Himself because the one God or the first End is the all in all things of those effects. The miserable destruction is the death of the old churches, the damnation of the thinkers of three gods, a suicide and a self-damnation.

The question now arises: what is an effect separated from its end and cause, what and why? Is not a separated effect a thing of vain reason? For an effect wlthout its end and cause cannot exist, and consequently is just as inconceivahle as unbelievable. But it is the same with this as with the natural separated from the celestial and the spiritual; also the same as with the external worship separated from the internal; both, that natural and that worship, are purely infernal. For separated from the spiritual and the internal does not mean separated from the spiritual world - for indeed, without continual influx out of the spiritual world nothing can come into existence, exist, or remain in existence, because no thing from nothing can become something. However, the spiritual world includes the Heavens, the world of spirits, and the hells. To be separated from the spiritual or from the internal therefore means to be in consociatlon not with the Heavens, but with the hells. This is because all words in the first instance or in the genuine sense have reference to the only Lord. Thus for him who in all his affections, thoughts, and deeds has the Lord in His Church

before his eyes, to such an extent that consciously as well as unconsciously or subconsciously he continually thinks nothing but the Church in all of his life, there is not one word that is not from the Lord and does not return to the Lord. Wherever in the Word it says end, in the highest sense the Lord with regard to Love is understood; where cause, there the Lord with regard to Wisdom; where effect, there the Lord with regard to Use.

End and cause, as said, are the parents of the effect. Who thinks the Church, here at once thinks the celestial marriage of the Good and the True, or of Love and Wisdom, in the will and the understanding, with uses as children, sons and daughters. Married partners are conceivable without children, but not children without parents. By the children or the fruits the parental tree is known. In man love and wisdom form his marriage, and together with the uses that which is called his religion. That which the Angels at once upon the first approach of a spirit perceive is wllether the all of the first End is in his gezin [family] or his gezindte [creed], thus whether the genuine conjugial is therein, or an imitated conjugial, or the whorish. The Dutch word gezindte used in the sense of religion is connected with gezin and gezindheid [family and disposition], just as the ee of eegade [wife] with eeuwig in the old sense of law, faith, marriage, nature or disposition, purity, chastity, modesty (see Sixth Fascicle, p. 177). From this consideration it is evident that religion is the marriage of love and wisdom, and the household of love, wisdom, and use. Hence in the HANDBOOK FOR THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM IN HOLLAND this precious word was said: "If the Church is not in the household, it is nowhere", a word whereof the deep sense now opens anew. For we can now also read in that word: "If the Church is not in the religion, it is nowhere". Thus family and religion become one living concept, in which Love, Wisdom, and Use, or the first end, the middle end, and the last end, together are one in simultaneous order, Heaven in smallest form.

Let us proceed. The effect or the last end is the first end in ultimates. They who think three gods, and thus set three ends, evidently have the purpose of separating in the effect the first end from its ultimates, of appropriating to them-

selves the ultimates and of throwing away behind their backs the end, or treading it under foot. What is this, to separate the first end from its ultimates, and why? Arriving at this point of our meditation, as if at the bend of a road, we suduenly see a new vista opening out before us, which gives a surprising insight into what is nothing less than the essence of evil. For the tent-companion of the word uitwerking [effect] is the word nut [use]; and the tentcompanion of the word nut [use], considered in itself, is the word genot [enjoyment]; nut and genot [use and enjoyment] are of the same root; nuttigen [to partake of, to eat or to drink] is genieten [to enjoy] and genieten is nuttigen. Now the essence of evil is this horrible thing, from which an Angel at once turns away: the separation of the use from the enjoyment, to enjoy the enjoyment, and to tread down the use. In an intellectual vision to some degree elevated it would seem well-nigh impossible that there could be anything so screamingly insane as a spewed out and trodden down use, after the enjoyment thereof has been enjoyed; and nevertheless all the world is nothing but that evil, and only by the very strictest self-compulsion is the man who is about to be reformed anything hut that evil. The fall of the Most Ancient Church and the fall of each church since was nothing hut the debasement or the fall of the use, violated for the sole enjoyment and afterwards trodden down. The evil we have been told to shun therefore under whatsoever form is always in essence the evil of the separation between use and enjoyment, the deification of the enjoyment, the denial of the use.

To what extent the separation between use and enjoyment is destructive of order, and insane, appears from a closer consideration of the false religions of the old churches. Those churches are called old, decrepit, un-renewable or dead because of their thinking three gods. As said, the characteristic trait of the Protestant church is its preference for a father alone. For him who in all things thinks the Church, the word Father signifies the Lord with reference to the Love, the Divine Good. With the Protestants this Good is considered a true, a true alone, elevated to such an extent above the good and the use that these, namely the good and the use, thereby disappear into the shade and into nothingtness. Their doctrine of election at bottom is

the election of an imaginary true personified in a grim jehovah. What matters to them is to be the true brother in the true doctrine. A word snch as "the Doctrine of the genuine True" would not occur to their minds even in a dream, for the genuine true signifies the conjngial. true, the true conjoined with the good into a marriage, and thus in its effect with the nses forming a household, a generation, a family. For them the true rigidity of doctrine justifies any kind of life whatever, since with the cross all hereditary debts have been cleared. So as with them the true obscures the good, the remorse concerning the hereditary sin confessed with the lips obscures all actual evil with them, which, in an instant, on the very deathbed, by the confession of the true faith loses its damning effect. As said, the characteristic trait of the Roman Catholic church is its preference for a son alone. For him who in all things thinks the Church, the word Son signifies the Lord with reference to the Wisdom, the Divine True. With the Roman Catholics reversely, this True is considered a good, a good alone, elevated to such an extent above the true that it makes it, namely the true, disappear into the shade and into nothingness. Use alone they will allow of, because the good work pertains to the good. Originally this putting of the good in the prior place was an acknowledgment of the Divine Majesty in the Human of the Lord, see the BRIEF EXPOSITION, n. 108, but in their thinking of three gods and in their setting of three ends, the Roman Catholics fell into another fault. By putting the body as middle-end into the first place and by idolizing it as good, the concept of the son became ever more corporeal, until at length the worship of a son passed over on to the mother; the middle cause became a means and even a means justifying the end, the occasional cause became the incidental occasion for all kinds of arbitrary devotions. As a result of this there arose the exaggerated cult of Mary to which the invocation of the saints fits so closely that all Roman Catholic saints are considered to be more the sons of Mary than the son himself who is put up for god, of whom nevertheless they carry around everywhere the sign of the cross for the warding off of evils. Just as in popedom as a .vicarship the representative puts the represented into the shade. where the papal infallibility is a quality stolen from the

Holy Spirit; an infallibility of what is not the Divine, proceeding; thns a quality withont substance, an attribute or a predicate without subject. And as with them the good obscures the true, the actual evil confessed by them at stated hours of confession obscures all hereditary evil. This last remains untouched; this church with world-wide power stands powerless against hereditary evil, and rightly, for the sale weapon against hereditary evil is the genuine True, which therefore also is the sense of the Second Coming of the Lord. In His Coming the Lord set up fixed limitations to the actual evil by subjugating the hells and ordering the Heavens; in His Second Coming He brings hereditary evil to a standstill and to regression. Now while the Protestants consider the actual evil as not being of prime importance in the final entire justification, the Roman Catholics consider the hereditary evil as not being of prime importance in the gradual sanctification, the former by preferring the sole apparent true, the latter by preferring the sale apparent good. It is characteristic of both churches that each, among many varieties shows two principal currents that contradict and neutralize each other. The protestant church alongside of an icy calvinistic doctrinal rigidity shows a diluted liberalism which runs almost to free thought; the Roman Catholic church alongside of a good-humoured worldliness, from which expressions such as patertie goedleven [jolly friar] and smnlpaap [pampering father] have entered and remained in the Dutch language, kumvs an icy convent discipline with hermits and flagellants. To these two Roman Catholic ultimates the primitive Christian Church degenerated; to the former two Protestant ultimates the genuine core of the first Reformation. Add to all these absurdities the not less abominable absurdity of the afore-mentioned sects who wish by force to claim the effects of a holy-spirit-alone in enthusiastic states which leads to a, witches’ Sabbath of prophetic shammin s crazes, frenzies, and fananmsms. If one were to examine these sects more closely, it would appear that piece by piece they fit together as just so many hells, with "the woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess", Apoc. II : 20, as principal of the devils.

The motives for these three principal forms of thinking three gods are plainly ambition, greed of gain, and lust of

dominion. What lies at the bottom of these motives is plain: to reserve to one's self in the natural a separated effect for the proprium, or in other words, to maintain a given sensual pleasure, to excuse, yea to glorify it. From the word genot [enjoyment] the words genotzncht [lust of enjoyment] and genotziek [eager for enjoyment] have been formed. Well then, the doctrines of three gods diversely formulated hide various kinds of these lusts of enjoyment. The worship out of a thinking of three gods rests on the external worship of the Jews, imbued with corporeal sensuality, this again with cruelty, this again with avarice, the one within the other, the avarice as inmost enjoyment, thus the source of all their evil lusts and diseases. With the Protestants these lusts or diseases have their seat in cruelty, thence their surly, chilly, bare houses of worship; with Roman Catholics in luxury, thence their pompous temples and chapels, where for a large part art also has been drawn down from its origin, essence, and use; with the above-mentioned sects in a hysterical running wild. They all fall under the Lord's judgment: "Ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer", MATT. XXIII: 14. Here to devour [that is, to eat] does not signify to partake of [Dutch nuttigen, to take for use], but to abuse where there might have been a use; and this by killing the longings for the true, these are the widows, with false things, this is the pretence of long prayer; the widows houses signifies the religions as marriages, households, houses, generations, families. Here too the essence of the evil is clearly noticeable: to persevere in a separated effect and thereby to pretend an appearance of use for the sake of the sensual enjoyment.

It is therefore of the very greatest vital interest, to begin to see, alongside of all these infernal opposites, the orderly celestial relation of use and enjoyment; for in the effect, or in the last end, use and enjoyment are together and one, but differently with the celestial and differently with the infernal. The abuse of the free and the rational has disturbed the celestial order in the latter, has torn off the use from the enjoyment and thus separated them beyond recognition, forgetful of the end and thus forgetful of God; that separation therefore is the source of all heresies. The Doctrine now should teach the good, true, useful use anew. For we must continually realize that the thinking

of three gods or the setting of three ends by no means is a vanquished standpoint in the New Chnrch; everywhere where the evil in any evil of whatever slight kind is not shunned, the thinking of three gods is present at once, for each enjoyment separately enjoyed, split from its use and pnt to the fore, robs the cause from the all of the effect, and the end from the all of the cause. So the end is no longer three-fold and of three degrees, but three in number, fallen asunder, jumbled together; the influx of the first end into the last is broken, and in so much as Heaven is then closed, hell opens. The evil in any evil, or the essence of evil lies .in making the enjoyment of use sensual, exterior, corporeal; see there a true of life which can never enough be considered and can never enough be made of life.

Now before we proceed, a few striking examples will be asked for of the difference between use and enjoyment conjoined, and use and enjoyment sepamted. Well, consider only the difference between repentance and remorse. Genuine repentance has penitence for fruit, and how sweet the bliss thereof is experience teacbes. Remorse denies penitence with the visible purpose of remaining in the evil enjoyment, forgetful of the use, forgetful of the end, and thus forgetful of God. And so many other words may be contrasted in which the difference clearly appears; compare for example to eat and to tuck; to drink and to guzzle; to sup and to cram; to read and to devour; to talk and to chatter; to see and to peep; to worship nd to idolize; diligence and blind zeal, jealousy, emulation; wealth and luxury; abundance and excess; judgment and criticism; laughter and derision; to believe and to be superstitious; to be saving and to be aavaricious; wise and clever; discretion and policy; miracle and magic; piety and bigotry – this list maybe lengthened without end. But let us stand still at the word vroom [pious], and let us admire therein the multiplicity and the unity of natural spiritual significations which stamp it as an original or an eastern or oriental word in the language, a word of religion in the full effect, full of the all of the first end, through the middle end into the last end, use and enjoyment one to eternity. As an adjective it formerly signified useful; as a substantive advantage, gain, use, profit; as verb 1. to grow up, to become stalwart,

strong, powerful, virtuous, courageous, brave, to strive forward; 2. to be of advantage or good for; 3. to plnck the fruit of something, to draw the benefits of something; 4. to be useful, to be of avail, think of the German frommen; 5. to fall to one's share. We might therefore say that the Angels at the first approach perceive the vroomheid [piety] of a spirit; for in the piety, thus understood anew or as to its original meaning, is the all of religion, or the tree in its fruit. Everywhere where use and enjoyment are piously conjoined, there is the genuine good in its genuine true, and everywhere where the use has been separated from the enjoyment, there is an apparent good next to an apparent true, or the evil in its false; and reversely, for the one is in the cause of the other. As soon as a good exceeds its true, or a true its good, the enjoyment begins to separate itself from its use, and this because then the enjoyment no longer proceeds from the use but from the infernal proprium, and no longer is natural spiritual, but only sensuously natural. The continnal ordering of the heavens from the Lord therefore is a continual renewal or creation of the unity of use and enjoyment in the effect; for it is known that also the Angels from themselves, or left to themselves, would strive straight for hell; and in what else is tl.is the case than in the enjoyment separated from use, for this is being left to oneself. Now the daily penitence on earth corresponds to the continual ordering of the Heavens; in this penitence an evil enjoyment dies, whereupon a new use puts a good enjoyment in the place thereof; and this so often until the man has become entirely and altogether new.

"The evil in any evil" we said; for it is easily done, separating the essence of evil from the evil things, then shunning the evil with the lips in a purposely vague generality, with the lips because the essence has not been seen, and then afterwards making the evil things count as mere idiosyncrasies. Properly speaking this is a separating of the actual evil from the hereditary evil by making the actual evil into an enormous theoretical point of detestation, as externally manifest as in anyway possible, with the evident externally manifest as in anyway possible, with the evident purpose of letting the hereditary eil interiorly eat its way on, without any cooperation as from one’s self to doom it to a standstill and to retrogression. The Lord’s parable concerning

platter and cup in the Second Coming signifies: "You cleanse the outside to such an extent that it is given the appearance of being actually not-evil, but from within an untouched hereditary evil transudes; but know the clammy outside wall in each drop coming through the pores, witnesses against you; cleanse first the inside". All things in which the natural man wishes to be left free, all things which he calls his own things, to which he is attached and that are attached to him as domestic animals to their master, without exception are evil things, of which he will not see the essence, thus of which he will not investigate the fathership, and to which he would bend round even the Doctrine of the genuine True if only he could; nevertheless, whoso has a trace left of his own things in that sense, is not worthy of the Doctrine, for doctrine is not the Doctrine unless its all is in the effect or in the life; and whoso has no part in the all of the Doctrine has no part in anything at all of it. He may like a Protestant pride himself in the "true doctrine", an external without an internal, salt having lost its savour, because the conjoining means is lackrng; but in no way it is the Doctrine of the Genuine True, for the Doctrine of the Genuine True is in no way a true doctrine to swear by, but the good Doctrine, the nseful Doctrine, good and useful as a lamp to live by. All who think three gods and set three ends are perjurers who swear by the god and the end they have elected. There are those who swear by Heaven, that is, by a heaven without the Divine True proceeding from the Lord, thus without the Lord; there are those who swear by the earth, that is, by a church without the Divine True there, thus by a body without a soul, consequently likewise without the Lord; there are those who swear by Jerusalem, that is, by a spirit without holiness or a holiness without spirit, for Jerusalem is the Doctrine of the True out of the Word, thus the Holy Spirit, and consequently the Lord; there are those who swear by the head, that is, by the true which a man himself believes to be true, the summary of the three preceding groups, for all of them desire wickedly and lustfully to confirm the Divine True from man and not from the Lord, for to swear is nothing else than to confirm, see A.C. 9166. These four forms of perjury are directly opposed to the Lord's commandment, to love thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with

all thy sirength, with all thy mind, these being the four receptacles of the Lord as Heaven, the Earth, the New Jerusalem, and the Head, while the word "all" has reference to the all of the end, the all of the cause, the all of the effect. Their perjured swearing thus aims at maintaining the things unlawfully appropriated.

The father of one's own things, good-naturedly indicated as hobbies and knick-knacks in civil life, is the devil; and the soul derived from him, or the essence, again and again is the enjoyment torn loose from the use, use and enjoyment split asunder as the split snake's tongue and the split goat's hoof, of old times attributed to the devil. These things sound harsh and dreadful, because with them something in the proprium begins to crack and creak, so that the cry of distress arises: Who then can be saved? But these things are not so harsh and so dreadful but that the unpostponed daily penitence has full power to takle them, for the Lord has given he hopeful prospect: “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light”, MATT XI : 30.

The Word teaches that a heavenly society is the more perfect in the measure in which each Angel is more his. What then is the difference between "being his", and "being his own"? Whoso wishes to be left free and not meddled with, claims the right of heing allowed to have his proprial things, and he could brilliantly refer to the mentioned teaching, namely that in his own things he is his, which cannot but be of benefit to the society. Here a remark from one of the Scientific Works may serve as a serious warning:

"When a name which is given to any unknown quality becomes familiar to us, we are apt to think, after a frequent use of it, that we clearly understand the essence of everything that name comprehends. But if in such cases we only ask ourselves: What is this? Whence is this? and if we persevere in the question, we shall find that instead of going forwards, we have only been retrograding from things more known to things more unknown, and from these again to others most unknown", ECON. ANIM. KINGD., I, n. 64. It is the same also with the proprium, and in order to come to realize the distinction between the human or the angelic "his" and the proprium of man or Angel, a long path in life or a long road of experience must be travelled, while at

first sight and later with an obtuse sight it seems as if they are self-evident and even synonymous terms.

Just as all Angels have been men, just so all celestial propriums have been natural propriums. "No one becomes an Angel, that is, comes into Heaven; except the one who carries the angelic with him out of the world; and the angelic has within it the knowledge of the way, out of the walking of it, and the walking of the way through the knowledge of it", D.P. 60. The celestial proprium is the natural proprium created from the Lord as Father, redeemed by the Lord as Son, and regenerated by the Lord as Holy Spirit. Thus the celestial proprium is the image of the glorified Human of the Lord. The natural proprium of which the principle is the Remains, is purely the Lord's. "There is not anything man's own, but it appears to him as if it were", D.P. 78. "Although all things that man perceives, and thence thinks and knows, and in accordance with the perception wills and does, inflow, nevertheless it is of the Lord's Divine Providence that this appears as if of man, for otherwise man would receive nothing, thus would not be endowed with any understanding or wisdom", D.P. 76. The angelic proprium in man is natural out of celestial origin. In that natural proprium each man is as if his, just as in the celestial proprium each Angel is as if his. From that natural proprium there surges forth, as a sphere, an own natural. The sphere of each true society is therefore the blessed commuitication of the own naturals of each and all, an interchange or an interaction of uses, diverse in themselves and universal all together.

The infernal proprium is the denial and the violation of that natural proprium, the good affections of which it bent down to evil lusts by an abused free and rational, and thence the true things thereof into false, and the good uses thereof into evil ones. “The evil uses, too are from the spiritual Sun but the good uses are converted into evil ones in hell", D.L.W. 348. Just as all devils have been men, just so all lusts have been affections. The affection is simple, and as such it is celestial by origin and nature, and in essence it is innocence. Various simple affections, entangled together and finally by inheritance grown together, as the separate fibres of nerves and muscles round the

lips of the Most Ancient grew fixed in the posterity, make one evil desire. The difficult conversion of evil concupiscences into good affections, viewed otherwise, would be the conversion of wolves into sheep, which is an abominable absurdity of the Protestants; but it is the laborious unravelling, the soaking loose and the bending back of simple affections knotted awry, each of them, as it might be said of nerves and muscles, from its distorted, disrupted, twisted position into its suitable place. The infernal proprium with man is the natural as-if-proprium – pro private -- from the Lord, with him degenerated, stolen, counterfeited into an unnatural proprium, an infernal counterpart which does not cease to do violence to its archetype (note in Dutch the root wel of geweld [violence] points to the will run wild); so that the natural proprium as the Lord had meant it to be, lies there jammed in the infernal proprium, imprisoned, sick, naked, hungry, thirsty, a stranger, a widow, an orphan, needy, lame, blind, deaf. It cries for liberation from that infernal grasp. Only by the Word, by which all natural propriums, all natural qualities of men and things have been made that have been made, is it liberated, by the Word in the genuine sense or by the Doctrine from the Lord, for the Doctrine is the genuine sense, and "the genuine sense of the Word no others perceive than those who are enlightened", A.C 10323.

From this consideration it becomes manifest that in the name familiar to all of us of "the own" or "the proprium" more qualities and characteristics lie enclosed than are accounted for in the vague general idea of "nothing but evil". For that was well known to the old churches thinking three gods; yea, all too well, for with that premised and stressed generality they purposely obscured the particulars, thus putting a corn measure over the candle light. But hy considering the proprium in a vague generality as nothing hut evil, the following as it were algebraic equation originates: the proprium is the evil, the evil is the proprium, thence the infernal proprium is the infernal evil or a pleonasm, and the celestial proprium is the celestial evil or a contradiction in terminis. This too, as a reductio ad absurdum shows that a name, a term, a word such as "the own" or "the proprium" contains infinitely more unknown qualities than is commonly understood in a vague general idea. For the man who

thinks the Church there sparkles a starry heaven of particulars in the word proprium, as innumerable as the count· less minds that since Creation have lived, live, and will live, and of which not one is the same as the other, and will not be, into eternity. For the man, however, who thinks three gods, there is only one proprium, that of the evil hireling of the vineyard, which he is himself. And when the Lord says He will let the vineyard to, other husbandmen, he thinks within himself: "As if those others do not just as much have a proprium as we have as evil and false as ours".

There is the human-angelic proprium, and there is the human-devilish proprium. The human-angelic proprium has all appropriation from the Lord, so that therein he may be fully as his, with all celestial blessedness. The humandevilish proprium however avariciously, imperiously, and wantonly out of itself has appropriated to itself all things which by origin are Divine, and thereby profaned them to infernal means for lascivious ends (note in Dutch the root wul of wulpsch [lascivious] which relates to the prostituted will). And so then the human-angelic proprium has another "his", another itself, another self, and other things than the human-devilish proprium, differing the one from the other as the celestial free from the infernal free, the good use from the evil use. And with that use we return to our starting point, for it is for the sake of the use and the enjoyment in the use that they differ, and for nothing else. With the evil man the eagerness and lust of enjoyment have gained the mastery over the use, as his will over his understanding, his free over his rational. The use is related to the enjoyment as the rational is to the free. With the evil man the enjoyment run wild - note the root wil of run wild relates to the foolish will - has broken the bounds of the use and has become an end by itself. The first erid by the middle end descends into the last end, as does the New Jerusalem from God out of Heaven. With him who thinks three gods and sets three ends, this triple pillar crashes down, not from discrete order into simultaneous order, but smashed into a godless disorder, mere wreckage, to which the evil lusts then rush as just so many evil wild beasts, each of them to drag away his booty. For him who thinks three gods the Word in its three degrees is such a demolished pillar; his externally holy reading is a leering

among the ruins in order to patch together therefrom something to his liking. "It should be known that man out of study can imitate the Divine things themselves", A.C.I0284. With study and art he seeks to compose an apparent order or an order of his own from the disorderly truths that have fallen asunder, truths that are no longer truths, for order is truth and truth is order. Thus in the above mentioned parable the evil hirelings killed their lord's son, after having stoned his messengers. Again, note how in that parable it is expressly, said: "and when the time of the fruit drew near", and at the end: "he will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons", clearly to stress the last end, the effect, the twofoldness of use and enjoyment, in which the good are good, and the evil evil. For the good the good is the enjoyment, for the evil the enjoyment is the good. The good is what is called use. The essential or genuine good is the all of the effect, the good use, and the reversal thereof in the infernal proprium is the evil use.

That the proprium of man, although in its origin just as celestial as the love of self and of the world, has become nothing but evil and false, is because it bas been given to man to have something in his power which it has not been given to the beasts to have in their power, namely, the separating of the natural from the spiritual; a separation in the effect, and this in order to bring about something in the effect which the beasts cannot do: the tearing away of the enjoyment from the use. If it were to be examined what it is that most men understand by that word of words: "The Lord dwells only in His own with man", it would appear that because of the misconception regarding the proprium they understand something very vague, indefinite, and unreal, more or less amounting to this: "the Lord dwells only in Himself in man". Which would exclude all cooperation as from one's self: the Lord by Himself in Himself, and the man by himself in himself in nothing but evil and false. Nothing could be more dead! A fault in the thinking, a fault because of thinking three gods behind which a sore bult of life hides itself by' blowing up the not-understood letter to a. generality obscuring everything. There are two propriums: the one is that which is appropriated to man as

his own from the Lord; the other is that same proprium counterfeited, which man appropriates and arrogates to himself for the mere enjoyment. The entire merciful work of reformation and regeneration consists in the redeeming of the proprium which is the Lord's. Now it is that proprium which is His in which the Lord dwells with man. That proprium from Creation is as the propriums, the qualities, the individualities, the peculiarities, the idiosyncrasies of all things or uses that have been made; and the Lord in Creation dwells in what is His. Of the proprium an impossible axiom has been made which, by way of speaking, has thrown out the baby with the soap-suds; so that finally there remains no self-respect and mutual esteem, and thus no charity. On the one hand no self-esteem from the Lord, on the other nothing but self-conceit from one's self. We must arrive at a new fear of the proprium which to us is purely the Lord's; and the first use of the Doctrine for life is the ordering continually anew of that which is purely the Lord's; and of separating with a firm and severe hand what is not the Lord's.

In between a few remarkable derivations of words.

Nut [use] formerly signified the produce of agriculture and cattle-breeding, also advantage and office; a related root is not [need] whence noodig [needful] and this meant not only the produce of agriculture, cattle-breeding, as well as the fruits of the field, but also the necessaries thereto, also cattle and seed; nyt, milk, too is related ,vith nut [use] ;

Genieten [to enjoy] formerly meant to use, to taste, to have, to catch; of a related root is ganiutan, to catch; nuta, fishnet; nauda, use, property; nauta, possession; naut, a head of cattle; ghenoot, one who participates, who has a share in the possession of grounds; geniet, enjoyment, and “dat hooge geniet” thence meant Heaven; moreover geniet meant advantagae, profit, financial gain

Gebruiken [to use] of old times brukhan, root bhreug, related to the Latin fruor, meant to enjoy, to use, to eat, to experience, to have intercourse with, to have the disposal of, to occupy one's self with, to rent and to let grounds; gebrukelyc meant blessed;

Usus, which is the Latin word for use, has a number of subsignifications, such as: making use of, experience,

discipline, capability, value, advantage, gain, need, occasion;

Utor, verbal form of ususs, means to put to use, to make use of, to administer, to control, to exercise, to make up, to assume, to belong to, to carry out, to exercise, to practice, to take into consideration, to enjoy, to experience, to suffer, to eat, to be friendly or confidential with some one, to possess, to have;

Frux, fruit, signifies also that which one may enjoy; of a related root is fructus, income, enjoyment, and furor, to enjoy or to use; hence our word vruchtgebruik [usufruct] is really a tautology.

Whoso thinks the Church as the whole of his life, understands all these significations interwoven from above one by one, and perceives the words nut [use] and genot [enjoyment] as inseparable tent-companions, "tentghenooten".

Herein the language, which draws this wonderful tissue out of the spiritual world, mirrors the entire Word; for in the language the words nut and genot, as to their roots, are as much one as, in the letter of the Word, usus, use, and jucundum, the enlivening, go together inseparably on almost every page. Jucundum, of old times meant that which affords amusement, thence pleasant, agreeable, loved; the word is based on two roots: jaws, English joke, play, and juvare, to help, to support, to assist, to further, to lighten (the sanskrit root also signifies glow, shine, ray, to glitter), to give enjoyment, to do pleasure, to amuse, to please or to find pleasure, in short to enliven, for which word we have chosen the Dutch translation VERKWIKKEN [to enliven] because it epitomizes all those meanings and of old times also contained a similar series of meanings, as to feed, to rear, to cherish, to cheer up, to be cheerful, to quicken, to bring to life (again), to make healthy, to light a fire. In Dutch nut and genot [use and enjoyment], are words related to the same root, just as geloof and gelooven [faith and to believe]; in Latin usus and jucundm are derived from distinct roots as fides and credere. This is sure to have its deep sense and hidden reason, into which we cannot now and here enter further; but this is sure that the word genot has gradually been degraded, as appears from compounds such as zingenot,genotzucht, genotziek [sensual pleasure, lust of enjoyment, eager for enjoyment], while however an expression as in het

genot stellen van [to afford anyone the advantage of] clearly points back to tbe noble origin. Centnries of thinking three gods have put their stamp on that word genot, which the word verkwikkelijk [enlivening] cannot have and in the future will not have. What is enlivening gives one to understand that the well followed use does not wear down the senses, blunt, and demolish them; but renews them, with which the entire body becomes new in each function, which is the all of use: a new body for a new spirit. Suffice it when in all that follows here we now with the word genat [enjoyment] think of the word verkwikkelijk [enlivening], and vice versa.

Our attention has previously, in the Dutch edition of DE HEMELSCHE LEER 1934, p. 100, been drawn to a remarkable statement in the ADDITIONS TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, VIII : 19, see Posthumous Theological Works, Vol. I, p. 159, reading: "The internal of man is his spirit, the internal of the latter his will, the internal of the will is his love and the internal of the latter is the enlivening. The consociation of all is according to the enlivening things".

Put next to that this statement: "Acts and works are ultimates; out of these by the enlivening things of the uses comes to pass a return to their firsts which are the will and the understanding or charity and faith. '" The enlivening things of the acts and of the works are the enlivening things which are called uses", D.L.W. 316, and we shall see that in the effect or the last end, for these are the ultimates, use and enjoyment are one, a good enjoyment of use with the good, an evil enjoyment of use with the evil. With both the circle of flowing forth and flowing back seems to be the same, but with the evil it is a vicious circle, and with the good it may be called a virtuous circle, a higher circular form or spiral, which latter causes the ultimates out of the firsts to be continually enlivened and renewed. Life upon earth, just as the entire natural kingdom in which it is enacted, is in the effect. With the good each effect, thus each use and enjoyment, is within the spiritual ultimate which is called the natnral spiritual; but with the evil it is outside of that, for "the spiritnal ultimate ... may be separated from its higher

things, and it is separated with the men from whom is hell" D.L.W. 345. Seen from our present consideration with regard to life we might understand this to be the rending asunder, the tearing apart of use and enjoyment which from the Lord are one, in order to keep the enjoyment to one's self. What is the separating of the spiritual ultimate from its higher things other than taking away from the use the all of the end and the all of the cause, for the sake of the sale enjoyment, which thence no longer is natural spiritual but merely natural, sensual, corporeal, thus unnatural, lascivious, cadaverous, in a word, infernal. For what purpose are the strict laws in the Book on CONJUGIAL LOVE, for instance those of the strictly distinct states of engagement, betrothal, and marriage, otherwise than to prevent that the highest enlivening thing does not as enjoyment prematurely waste "way the use in the last end, so that it rots away as a tulip. There is a common Dutch term "de zure pltcht" [the bitter duty]. Well then, one might also speak of a "bitter use". All human misery originates from this that from each use given from the Lord, the enjoyment is hurriedly consumed, so that the use proper remains behind as a bitter use with which an enlivening is no longer possible. In each spiritual ultimate or natural spiritual separated from its higher things all uses and duties have become bitter, heavy, and hard for us. A hereditary evil, heaped up through centuries has gradually rendered our senses, our blood, our entire bodies, almost unable to receive the genuine enlivening, we preferring the stickly clod of earth to the celestial aura thereof. The merciful operation of reformation and regeneration is nothing else than a soaking loose, piece by piece, of the sensual enjoyment glued fast to our minds; part by part, region by region, different again in each state and degree, because in each next state and degree other heterogeneous things again impede the pure effect. Ever anew disturbances of order arise which consist in a making external of what should become, be, and remain natural spiritual, on account of which, the genuine internal in which is the first end or the Lord, then draws back, giving space to another group or combination, which is to be called a state of no order because it is not from the Lord but from the infernal proprium. In order to shun tbis evil it must be possible to seek the true, and in

order to find the true the evil must have beeu shunned. The first of charity consists in this, that we give one another the affection of and for this virtuous circle, for only the affection is fructifying, fruit-bearing; and now listen how nut and genot [use and enjoyment] are together in this word. The multiplications are nothing unless they lead to impregnations, flowing forth thence and flowing back thither, without end. What we owe, the one to the other, is a continually renewed mind: and a new mind from which only affections flow forth, is only possible by one's placing one's self, as if from one's self, in that circle of life. The life that may become truly life is always on the border of the possible and tbe impossible; it is possible, in the beginning, only by a self-compulsion continually prayed for from the Lord; it is impossible immediately the man even slightly wavers in that self-compulsion. That self-compulsion always over again has relation to the unconjoined enjoyment, the enlivening forgetful of the use. Only when the self-compulsion has become a second nature or of a spiritual nature, is it seen to be cooperation with the Lord, and is the burden seen to be light and the yoke easy; only then can we taste the use of uses, the delight of delights: the giving and receiving of affection. Then there is the communion of all with each, of each with all, and then has the Society been born in which the man, just as the Angel in what is his, is in his countenance as soon as he enters it.

The self-compulsion with regard to the unconjoined enjoyment as we now understand it, precedes the eternal peaceful cooperation. For this reason usus in Latin also means discipline. Without self-discipline the celestial free cannot be inherited, and that self-discipline consists in putting the sensual under guardianship. For this reason utor in Latin also means to administer, to control, to take into consideration. Where that self-discipline is neglected the separated enjoyment gains the mastery over every spiritual use and draws it outside of the all of the end, with the infernal lust of defloration, variation, and other abominations. And the collective name for all those ahominations is that of thinking three gods. The false doctrines thereof must be seen as to life and not only with reference to the Doctrine of the genuine True, which consideration would remain only in the theoretical, and become sterile, unfruit-

ful. With regard to the abominable life they must be seen as infernal opposites in the effect in order that afterwards the life following the Doctrine may the more eagerly be besought from the Lord. ["Eager" in this sense is a translation of the Dutch "hevig" and this word aga.in has the same root as "heavy",] "Hevig" means to exert all faculties in order to heave the heaviness. For where we are stuck to any separated sensual enjoyment, we all are like those who think three gods who also have no thought of leaving their own to which they hold fast with heretical tooth and nail. The celestial enlivening of each natural spiritual use so far surpasses the separated enjoyment that if those who think three gods could only have the remotest idea of it, they would calumniate the man-Angel or the man-Church as an arch-sensual beast, wild in their miserable incapacity in contrast to such highest capacity. But they do not know and cannot know, for in their letter the confirmed false appearances have extinguished the internal sense, and by that, or according to that, they have robbed themselves of all senses. For the sense (sensus) of the Word coheres with the sense (sensus) of the organs of sense, and the time is coming that enlightenment will be given herein. This however might be said that the External and the Internal Sense of the Word correspond and communicate with the external and the internal senses of man, and that every revelation or enlightenment is dependent on the state of man's sensual, in other words, on the quality and measure in which his body is renewed and from a lichaam [body] has become a lijf [living body].

We learn that it is of Charity to be able with the entire heart to pass over one's office to him who is better fitted for it; for thus the all of use is ascribed to the sale Lord without the wish of retaining for one's self any enjoyment of gain or glory. In such a spirit of Charity every Church and every member of the Church who is in the things of Doctrine, needs to receive all new things of Doctrine, to investigate, and to accept them. To accept is at once to obey the things heard out of the Word, and to obey the new is for His sake entirely to leave the old and no longer to remermber it. There is an enjoyment inherent in each old thing which must become less in order to allow and

to give full spiritual room to the enlivening of the new use. To renew .the sensual is the first duty of Charity, in order that in every effect use and enjoyment may he ever more one.

Let us read a passage such as this: "The essence of all love consists in conjunction, even so does its life, which is called enlivening, loveliness, delight, sweetness, beatitude, blissfulness, and felicity", D.L.W. 47. Here all most general celestial generations of the enjoyment of use are summed up which come forth from the conjunction as from their source. That conjunction is the use, a.nd it is that use which puts us in the enjoyment of inexpressihle felicities. For this reason there immediately follows: "Love consists in this that one's own should be another's, and that one should feel another's enlivening as an enlivening in one's self; this is to love; but to feel one's enlivening in the other and not his enlivening in one's self, is not to love, for this is to love one's self, but that is to love the neighbour", So then use and enjoyment conjoined into one is seen to be charity in effect, and on the contrary use and enjoyment separated is self-love and love of the world. In THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE n. 39 another series is given: "The beatitudes, blissfulnesses, enlivenings, lovelinesses, in a word, the felicities of Heaven ... ". The Latin word for felicity is felicitas, and the root signifies bearing fruit, productive. We might therefore equally well read: " ... in a word, the fruit-productivenesses of Heaven", which again points to the conjunction of the love and the wisdom, proceeding in the use and thus the inexpressible enjoyment one therewith. Those enjoyments are just as endlessly diversified as the foods which the Angels partake of, and we now as to life understand why the quality and thus the enjoyment thereof increases in excellence with the degree of the use. To wish to enjoy a greater enjoyment than agrees with the use, seen as the Angels see, is to separate the enjoyment from the use, and is no longer celestial, but an infernal greed of enjoyment. Now let us re-read in the ARCANA CELESTIA n. 12 this statement concerning the sixth day of creation: "His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by those things that are of the know ledges of faith, and those that are of the works of charity, which are called his food, and his

natural life is delighted and snstained by those that are of the body and the senses; from which wrestlings [arise], until love reigns and he becomes a celestial man. It stands there so simply in a few words: from which wrestlings [ar·ise], but we begin to realize what an immense combat of life lies enclosed therein: the strife of the spiritual man to have the merely natural or separated enjoyment reduced in order that the natural-spiritual or the conjoined enjoyment, the enjoyment of use, the enjoyment of salvation, may grow; a combat so immense "that at this day rarely some come to the sixth state, and scarcely any to the seventh", ibidem, n. 13.

Let us now re-read the word which we chose as text for this our philosophy of life: "According to the uses the natural man also becomes as it were spiritual, which happens when the natural man feels the enlivening of the use out of the spiritual". This word, a word of the Sixth Day of Creation, involves the all of religion, the all of faith out of the all of life. Our earlier question: "what then is a true thing of life whieh must become of life,"? here finds its ans'wer: the natural life must feel every enjoyment of every use out of the spiritual. To feel the enjoyment out of the spiritual is the same as living "following" the Doctrine, for the regeneration is from water and spirit, water the True and spirit the life following that. How many uses are not practised out of the lust of glory and gain, how many enjoymeuts are not enjoyed out of the love of self and of the world. It is the separated enjoyment which leaves the natural man entirely natural and it is the conjoined enjoyment which makes the natural man become as it were spiritual. We knew that love and wisdom are nothing without the use. We know now that the use is nothing without its enjoyment out of the spiritual. Separated they are a bitter use and a sordid enjoyment, conjoined they are fruitbearing felicities and blessed fruit-productivenesses.

This our textword from THE DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM we have to experience to our living bodies day by day, and for this reason it is a word of unutterably great sorrow, of immense combat, and of inexpressibly great peace. All living expressions of the man of the Church in whom the Church is, in affection and in thinking, in word

and in writing, must testify to these three: sorrow, combat, and peace. Use and enjoyment are not conjoined unless by fasting, and the Lord teaches us: "When ye fast, be not ... of a sad countenance ... but thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face", MATT. VI : 16-18, immediately after the Lord's Prayer. This too is what we meant above, that we owe to the neighbour a new mind, or else we are a thief and a murderer before the Lord; a thief of the enjoyment, and a murderer of every use.

Is it not remarkable that the Book on the Divine Love and Wisdom is not at the same time called "on the Divine Use", and is it not remarkable that Love has its quarter of the Heavens, the East, and Wisdom the South, but that for Use the quarter of the Heavens has nowhere been indicated? This teaches us that use is the all of love and the all of wisdom, and is therefore omnipresent or wherever love and wisdom proceed into the last end, in order there to be in fulness, glory, and power.

The Lord has said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also", MATT. VI : 21. Might we not also understand this word in this way: "Where your enjoyment is, there will your use be also"? A fearful question!

35 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR JANUARY 1937

"Those who are regenerated do. not all come to this state; but some, and the greatest part to-day, only to the first; some only to the second, some to the third, the fourth, the fifth, rarely to the sixth; and scarcely anyone to the seventh".

ARCANA CELESTIA 13.

“Here in the internal sense are continued the things concerning the Lord after He endured in boyhood the heaviest combats of temptations, which were against the love which He cherished toward the wh9le human race, specifically toward the Church; and therefore, He being in anxiety over the future state, a promise was made to Him; but it was shown at the same time of what quality the state of the Church would become toward its end, when it would begin to expire; but still that a new Church would revive, which would come in the place of the fonner, and the celestial Kingdom would be immeasurably increased",

ARCANA CELESTIA 1778

Every member of the New Church has at some time or many times rejoiced at the thought of the Second Coming of the Lord, in the realization that the Lord is now again present upon earth, in the books of the Word of the New Church. But the progress in the essential things of this Word, which are the internal things thereof, makes the man to experience that the Second Coming in its proper sense for himself is an event which can only take place after a sevenfold mortification and a sevenfold new creation of himself. The actual Second Coming for the man himself takes place only with those who become celestial men.

Of this sevenfold mortification and new creation the greatest part of the Church to-day attains only the first degree. Scarcely anyone to-day attains the seventh degree; scarpely anyone therefore comes into the things themselves of the Second Coming proper. But to the Lord, He being in an anxiety over the future state of the Church, a promise was made that the celestial Kingdom would be immensely increased.

"The Lord was tempted even to the death of the cross, thus to the last hour of the life in the world". "The whole of the Lord's life in the world was a continual temptation and continual victory". "All temptation is against the love in which the man. is, and the temptation is in the same degree as the love; if it is not against the love, it is no temptation; to destroy anyone's love is to destroy the life itself, for the love is the life; the Lord's life was the love towards the whole human race". In the heaviest temptation on the cross the Lord prayed for His enemies, "thus for all in the whole orb of the lands", A.C. 1690. In so much as man is not regenerated, in just so much he is an enemy of the Lord. Man, even in the Church is hardened against the things of the Lord, and indolent in Regeneration. Most of the members of the Church have at some time rejoiced at the thought of the Second Coming; but few in the Church at this day are being regenerated.

Whoever in the Church is regenerated must successively pass through all seven days of a new creation, and in a spiritual way through all ages of man, and by way of correspondence through all periods of the human race. The desire to nnderstand the particulars of these developments in their signification with regard to the regeneration of himself, and to have these become a reality, is the ruling desire with each one who is heing regenerated. Bnt few in the Church cherish this desire.

The first three days of creation, or the first three ages, or the first three periods, in the fourth state lead to a Coming of the Lord in the Flesh. Man advances from a celestial state through a spiritual state and through a natural state into a merely representative state, in which all internal loves have successively receded, and nothing else remains than the affection of truth, Mary. In this affection the Lord is conceived as in a mother and out of this affection He is born. This birth of the Lord is the birth of an external love in the mind, conceived from the Divine.

This love is the new external or natural, that is, the corporeal, things of the Church with the man. With regard

to the Word given to the New Church, these corporeal things are the keeping holy thereof even to the singular things of the letter thereof, because these contain the arcana of Heaven and thus the Divine of the Lord; with regard to the existing Doctrine of the Church they are a keeping holy of the spiritual treasures of the Church which have been brought to light from the internal of its Word and laid down in the natural, and which have been stored in its science in its writings, and in all the expressions of its Spirit, because the true Spirit of the Church is the Lord's; with reguard to the Church itself they are a reception and a keeping holy of its common sphere conjoining all, where each one leaves his own limitations and sees and serves the eternal interests of all, and at the same time a keeping holy of all things of the Church which appear before the senses.

These are the things of the body of the Church conceived from the Divine, but the essence of these things lies in the acknowledgment and the love of their Divine origin, and of the Divine of the Lord which must dwell in those things.

Few in the Church to-day keep its Word holy even into the singular things of the letter thereof. The most today deny that every singular word of that letter contains arcana of Heaven and thus the Divine of the Lord. Few in the Church to-day acknowledge and keep holy the things of the Doctrine of the genuine True which have been brought to light from the internal of its Word. Most of those in the New Church to-day "will hear nothing of the internal sense of the Word; ... they deride those things which are of the internal sense of the Word, because these are contrary to their persuasions and cupidities". A.C. 1877. Few in the Church to-day see and acknowledge and keep holy the common sphere, conjoining all, and which is even perceptible to the senses, of the eternal interests of all and each, from an acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord which must dwell in the things of this sphere, for few are prepared to forsake the limitations of their own loves.

Where such corporeal things conceived from the Divine have been born, there a Coming of the Lord in the Flesh

has taken place. But even this First Coming is an occurrence which happens only with few. The most remain immersed in the loves of themselves and the world. The first of each step in regeneration is the acknowledgement of the specific evil and false in which one is, and a state of repentance. Whoso is being regenerated passes daily in full consciousness through states of repentance.

The birth of the corporeal things conceived out of the Divine brings only an orderly external love, the love of the spiritual early manhood. In this state commences the return and the climbing up to the internal loves, but now as into an acquired possession of one's own. This return can only take place in the wrestling throngh the natural and tbe opening of the internal degrees of the true, the spiritual and the celestial rational, for the internal true is one with the good of the internal loves.

This state for the first time trnly spiritual is the state of the truly spiritual Church and it is characterized by the making of truly spiritual Doctrine out of the Word of the Chureh and by a life of trnly spiritual charity; and this state for the first time trnly celestial is the state of the truly celestial Church, thus for the first time of the New Church proper, and thus for the first time of the Second Coming proper of the Lord. These two states are understood by the sixth aud the seventh days of creation of the New Church.

Clearly there in the Church where the Divinity of its Word is denied, and there where the Divinity of its Doctrine out of the IV ord is denied, and there where the Divinity of all genuine good and true things of the regenerated man, born from the internal, is denied, it cannot be said that there is a Coming of the Lord in the Flesh, let alone of a Second Coming proper of the Lord. For in so much as the Church does not enter into the Doctrine and the life of these things, in just so much it remains in a merely natural state.

In a copy of the Latin edition of the ARCANA which through the London second-hand booktrade, came into the

possession of the Swedenborg Genootschap, out of the previous possession of a recently deceased influential leader of the New Church in England, the Rev, Isaiah Tansley, there is the following remarkable annotation. The words in n, 2760: “quod Internus Sensus Verbi non videatur quam in Coelo, et ab illis quibus coelum est apertum, hoc est, qui in amare et inde fide in Dominum sunt", that is, "that the Internal Sense of the Word is not seen except in Heaven and by those for whom Heaven is opened, that is, who are in the love and thence in the faith into the Lord", are there underlined in pencil and in the margin heavily marked in blue, and the following words have been added in the former owner's writing: Then writings are not internal sense since only revealed to some; but everybody can read the writings". For those who in the Writings of Swedenborg see the Lord Himself in His Second Coming the passage marked is a cnfirmation that those Writings are the letter itself of the Word itself for the New Chnrch, and that the Internal Sense is the genuine Doctrine out of that Word, which Doctrine can only be made by those to whom Heaven is opened, that is, by those who are in the love and thence in the faith into the Lord, that is, by those who are regenerated. But for those who deny, that passage is a proof that those Writings are not the Word. They search in the Word for passages against the Word. Also this Word of the New Church is "the book of all heresies".

Few in the Church to-day are regenerated, scarcely any one in the Church to-day comes into the things themselves of the Second Coming; but to the Lord a promise was made that the celestial Kingdom will be immeasurably increased.

USE AND ENJOYMENT

BY ANTON ZELLING

"According to the uses the natural man also becomes as it were spiritual, which happens when the natural man feels the enlivening of use out of the spiritual".

DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, n. 251.

The Lord dwells with man in what is His. Two questions now: I. What is that which is His? II. To what end?

I. That which is the Lord's are the true and good things of faith and of love.

II. The end is the End of Love itself: that all that is His may entirely be the other's.

Now see in the ARCANA CELESTIA, n. 10569: "That the presence of the Lord is in the true and good things of faith and love, is because these things are from the Lord Himself, and when the Lord with men and with the Angels is present in those things, then He is present in what is His with those, and not in the proprium of those, for this is evil".

There are three ways in which this word may be read or followed: the good way which perceives the celestial sense; the true way which apprehends the spiritual sense; and the evil way which clings to an unnatural literal representation. These ways are related as the celestial Doctrine, the spiritual Doctrine, and the gross direct taking cognizance; and these three ways are also related as the three servants to whom a man, travelling into a far country gave, to the one five talents, to the other two talents, to the third one talent, MATTHEW XXV: 14-30. Those talents are what is the Lord's, and the two good and faithful servants are mindful of the Essence and End of that which is His; but the wicked and slothful servant, forgetful of the end rema.ins penned up in his proprium, and therefore says:

"Lord, I knew Thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed". Rebellious langnage full of hatred towards the neighbour, for his eye is evil because the Lord is good; he hates the Lord in the two other fellow-servants, which hatred and envy clearly appear from his angry words. What

makes the true and good things of faith and love to be what is His, is that the Lord is present therein; for this reason in the above short quotation the word present oocurs three times. Three times, as the Lord asked Peter: "Lovest thou Me"? As soon as the Lord is present in the true and good things of faith and love, that which is His is ,at once as if the other's, and in no way more or less, but in abundant measure. And although the Lord with each one is the same in what is His, that which is His differs with each one according to reception; for this reason it is said in the above quoted parable that the talents were divided, to every man according to his several ability. If in the quotation concerning wliat is the Lord's the stress is on the presence, in the parable the stress is on the absence, for we read that the lord of the hortse travelled into a far country, that after the distribntion of the talents he straightway took his journey, and that he retnrned after along time. And also in the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins, immediately preceding, it is expressly stated that the "bridegroom tarried", that is, stayed away for a long while. This teaches us that the essential presence, and the apparent absence internally are one in the free and rational from the Lord in man. The presence in the absence is in another word called Doctrine, and the sense of the above quotations therefore is that we are indebted to the Lord for Dootrine; see SIXTH FASCICLE, p.45.

In that Presence and that Absence there is hidden a deep arcanum. With the good and faithful servants the Absence is apparent and in essence the Presence is internal, or the dwelling of the Lord in what is His, which is now as theirs, thus the all of the End and the all of the cause being the all of the effect. With the wicked and slothful servants the thinkers of three gods, and the setters of three ends, the absence corresponds to the absence of Moses from the sons of Israel worshipping many gods, concerning which we read this: "With the heart they did not believe in Jehovah [with capital], for they believed that there were many gods; as may be sufficiently clear from the golden calf which they, while Moses tarried, adored as their god, yea as jehovah [no capital] ", A.C. 10566. To worship various gods is to give way to various pleasures which, being oblivious of any end, of use, and of God, are separated or infernal

pleasures; and the worshipping of the golden calf as jehovah is the separated enjoyment in its insanity. "As jehovah" is an appearance of what is the Lord's in which the Lord does not dwell. Every external holy reverence, without any internal, before tbe unopened or closed Word, is a worshipping of the golden calf as jehovah. And that Moses, tarrying, signifies that the Divine True does not inflow out of the Word, so that in the Word nothing of Heaven is observed, is taught in A.C. 10396. Where the Lord is, there is Heaven. Where the Lord does not DWELL in what is His there what is His remained unappropriated and thus an appearance of what is His, serviceable only to "swear by", that is, thereby to cover perjuriously a separated enjoyment. With the good and faithful servant the Lord is present however much absent in appearance; with the wicked and slothful servant the Lord is absent however much present in appearance. And the Lord is present in appearance when we, externally pious, kneel down before what is the Lord's while He does not dwell in what is His.

The wicked and slothful servant is the prototype of the man in faith-alone; he says "Lord", he even says "I knew Thee", thus in an appearance of knowing and acknowledging he knows and acknowledges that there is something such as wha.t is the Lord's, but his fault of life and thought is that he does not believe that the Lord dwells therein with man, in other words, "that the Lord wills to make what is His to be entirely the other's". The wicked and slothful servant feels that his own self is, hard, reaping where it has not sowed, gathering where it has not strawed, that is, enjoying where it has practiced no use, and as it always is in such cases, he accuses the Lord of his own evil. That the man in enlightenment makes Doctrine for himself, such a word he passes over in his reading, and if this is pointed out to him, he flatly denies it. With regard to the idea "his own" he has come into such a persecution mania that he never can realize that the tent-companion of the word enlightenment is inte.grity. And if he were told that "The Lord dwells with men and Angels in what is ills", signifies "The Lord dwells or is present with men and Angels as if in what is theirs”, he would decry this as being a heretical falsification of the Scripture. But how does he then explain this word: "To the

Angels more than to all others is given the appearance as if they live from themselves, with inexpressible felicity", A.C. 17351 Does this not signify that what is His appears entirely as if theirs, entirely according to the End of Love? The evil and slothful servant therefore with such a word as "The Lord dwells with man in what is His" in his heart must grossly think "Dwell as much as you like”, and may we be forgiven this rude word, for in the end it amounts to this. To him applies that correspondential image of a man who, in the top story of his house dwells chastely with his wife, and in the lower story keeps a whore hidden. With our consideration of Use and Enjoyment we begin to see thmugh these attitudes of life, where the sin and the sickness lie. One does nat understand what is the pmprium, and therefore not what is His, and one does not understand what is His and therefore not what is the proprium. Properly said one does not yet understand anything, not what is of life, and not what is af faith, and one must begin over again from the bottom, anew from the Lard fmm the top, new. And again and again nathing but the separated enjoyment is in the cause.

The soul and the life of what is the Lord's is the presence of the Lord. Without the presence, that which is the Lord's is an external without an internal, and the magnifying of an external without an internal is fmm the evil. The presence of the Lord makes that which is His in which He dwells as if ours. There remains the question what is this all-decisive presence, for where the Lord is, there is Heaven. Praesentia is the first presence, the first end, the all of the cause and af the effect; prae is to the fore or first, entia is being or to Be, thus Jehovah; thus this word says that the Love is the First Begotten, and that the Lord is in the good of love; thence Omnipraesentia or Omnipresence signifies the To Be in its fulness or in lasts. In the Dutch word "tegenwoordigheid" [presence] or "jegenswaartsheid" the word "jegens" [over against] and "waarts" [towards] are intimately connected as an entire turning to each other, and in "waarts" [towards] there lie "worden" [to become] and "woord" [word] involved to snch an extent that "tegenwoordig" [present] may also give us to think of the life out of the Word or as if close up against the Word. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us", JOHN I : 14. Everywhere

where the Word lives for us, there the Lord is present. And the Word lives everywhere for us where we are conjoined in use and enjoyment. And there is still something else remarkable in that part of a word "woordig" or "waarts" [towards]: of old times "jegenworde" signified also that which lies close up against the land or the "waerde"; "worde" or "waerde" still remains in "uiterwaarden" [tract of land without the river dike]. Considered out of the Word the Presence may also be compared to the active powers of the atmospheres which lie close up against the lands. The lands are the natural mind. We read: "That each True Thing is sown in the internal man, and rooted in the external man, which account, unless the True Thing sown is rooted in the external ma'n, which is done by acting, it is like a ttree set not in the humus, but above that, which with the heat of the sun blazing upon it, immediately withers away", A.R. 17. The Latin for to act is apere, whence ager which also has given us our word akker [field], acre. It is known in agriculture that in winter there emanates a greater cold from fallow land than from cultivated fields. So seen the Presence is the active powers of the atmospheres or the Uses entering into operation as soon as the humus of the natural mind has been worked into tilled fields or has been made receptive of use. For this reason the word of our text says "according to the use"; for also the evil are able to do good uses, but this is not according to the use. Further our text says: "the natural man also becomes as it were spiritual"; that small word also contaius the all of tbe end; for the natural man, from birth a wicked and slothful servant must also become as it were spiritual, or nothing has happened and all has been in vain. Furthermore our text says: "which happens when the natural man feels the enlivening of use ant of the spiritual". If one were to ask: what is to believe and when is there to believe, then the answer is manifest: "when the natural man feels the enlivening of use out of the spiritual". The spiritual "'gain and again is the known and acknowledged true, willed and done, that is, believed, lived, loved. How the essence of evil now becomes evident; for it is the denial and the inversion or perversion of all this: not following the use, and the enlivening or the enjoyment not out of the spiritual, thus not the enjoyment of the use, but at the expense of the use, thus separated, thus the known and

acknowledged true not willed, not done, not believed, not lived, not loved. Must we ask once more what is the Lord's presence? What else is it than the integrity of the receptacle, and what else is the integrity than the shunning of evil, and what else is the essence of evil than that evil? We may a thousand times say that the true and good things of faith and of love or what is the Lord's is spiritual out of celestial origin, but if the presence of the Lord is not therein or if the Lord does not dwell therein, nothing at all has been said. That which is the Lord's without His dwelling therein is a house swept with brooms, the wicked- and slothful servant proves this. We have in haste in our reading passed over the word dwelling, and to dwell signifies the cooperation of man as if from himself, just as what is the Lord's signifies the man's angelic as if proprium. To every man according to his several ability, this what is His is appropriated as if man's; this what is His with each one varies according to his ability to receive from the Lord; and to eternity no single celestial proprinm or that which is the Lord's, is identical with that of another: Heaven is one infinite variety of blessed appearances as if they lived from themselves. From those blessed appearances, endlessly diverse and at the same time universal, sonnd forth the Glorifications heard of the Divine Human of the Lord as so many voices of the waters, sounding Presences, in which the Uses shine forth and the Joys sing.

"The Lord dwells with man in what is His" signifies: The Lord is Heaven or the Angelic with man; and the wicked and slothful servant denies Heaven or the Angelic with man; he does indeed acknowledge the Lord and what is the Lord's, but just as his faith (fides) knows only one note of the flute: faith, faith, faith, so his life knows only one trunk: the proprium, the proprium, the proprium. Small marvel that he hid the true and good things of faith and of love or that which is the Lord’s "in a napkin", see also LUKE XIX: 12-27, instead of giving it into the bank, "and I, coming, might have required mine own with usury", by which the sole line of conduct is indicated which every natural doctrine out of the literal sense must follow if it is to be of any nse, namely to be of service to the Doctrine of others. What with the wicked and slothful servant makes the acknowledgement of the way of no value is that the

acknowledgment is not out of the walking of that way and thus that there is no walking the way by the acknowledgment thereof, see D.P. 20. The angelic which is inherent in those two things, he denies; because he loves the proprium, he denies and calumniates the angelic as if proprium. And thereby he denies and blasphemes the Holy Spirit. Thence his damnation in the parahle. The sin against the Holy Spirit is to acknowledge that which is the Lord's and to prevent the dwelling. What insane lusts of scodatory love are enclosed in this attitude of life, the second pad of the Book on CONJUGIAL LOVE teaches. And from our consideration it is evident that the enjoyment ohlivious of use, of end, of God, is the saurce of those lusts.

The Most Ancients not only compared themselves to animals, but also called themselves so. The Word teaches: To call one's self is to determine the quality. To compare themselves, by itself would only have indicated the humiliation before the Lord, but by that "also calling themselves so", the essence and the quality both of the humiliation and of those humiliating themselves is characterized. A nohle essence and a noble quality, for the characteristic of each animal is that it cannot separate the spiritual last from its higher things. The humble acknowledgment of the Most Ancient thus at the same time involved the acknowledgment that they lived according to the use and perceived the enjoyment of the use out of the spiritual; thus that they did not know an enjoyment oblivious of use, and might therefore judge themselves worthy of being called "animals", and thus certainly not "less than a beast". The Word often speaks of men "worse than a beast", and we now understand in what: in the enjoyment separated from use. The Word often speaks of avarice as the source of all evil. Most men thereby imagine a miser and after a superficial short selfexamination they consider themselves fortunate in having nothing in common therewith, but the contrary. But the avaricious or miserly is the greedy, domineering, wanton suction-pit of the infernal proprium - think of words such as eergierig, wraakgierig, niettwsgierig, weetgierig [lustful of honour, of revenge, inquisitive, curious, gierig is greedy or miserly]. The root gere formerly signified avidity, desire, appetite, carnal lust, diligence, fieriness, infatuation; and the root of the Latin avaritia comes from aveo, sanscrit

av, to love, to wish, to desire, to satisfy one's self, to give license to one's lusts, thus in the ever unfavourable sense the sole enjoyment, separated from the use, of the mere possession.

Every enjoyment separated from use is filthy and illsmelling avarice itself. In a thousand such enjoyments oblivious of the end, we are "worse than a beast", and by a long way not justified in calling ourselves "animals" as did the Most Ancients. The acknowledgment of the infernal proprium of man is nothing without the fear of the angelic as if proprium with man. To be in the fear of the angelic as if proprium, is with five talents to gain five, and with two talents two thereunto, it is to have and to be given so that he shall have abundantly, an abundance of genuine sense out of enlightement, or an abundance of life out of Doctrine; but to be in the sole despisal of the infernal proprium is, as the wicked and slothful servant, finally to scorn the Lord as hard and unjnst. This is what we meant by that homely expression of "throwing the baby away with the soapsuds", the baby is the angelic as if proprium, the soapsuds are the filthy proprium. And here we may refer to another bomely expression; in Dutch we sometimes speak of a "dead baby with a lame hand" to indicate something of no activity whatever. Well then, that well known mighty word "to shun evil as sin against God" by the misunderstanding of the essence of evil and by the equalization of the infernal proprium and the angelic as if proprium might relax into such a dead baby with a lame hand, into a kind of Roman Catholic mumbling the rosary. What evil is, the infernal proprium cannot teach, but the angelic as if proprium teaches it. What evil is, even thatwhich is His or the good and true things of faith and of love cannot teach unless the Lord dwells or is present therein. Evil is not a vague generality, but a most singular thing, and it is for this rea.son that the Divine Providence of the Lord is in the most singular things every smallest moment. Evil is there as soon as the very least is not perfectly following the use; and the Lord in this respect warns us: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect", MATTHEW V : 48, and the Greek word there is teleios, which signifies accomplished, fulfilled, completed, perfect, in full number, the end attained, thus the first end as the all of the middle end

entirely the all of the last end. What therefore as the first thing of Charity we are beholden to give to each other from the Lord, is the affection or the enlivening of the use out of the spiritual. We must mutually "teach to eat", again making use of a homely expression. We Dutch people say that sometimes of some food we are not yet acquainted with: "you will first have to learn to eat that". Well then, most of the uses we daily practice are such unknown foods of which we do not yet by a long way know the sweetness. From bitter uses they have to become blessed joys. We must tberefore teach one another the essence and the end of the uses, or said in other words, we must teach each other the life, the life in the Lord; we must for the Church form a hereditary good, an ancestral capital from the Lord. And that hereditary good is called wisdom of life, experience out of the Text. In this we have as much to give as to forgive one another. For in this matter it is as in the world. How many would not heartily love their office or their employment in the world, - and usus means office as well as use - and follow it still more devotedly as an administration in Heaven, if only there were not the colleagnes whose grumbling, whose plotting and scheming, and neglect of duty impede all fluent handling of affairs. The ecclesiastical society in this respect is also a world, and may be so in a favourable or unfavourable sense; for the word world is of noble origin and may be read as wera-alds or age of manhood, the most usual derivation, but also all the German welt with an r inserted in order to indicate motion, and in the world welt we once again see the will, the world as a representative of the inmost things of the will created, projected, found again outside itself; so that it might be said that the world around an Angel is the mirrored image of his will in which, if the Lord grants, he may learn to know himself. Well then, in the world of our society we must more and more, each one of us, learn to know and learn to eat our as if own use and function, that is, learn to enjoy the enlivening thence. In this sense for once take the prayer: "Forgive us our debts, all we forgive our debtors". For where we are cold, chilly, sullen, closed, grumpy, harsh, sharp, petulant, irritated, and so forth, there we check every communication from the interior dwelling of another and the mutual wave of affection is broken. And the reverse,

where others are wicked and slothful, there "with the best will" we have not the least power. We read of the Lord that He "in His own country did not mauy mighty works because of their unbelief", MATTHEW XIII: 58. How can there be question of any advance in the Doctrine, thus of the Lord's presence in what is His, if such capital transgressions of unbelief are not continually atoned for and forgiven. This is what we meant when saying that we owe one another a new mind, or before the Lord we are a thief of the enjoyment and a murderer of the use. See there a truth of life for the future golden HANDBOOK FOR THE SOCIETY. When David's place in the king's house was found empty, Saul said: "Something has befallen him, he is not clean; surely he is not clean", I SAMUEL XX: 26. So ran the jewish law. Well then, to withhold from the neighbour a new mind is surely a sign of uncleanness. It is to come with clumsy feet and to appear without the wedding garments. The Word indicates it as self-evident that he who is invited to the king's table, first washes and appears in a well appointed garment. Well then, so great must the Society become to us, a wedding house and a king's house, that we enter into it with the fear of the angelic as if own of the Neighbour, or with the fear of the Lord dwelling in what is His; and that in entering we ourselves enter into our face or our angelic as if proprium, each one perfectly his according to his use. Otherwise we only bring in our mean selves, which, in whatever collegiate, jovial, amicable, genial way they may bear themselves, are merely evil and false, an evil and a false which they are least of all inclined to "shun as sin before God”.

The Doctrine has to teach us to our very lives and bodies that we are infinitely worse and on the other hand infinitely better than we ever thought to be. A rehabilitation of God and man.

"The genuine sense of the Word no others grasp than those who are enlightened”.

We now wish to take up again this quotation, occurring in the first part of our consideration; and we shall start by saying that "The Lord dwells with man in what is His" is the equivalent of the first and great Commandment, and that this word is the equivalent of the second

Commandment, equal to that. For who does not see that "the Lord dwells with man in what is His", signifies that thou shalt love the Lord thy God out of thy whole heart, and out of thy whole soul and out of thy whole strength, and out of thy whole mind? And who does not know out of the Word that the enlightened are those who are in the good of life out of charity and the faith thereof (A.R. 7), thus those who love their neighbour as themselves? This word too about the genuine sense of the Word may be read in two ways: I. from within, thus as the good and faithful servant; II. from without, thus as the wicked and slothful servant. The wrong reading in this statement passes over the word "enlightenment", as in the former statement the word "to dwell". What is enlightenment? Let us by way of reply read in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED the commencement of n. 6. "Who bare witness of the Word of God, and of the witness of Jesus Christ, signifies, who out of the heart and so in light, receive the Divine True out of the Word, and acknowledge the Human of the Lord to be Divine". Enlightenment therefore is that reception and that acknowledgment out of the heart, and so in the light. How these statements flow together, for that which has been received out of the heart is that which is the Lord's or the genuine sense of the Word; and that acknowledgment out of the heart is the dwelling of the Lord or the enlightenment, for where the Lord is, there is Heaven. And we ask further: what is "out of the heart"? To this THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE in n. 80 answers: "By the heart there is meant in that [spiritnal] sense, affection that is of love". And on a former occasion we learned that the interior of man's love is what the enlivening is to him, and that the consociation of all, that is, of his spirit, his will, his love, his enlivening, is following the enlivening things. This lews us back to the word of our text: "According to the uses the natural man also becomes as it were spiritual, which happens when the natural man feels the enlivening of use out of the spiritual". Read from within these three words, concerning what is His, concerning the genuine sense of the Word, and concerning Use, are one, a trinal one, as all the words in the Word, everywhere. And how is this? Because the Word is the Word of the conjunction with the Lord and of salvation, the two Essential things which the Lord offers in His Word, and

which on the other hand require two Essential things from man: the acknmvledgment of the One God and penitence of life; see A.R. 9. By this word the view becomes wider still, for: By the acknowledgment of the One God there is conjunction with the Lord in what is His, being the genuine sense of the Word; by penitence of life there is salvation or the dwelling of the Lord in what is His, being enlightenment.

If first we have seen use and enjoyment conjoined in that word concerning what is the Lord's, now we wish to see use and enjoyment conjoined in the word concerning the genuine sense of the word. The expression "genuine sense" naturally implies that there is also a non-genuine sense, just as the expression "the genuine True" naturally implies that there is a non-genuine true. This calls to mind an earlier quotation, see SIXTH FASCICLE, p. 123: "The True is said to be purified from the false when man can be kept from the Lord in the good of innocence; innocence is to acknowledge that with him there is nothing but evil, and that all good is from the Lord; then to believe tht from himself he does not know nor perceive anything, but out of the Lord", A.C. 7902. To the question when is the genuine sense of the Word or the genuine True, this is the sole reply, which reply again amounts to the two Essential things: the Acknowledgment of the One God and Repentance of life, both from the Lord and therefore called "the good of innocence", and in other places "the good of charity".

A word such as this concerning the genuine sense of the Word, as stated, may be read in two ways, from within, thus in the genuine sense, and from without, thus with a non-genuine sense. The word echt [genuine] at once brings us straight to the cross-road: the genuine [echte] is the conjugial [het echtelijke], the regenerated; as previously said, it is not the caterpillar, but the butterfly that mates. There are two kinds of non-genuine sense: the unconfirmed non-genuine sense of the man about to be regenerated and the confirmed non-genuine sense of the wicked and slothful servant. The unconfirmed non-genuine sense allows itself to be purified from the Lord, the confirmed non-genuine sense rejects the Lord as a harsh master, it refuses service, it refuses Doctrine. Why? Because the confirmed non-genuine sense is the confirmed self-intelligence, and all self-confir-

mation runs counter to enlightenment and denies it, because it does not acknowledge and believe the two Essential things. Let the wicked and slothful servant out of his heart and so in obscurity speak and he will say to his neighbour: "To what finally does enlightenment amount? That you have enlightenment and I do not, or vice-versa; thus a matter of dominion. The revealed Word has been revealed and explained; more enlightenment than is offered by the Divine revelation and explication, must not be asked. We may at most according to the best of our knowledge, interpret a few things, but that is all there is to it". If then the neighbour were to insist on an "interpretation" of this word concerning the genuine sense, then this man without joy, without believing, would be inclined in general to allow that that interpretation - "if that is what you understand by enlightenment" - is a chance flow of light or a luminous sudden idea of the Holy Spirit adhering never and to none. - But enough of this, for the mere thought of such a denial and blasphemy is an abomination.

Let us enter into this word as into a Temple: "The genuine sense of the Word no others grasp than those who are enlightened". In order to understand this word we should come into the fear of Charity, into the fear oithose enlightened from the Lord. For it is they with whom the Lord dwells in what is His, who out of the heart and so in the light, have received the Divine True out of the Word, and have acknowledged the Human of the Lord to be Divine, out of the heart and not with mechanical lips, thus out of the affection which is of love, conjoined with the Lord by the acknowledgment of the One God, and saved by the penitence of life, thus elevated into the good of innocence. The fear of Charity is full of the inexpressible joy of esteeming the other infinitely and endlessly mo,re than one's self, and one's self the very least of all and in all things, but envy against the neighbour begrudges enlightenment to anyone if he himself is not first and foremost therein. This word concerning the genuine sense of the Word is overflowingly full of Charity, of inexpressible joy that in the Church there may dwell those blessed from the Lord who, because they are enlightened, grasp the genuine sense of the Word which is so holy to all of us. Our prayer should not be for ourselves in the first place that we may belong to those blessed ones, but the

prayer that the Lord dictated to His disciples: "The harvest truly is plenteaus, but the labaurers are few; pray ye therefare the Lord af the harvest, that He will send farth labaurers into His harvest", MATTHEW IX : 37, 38, This, far the welfare of the Church, is the first and great Prayer, a prayer far the all-conjoining acknowledgment af the One God; and the secand Prayer like unto it is the supplicatian that one may be granted cantinually and at once to accept and obey out of heart all that comes to us as the genuine sense of the Word for our daily bread, from whomsoever and from wheresoever, a prayer for salvation out of the continual penitence af life.

For it is a dreadful word: "The genuine sense af the Word no others grasp than those who are enlightened", a word af all-comprehensive tenar, which brings teacher and pupil to the fear af Jacob: "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven", GENESIS XXVIII : 17; and notice how these words again signify the Kingdam of the Lord in the last of order and the last in which the order comes to a standstill, see A,C, 3720, 3721; thus the all of the end and the all af the cause being the all af the effect, and thus therein use and enjoyment being one, or the enlivening following the use. The sense of Doctrine is expressed in this word, for the sense of Doctrine is nothing else than the affection of the genuine sense of the Word, the affection of the genuine True, for the sake of life. "For the sake of life" signifies the same as to "look to God", namely to shun evil and with this we return to the principal point of our view of life. Without the genuine sense of the Word, without the genuine True the essence of evil cannot be known, acknowledged, and believed. This is proved by the wicked and slothful servant who refuses doctrine, saying: "Lord, I knew Thee that Thou art an hard man"; he knew a non-genuine sense of the Word, but thereby his evil; forgetful of end, of use, and of God has remained an evil not seen through, which in this mind has finally extingnished everything angelic fram the Lord, so that the man ends by seeing, through his infernal proprium, even the Lord as evil. To shun evil is as if from one's self to give to the angelic as if proprium meat and drink, to lodge, to clothe, to visit it at the sickbed and in prison, see MATTHEW XXV: 35, 36, But how can this be done without knowing, acknow-

ledging, and believing the genuine sense of the Word? The wicked and slothful servant said: "Lord, I knew Thee", noscere, not scire; for the simple affection of scire leads to acknowledgment, and this to believing, as from the door through the hall to the restchamber. Without the genuine sense of the Word the essence of evil, or as we expressed it, the evil in any evil, can never be genuinely seen. And may we be excused for continually reverting to this point, for it is a capital point which entirely decides as to the interior growth of the Church or of the Doctrine: whetber we do or do not genuinely see the evil. Otherwise the "shunning of evils" gradually becomes little less than remaining within the limits of social good conduct, a term which is so elastic that the RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY even speaks of the appearance as if the seemly and the unseemly were what is honourable. What in the world does one generally think of "shunning evil". Do most people even go so far as to think that there are two general kinds of evil, the evil whence is the false, and the evil out of the false? Scarcely, for without the genuine True of the genuine sense of the Word the essential difference between those two cannot possibly be apprehended, let alone be genuinely seen in the infernal proprial life for the sake of the angelic as if own life.

This dreadful word on the genuine sense of the Word is a password, a battle-cry leading straight into the Wars of Jehovah. For as previously said, the merely natural idea of every direct cognizance passes over the word "enlightenment", as in the case of the Own of the Lord the word "to dwell"; in consequence of which with the lip formula "to shun evil" the second part of that word "as sin before God" loses all strength and sense; for not to sin before God is to dwell and to be enlightened. The merely natural idea out of direct cognizance can never at all grasp what enlightenment is, for only the angelic itself experiences this in life.

Enlightenment is the arcanum of arcana; just as untraceable, as impossible to be seen in advance, and as impossible to compel as the Lord's Divine Providence itself. Enlightenment is imperceptible at the moment, just as Providence, and can only be traced afterwards, just as Providence. For this reason we read: "Those who are in enlightenment when they read the Word, see it from within, for their internal is

opened, and the internal, when being opened, is in the light of Heaven. This light flows in and enlightens, although the man does not know it; that he does not know it, is because that light flows into the knowledges that are in the man's memory, and these know ledges are in natural light. And as the man thinks out of those as if out of himself, he cannot be aware of the influx; but nevertheless from various indications he is able to know that he has been in enlightenment", A.C.I0551. Do the parts italicized by us not strike us as if the operations of Divine Providence were being described? Compare this with the merely natural idea concerning enlightenment; which idea might be characterized as a romantic idea of inspiration, inflowing, inspiriting, of which the love of self and the love of the world are the Muses. To the man who takes direct cognizance, enlightenment is equal to carrying a bright idea flowing in straight into the world, just as it is, post-haste; which world then, all astounded, is expected to cry “Oh, how just! Oh, how learned! Oh, how wise"! However, essential enlightenment is not a tangible product, as an invention with which straightway to gain glory and profit. Essential enlightenment, we learn, is imperceptible and inapperceptible in the state itself. This siguifies that enlightenment is from the Lord and that the state of enlightenment is as if out of man, that they are related the one to the other as Exsplendescence and Integrity. We read that the light of enlightenment flows into the cogniticms, and with the series in mind of to know-acknowledge-believe, we now understand that the state of enlightenment is the peaceful, blessed state of believing, in which man, as to his spirit among the Angels of Heaven, therefore as do the Angels, believes all that he thinks. This thinking, which is believing, is a being kept from the Lord in the good of innooence and of charity. And we have previously learned that when man is kept in that, the True is said to be purified fmm the false, and is therefore the genuine True out of the genuine sense of the Word.

There is no doubt about it; man is enlightened to the extent that he believes. If it were possible for the unbelieving wicked and slothful servant to be brought into a state of enlightenment in which the good and faithful servant is as often as the Lord grants, he would at the expiration disdainfully cry: "Now is this all? I have retained literally nothing new

at all". In his unnatural idea he took enlightenment to be a fire-works of brilliant findings, a kind of northern lights in the mind. He desires a phenomenal pouring out, not a quiet influx. Of what the essence of enlightenment is, the Word gives some idea in these statements: that there are things which cannot be expressed in any natural language; that man, being in the spirit, is at times visible and at times invisible to spirits and Angels; that the angelic language has nothing in common with the natural language, except by means of correspondence, on which point many credible experiences have been set down. From these and other things it is manifest tha.t the state of enlightenment is a state of inexpressibility in the midst of inexpressible things, and that in enlightenment the enlightened cognitions, purified in the good of innocence, are trembling full of celestial good. So that enlightenment is the state of peace in which love reigns; and therefore surely cannot be straightwa.y carried over into the world. Enlightenment thus seen is the proof of proofs that everything direct is directly from evil. And what are "the various indications" from which a man may know that he has been in enlightenment, otherwise than the confirmations which afterwards flow to him out of the letter of the Word, pure Exsplendescences in which the Urim and Thumim give an answer. For those sure indications are in a resplendessence of light, so that it might appear as if they were the enlightenment itself, but they are the glorious reflection, resplendency, or after-glow thereof. That glow is the light of all living confirmation. Those various indications are recognitions, and as such they are just so many living Experiences. There are no other Experiences greater than these.

Let us now once again read that word: "The genuine sense of the Word no others grasp than those who are enlightened". Does not a wonderfully contradictory feeling steal upon us: as if this word now lies infinitely closer and at the same time infinitely farther away? And this is indeed so: for the infernal proprium it now lies unattainably far, yea, out of sight; and for the angelic as if proprium which is to be liberated, it brings to the sickbed the definite hope of redemption. For this word, from without a harshly bolted door, from within is one mild invitation, one lovable welcome: “The genuine sense of the Word they receive who

follow the Lord". And man follows the Lord when his natural man perceives the enlivening of use out of the spiritual, and has thus left the separated enjoyment entirely and for ever; left it for His sake.

From the great desire to see all these things new again, remoulded into a living true of life, this thought arose in our mind: What man loves, he calls good. It is the interior of his love, or the enlivening which ascribes that quality of good to all that enlivens. If that enlivening is perceived out of the spiritual there is unity of substance and quality, and that good is out of celestial good. And so there is no man whose heart does not go forth to the best, the very best of all. In this going forth lies involved the danger of exceeding one's self, the danger of the disastrous separation of use and enjoyment. It seems at first as if it were the great love of good that drives us from what is good to what is better, from what is better to what is best, from what is best to the very best, and so always further, restlessly. But in this going further the simple affection becomes a lust, from a lust a mania_, from a mania an avarice, and so always further, restlessly. What seemed to have begun well ends evilly; the unity to appearance is lost in the multiplicity, a multiplicity in which there is boredom, the boredom of superabundance or of evil wealth. It becomes an infernal chase in which the use becomes detached from the enjoyment, the good from the true, the contents from the form, the substance from the quality, the value from the price, in short charity from faith; and there arises the sole enjoyment, the sale true, the sale form, the sole quality, the sale price, the sole faith. That which is eager for lust becomes its own good, and everything which enlivens it is no longer called good but true. It seemed to be an exceptional love that went forth to the very best, but in that going forth to those very best things that love lost itself as in the world; and that love refinds itself therein as the incarnate love of self and of the world. For the question is not to seek the better of the good, and the best of the better, where the case ever appears to be le mieux l’ ennemi du bien, but to find the sole thing, the essential thing. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and Its Righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you". All things here signifies the good, the

better, the best things, such as the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial things, in their order from the Lord. The Lord compared the Kingdom of Heaven to "a merchant-man seeking goodly pearls; who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it", MATTHEW XIII: 45, 46. Pearls are the cognitions of the good and the true, both from the celestial and the spiritual, which are out of the Word, in particular those out of the letter thereof, see A.R. 727. Goodly signifies the form of the true out of the good, thus the merchant seeking goodly pearls signifies the man who seeks to make Doctrine for Life, and this so faithfully and devotedly that the Lord appears to him in the inmost as the Doctrine and Life itself, the One and the Only; this is the pearl of great price. To go and sell all that he has, is to be willing to undergo all temptations in order to be elevated into the good of innocence and thus to be purified; to buy is to appropriate as if from one's self. It is the parable of the acknowledgment of the One God and the repentance of life, both out of the heart.

As counterpart let us now turn to the story of the rich youth, as we read that in MARK X: 17-25. He did not seek the sole thing, the Sale Being, but the best. For this reason the story commences with this that he falls on his knees and says Good Master, whereupon the Lord says: "Why callest thou Me good? There is none good, but One". The youth has lost himself in the multiplicity of the best, so that he only vaguely perceives the enlivening out of the spiritual; for this reason he falls only on his knees and not as dead at the feet of the Lord; for this reason he does not acknowledge the Lord, and he calls Him good master; for this reason he asks "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life"; for this reason after the Lord has summed up for him all the commandments, he says, still in not-acknowledgment:

"Master, all these things have I observed from my youth". And because he is in despair, it is written that Jesus beholding him, loved him, for the Lord wills to conjoin each one with Him by the acknowledgment of the One God, and to save him by the penitence of life. And for this reason He said: "One thing thou lackest". That one thing is the pearl of great price, that Sole Thing compared with which all the very best is nothing but one impurity. And the counsel now given Him by the Lord, we find explained as follows in

THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE FOR THE NEW JERUSALEM, n. 66:

"By selling all things which he had is understood that he should remove his heart from the riches; by taking up the cross is understood that he should struggle agaiust the concupiscences; and by following Himself, that he should acknowledge the Lord as God". But although this man had kept the commandments from his youth, for which reason the Lord also could not otherwise than love him, he nevertheless, having become sad at this word, went away grieved, for he had great possessions. This signifies that it was already too late, that the enjoyment had already separated itself from the use, and had become master thereof, not a Good Master, but an evil and hard lord. So it will go with all of us if in the "praiseworthy" chase after the best we lose sight of the One Thing Needful, Useful; lose it first from sight, finally from the heart.

Is this a true thing of life?

61 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR MARCH 1937

DISSENTING VIEWS CONCERNING WHAT WE ARE TAUGHT IN THE WORD

BY REV. ALBERT BJORCK

The Gospel of John begins with these words: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and God was the Word .... And the Word was made flesh", John I : 1, 14.

These words bring to us the idea that God is the inmost and the beginning of the Word. This is also the clear teaching often stated in the Gospel of the Lord's Second Coming. It is there often connected with the teaching that the Lord works from firsts through lasts to bring about the Divine purpose with creation, which is a Heaven from the human race.

The first of the Word is the Lord Himself, as the Divine Truth itself proceeding from the infinite Divine Love; the last, which He works through as a means of accomplishing this purpose, is the Revelation of Divine Truth given to men on earth. This revelation is the Word in lasts, outmosts, or ultimates. It is the means by which good and truth from the Lord can come into existence in the form of men and Angels, by whicb tbe Heavens and the Church are constituted.

In the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 10044 it says: "That the first holds together all things in connection through the last may be evident from the Word, and from man. The Word in outmosts or lasts is the sense of its letter, and the Word in its first is the Lord, and the Word in interiors is its internal sense, which is perceived in the Heavens and causes those who are there to look to one end, which is the Lord".

As man - the true man, in whom the Church is and who becomes an Angel - is created by means of the Word

in its last or outmost that is, its natural or external literal sense, this teaching applies also to man. Therefore we read in the continuation of the same number: "As to man: man in outmosts is the Church on earth, man in the first is the Lord, man in interiors is Heaven, for the Church and Heaven before the Lord are as one man, from which Heaven is called the Greatest Man .... There is continual connection and influx according to the connection of all things from the Lord through the Heavens to the Church on earth. By the Heavens are meant the Angels who are there, by the Church men who are true men of the Church, and by man in the first the Lord as to His Divine Human".

The Word in its outmosts or lasts or ultimates is its literal sense. By means of this sense men living in the natural world can learn to know something concerning spiritual truth and life. They can learn through, or by means of, the literal or natural sense of the Word, and only by means of that sense, because it can be read or listened to by man, and what is said there can come to his memory and natural understanding.

By means of the truths revealed in the natural or outmost form of the Word, man's thoughts can be raised from the natural to the spiritual. If he lives according to the truths he gets knowledge of there, his mind call be reformed and become a receptacle for the good and truth flowing in from the Divine Human of the Lord.

An instructive passage on this is found in the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 9995. There it says. "All good with man is formed by truth, for good flows in by the internal way from the Lord, and truth enters by the external way; and they unite in marriage in the internal man, but in one way with the spiritual man and Angel, and in another way with the celestial man and Angel. With the spiritual man and Angel the marriage is effected in the intellectual, but in the celestial man and Angel in the voluntary part. The external way, by which truth enters, is through hearing and sight into the understanding; but the internal way, by which good flows in from the Lord, is through his inmost into the will".

In n. 9596 and other numbers, we are told that all truth belongs to the intellectual, and all good to the voluntary. The intellectual is the container, and the truth belongs to it, and those two make one. Regeneration is the same as

the formation of a new intellectual, and in it a new voluntary and thus the formation of a new man.

The good that flows in from the Lord's Divine Human to man's will, must be united to the truth that enters his understanding from the literal sense of the Word. Otherwise the truths of the Word are only in- the memory as something a man knows and may have a natural understanding of. This does not lift his mind to a real or spiritual understanding of the truth that has entered his memory.

A man's mind formed by the good and truth from the Lord flowing into it is his Heaven and makes him an Angel of Heaven. He becomes thereby an integral part of the Heavens, which together with the Church on earth constitutes the Greatest Man, the Lord's body, in which He is the soul and life. In the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 10159 it says: "That Heaven in its whole complex has the form of one man is from the Divine Human of the Lord; for from this the Lord flows into Heaven, makes it, and forms it to His own likeness".

Here I want to point out that what is said in the natural language, which serves for bringing to men some true knowledge and rational understanding of spiritual tbings, has given rise to quite a good many dissenting views of what is taught us in this last and Crown of Revelations. These dissenting views, or differing understandings of what is taught, concern even the Doctrine of the Lord, the most important and central of all doctrines, and on which our understanding of all other teaching more or less directly depends. These dissenting views are all based on what is literally said in different books, or different paragraphs or statements in the same work. So, at least, the different proponents or advocates of the differing views claim and seem to be convinced of. The different passages on which diverging views are based are all parts of the revelation of Divine truth made by the Lord, and given to men through His servant Swedenborg. They are all necessary in order that the Divine truth may be brought down to the knowledge and understanding of men, and none of them can therefore be untrue. It is men's failure to see the true connection and coherence of the different statements that causes the diverging views.

To make my meaning quite plain: One man when he

reads may come across statements, in which it is said that the Child brought into the world by birth of a human mother, was conceived by Jehovah, and he may conclnde that Mary's son is the Lord's Divine Human. He thinks that his understanding is based on the sense that the very words of the Revelation convey. Having so understood the teaching and feeling certain that his understanding of it rests on a sure foundation, he does not pay enough attention to passages which declare that the Lord was not only conceived but born of Jehovah; nor to those, so frequently met with, which declare that the Lord during His life on earth put off or rejected all He derived from the mother.

When a man once has got the idea that Mary's son was or became the Divine Human of the Lord, he can easily come to think that the Lord changed the body born of Mary so that it from material gradually became spiritual, then celestial and finally Divine. He may fortify this idea by thinking it is directly implied in the passages that say that the Lord rose with that which with other men rots in the grave.

I need not now point out other dissenting views concerning what the revelation of Divine truth teaches us. What I have said is sufficient to show that they do exist; and that each one of those who hold them regards his view as being based on the meaning of the very words employed in the Revelation from the Lord.

In the light of the teaching in A.C. 10044 referred to above, that the Divine Human of the Lord is Himself the first of the Word, and that He teaches men on earth by the means of words of natural language, which are the last of the Word, I consider, and call, that natural language the sense of the letter of the Word to the New Church. Because I believe that the Books of the Third Testament are the Word of the Lord, I cannot believe that any of the different statements found in that Word are untrue or really contradictory. If they appear to be contradictory, I believe it is the understanding of those who read that is at fault, and that the contradiction disappears when the true connection of the different statements and their coherence with many other statements is seen.

In the ARCANA COELESTlA, n. 100BB, we are told that the things of the internal sense of the Word cohere in

continuity, thongh in the sense of the letter the series concerning a subject appear disjointed. This is evidently true of the Third Testament as well as of the Old and the New Testament. Therefore the teaching regarding the drawing of Doctrine from tbe letter of the Word applies equally to the Third Testament.

In the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 10158, it is said: "Truths from the Word are to be moulded in to Doctrine to be serviceable for use, which is done by those who are in enlightenment from the Lord".

The New Church has evidently to draw its doctrine from the sense of the letter in the Third Testament, as the first Christian Church has attempted to draw its doctrine from the sense of the letter of the New Testament.

But the genuine doctrine, or the doctrine of genuine truth, can be drawn from the sense of the letter only by those in enlightenment from the Lord, for none else are able to mould the truths of the Word, as they are expressed in different and sometimes apparently contradictory statements, into Doctrine in order that these truths may become serviceable for use.

In the light from the Third Testament we can plainly see that the doctrines drawn from the Word by the first christian church were not doctrines of genuine truth. They are mostly built on single statements of the Word. One teacher has understood some statements to be most important, and other teachers have considered other statements more important, and have based their teaching on them. For this reason the christian church has split up into a number of sects, each with its own doctrines, and each claiming authority for them. In this way rivalry and strife have arisen at times causing enmity and hatred, destroying charity and good will to men, and furnishing receptacles for the fury of the hells to flow into men's minds, inciting them to hatred, cruelty, and murder.

The dogmas of the present day christian churches are not from the truths of the Word, monlded into doctrine by men enlightened by the Lord, but they are moulded by different men in accordance with their own understanding of certain passages or sayings of Jesus or the disciples and apostles.

Where we take into consideration that in the New Church

today dissenting views exist concerning what the Revelation from the Lord, the Crown of Revelations, teaches, and that there is a strong tendency in the nature of man to regard his individual understanding of the truth as the truth itself, we can become aware of the great danger that threatens the Church, and how necessary it is to guard against that danger, in order that the Church shall not come into the same state of doctrinal disorder and strife, that has characterized the first Christian Church.

We have teaching which, if we keep it in mind, and are guided by it in our relations to those whose understanding of the teaching differs from ours, should make it easy for us to guard against that danger.

I refer to what is said in the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 1834: "When a Church is first raised up and established by the Lord, it exists in the beginning in a state of purity, and the members then love each other as brethren, and this is known from what is recorded of the primitive Christian Church after the Lord's Coming. All the members of the Church at that time lived one among another as brethren, and also called each other brethren, and mutually loved each other; but in process of time charity diminished, and at length vanished away; and as charity vanished, evils succeeded, and with evils falsities also insinuated themselves, whence arose schisms and heresies. These would never have existed if charity had continued to live and rule; for in such case they would not have called schism by the name of schism, nor heresy by the name of heresy, but they would have called them doctrinals agreeable to each person's particular opinion, or way of thinking, which they would have left to everyone's conscience, not judging or condemning any for their opinions, provided they did not deny fundamental principles, that is, the Lord, eternal life, and the Word, and maintained nothing contrary to the commandments of the decalogue".

Anyone who reads these words and reflects on them will see, that as long as men have their meaning in mind, and take care to be guided by them, this teaching provides a most efficient guard for the Church, by which charity and mutual love can be preserved, and the Church be prevented from experiencing the same fate as has befallen the first Christian church.

Differences of understanding what is tanght in the Revelation will always exist among men, unavoidably so, even among those who are united by a belief in the Divinity of the Lord, in eternal life, in the holiness of the Word, and who all endeavour to live according to the commandments of the decalogue. As long as charity is alive and rules such men's mutual attitude toward the different views held by different men, views which among men without charity would came schism and be branded as heresy, bringing enmity and persecution, wonid simply be thought of as each one's understanding of what is said in the Divine revelation. Noone would condemn the other's view, but one would be eager to understand it thoroughly and then go to the Word to see what grounds could be found for it there.

It is quite evident, that if this teaching is not heeded by men in the Church, charity will cease to be alive and rule; each one will hold to his view and proclaim it as the truth taught in the Word. Then there will arise as many rival parties within the Church as there are dissenting views. In time the party who has the most adherents will commence to persecute other parties, and the history of the First Christian Church will be repeated in the New Church .

For consider what would be the result, if a new view, not before seen in the Church, should be set forth by men or a group of men, ministers and laymen, who were convinced that this view had come to them when in search for truth when they had read the Word; consider the results, if that view were met with condemnation from those composing the majority, branded as heresy, and misrepresentations of it broadcast throughout the Church will not the result be, if not open enmity, so interior estrangement, which easily might lead to schism and external separation.

If, in the attempts to bring about a truer understanding of the minority's view, the majority is only bent on defending their uncharitable position, even going to the length of declaring that in the new view they see seeds which in the future will lead to the denial of the fundamental principles, that is, the Lord, eternal life, the Word, and the life according to the Commandments, which the teaching

makes a condition for charitable discussion of dissenting views - then it will be well-nigh impossible for charitable relations and mutual love to exist between members of the Church.

After pointing out the danger that threatens the Church, which danger I think should he clear to everyone who has read or heard the teaching in A.C. 1834 and other numbers, as 1799, and 345], I desire to return to the teaching given us regarding moulding the truths of the Word into doctrine that they may be serviceable for use, as it is said in n. 10105 already referred to: "Truths from the Word are to be moulded into doctrine that they may be serviceable for use, which is done by those who are in enlightenment from the Lord".

That a single truth from the Word, or two or more truths regarded by themselves, are not serviceable for use, I think becomes clear from the dissenting views regarding the Son of God and the Son of Mary which exist in the Church and which I have referred to before. They are all based on different expressions of Divine truth as it comes down accommodated to men by words of natural language.

The question then arises: "Who are those who are in enlightenment from the Lord and therefore are capable of moulding truths from the Word into doctrine that they may be serviceable for use?

The answer is planly given in the continuation of n. 10105, where it says that "they are in enlightenment, when they read the Word, who are in affection for truth for the sake of truth, and for the sake of the good of life". The same thing is said in a great many other passages. In the ARCANA COELESTIA, n. 9382 we read: "How the case is with enlightenment and instruction from the Word shall also be stated herein in a few words: Everyone is enlightened and instructed from the Word according to the affection of truth and the intensity of its desire, and according to his faculty of reception. Those who are in enlightenment as to their internal man are in the light of heaven which enlightens a man in the truths and goods of faith. They who are thus illuminated understand the Word as to its interior things; wherefore they form for themselves from the Word a doctrine, to which they apply the literal sense". In n. 7012 we read: "As concerns illustration, and conse-

quent confirmation of truths, it is to be observed, that those who are in externals and at the same time in internals are illustrated when they read the Word, and in illustratiou see truths, in which they are afterwards more and more confirmed. And, what is remarkable, everyone has illustration according to the quality of his affection for truths, and the quality of the affection for truth is such as is the good of life".

Illustration from the Lord is always connected with, dependent on, and according to, influx from the Heavens.

In n. 10702 we read: "They who turn themselves to the Lord and to heaven receive influx thence and are in enlightenment and so are in perception of truth inwardly in themselves. This influx takes place from the Lord through the internal to the external". And in n. 9995 it says: "All good with man is formed by truth, for good flows in by an internal way from the Lord, and truth enters throngh an external way; and they unite in marriage in the internal man, but in one way with the spiritual man and angel and in another way with the celestial man and angel. In the spiritual man and angel the marriage is effected in the intellectual, but with the celestial man and angel in the voluntary part. The external way, by which truth enters, is through hearing and sight into the understanding; but the internal way, by which good flows in from the Lord, is through his inmost into the will".

That there are degrees and grades of enlightenment from the Lord is made very plain in A.C. 10028. There we read: “When man is being purified, then first of all are learned such truths as are apprehended by the sensual man, such as are the truths in the sense of the letter of the Word; afterwards are learned interior truths, such as are collected from the Word by those who are in enlightenment, for these collect its interior sense from various passages where the sense of the letter is explained. From these, when known, truths still more interior are afterward drawn forth by those who are enlightened, which truths with the former truths serve the Church for doctrine, the more interior for doctrine to those who are men of the internal Church, the less interior for doctrine to those who are men of the external Church".

This shows that there are different degrees of interior

truths all together contained in the outmosts of the Word, that is that sense of the letter which man can learn to know through sight and hearing, or by reading or listening. It also shows that man can be enlightened from the Lord so that he sees these interior truths which are together in the sense of the letter. He can therefore receive degrees of enlightenment corresponding to the different degrees of truth contained in the letter of the Word, and according to his capacity to receive.

The first of the interior truths by which the good in man is formed for the uses of Heaven are such as "are collected from the Word by those who are in enlightenment, for these collect its interior sense from various passages where the sense of the letter is explained", n. 10028.

The one condition necessary for a man in order that he may be enlightened from the Lord when he reads the Word is that he is in affection for truth for the sake of truth and for the sake of the good of life; see n. 10105 and 7012 quoted above .

Those who seek the truth for the sake of self glory, reputation, or gain, cannot be enlightened. (10105). "Those who are not in the affection of truth from good and from it in the desire of growing wise are more blinded than enlightened in reading the Word, for they are not in the light of heaven; and from the light of the world, which is called natural light, they see only such things as agree with worldly things; and therefore prompted by the fallacies in which the outward senses are, they embrace falsities which appear to them as truths", A.C. 9382. "Everyone has illustration according to the quality of his affection for truth, and the quality of the affection for truth is such as is the good of life", n. 7012.

By self-examination we can find out whether we have affection for truth tor the sake of truth or not, and by selfexamination we can also find out the quality of our affection for truth. But unless the light of Heaven is allowed to fall down on the affections in our will and on the thoughts in our understanding, we examine ourselves in the light of the world, and then we generally find our state quite satisfactory. If we have some ability of logical thinking, that may, however, help us to a truer view of the quality of our affection for truth.

In general, I should think, members of the GENERAL CHURCH profess a belief in the Gospel of the Lord's Second Coming, the last, and the Crown of Revelations, to be the Word of the Lord. There we get knowledge of the Lord, of Heaven and hell, of spiritual life here and hereafter in general and in particular. We know that men and Angels which constitute the Church and Heaven shall progress to all eternity, which means that they shall receive more of the Divine good and the Divine true without end from the Lord, the Lord who is the Infinite Good and the Infinite True itself.

This revelation of Divine Truth, the Third and Last Testament, must therefore within its outmost form, which men can read, or listen to read by others, contain all the good that the human will to all eternity can receive and all the true that human understanding in eternal development can grasp.

This is the logical conclusion that a belief, that the theological Writings of Swedenborg are the Word of the Lord, leads to. That conclusion is also, I think, generally accepted by the members of the GENERAL CHURCH. This again would mean that what men of the Church at any given time understand of the Divine truth contained in the Crown of Revelations, is only a very small part of the truth that proceeds from the Lord's infinite love for men, and which reveals the good of that love to men who are in affection for truth which teaches the good of love.

If anyone while reading the literal sense of the revelation in which all Divine truths are together, thinks, and makes known to others, that he has seen a truth not before known in the Church, would not the lover of truth for the sake of truth at once hasten to the revelation to see if the new truth proclaimed is to be found there. This would not mean that he should accept the new view without any further scrutiny, but it does mean that he with an unprejudiced mind endeavour to see if there is any good ground for the new view in the sense of the letter of the Word. If he, looking for truth for the sake of truth, cannot find such ground, he may tell those who see it so, but knowing that the Lord alone knows tbe different capacity of individual men to see and receive truth from Him, he will not condemn the new view or the man who holds it, and their

mutual love aud feeliug of brotherhood would not be the least impaired by their dissenting views.

Those who condemn new views of what the Word teaches because they do not accord with the understanding they themselves have formed from what is said there do not love the truth for the sake of truth, but they love their own understanding of truth. They who love their own understanding of the Word cannot be enlightened by the Lord, for love of their own understanding of the Word is always bound up with self-glory, reputation, or gain. When the things of this world rule in the minds of men, the teaching concerning charity, which is the essence of the Church, is easily forgotten, and at last vanishes, as has been the case in the First Christian Church and will be in the New Church, if the teaching is not remembered and repentance done.

There are also those who by errors in the understanding deprive themselves of enlightenment from the Lord and consequent perception of truth inwardly in themselves.

I have said above that enlightenment from the Lord is always connected with, dependent on, and according to, influx from the Lord through the Heavens. This is plainly set forth in A.C. 10702, where we read: "They who turn themselves to the Lord and to Heaven receive influx thence and are in enlightenment, and so are in perception of truth inwardly in themselves. This influx takes place from the Lord through the internal to the external".

The Lord comes to the New Church as the Spirit of Truth within the form of the Word that men can read or hear read. The Spirit of Truth is the Lord as Divine Truth proceeding from His infinite Love, or the Lord Himself as the Holy Spirit.

The Lord as the Holy Spirit flows into the good in man, enlightens his internal and from there brings about perception of truth in the external, when man reads the Word with an end of knowing truth. This is stated so often and in so many ways that it seems strange that it should not be generally understood to be the teaching.

In A.C. 10702, which number is part of the spiritual explanation of Exodus ch. 34, when Moses is spoken of as representing the external in which is the internal, it is said:

"With the external when the internal flows into it, which

is signified by Moses going in before Jehovah, the case is this. There are two states with men as to those things which are of the Church, of worship, and of the Word. Some turn themselves to the Lord, thus to heaven, but some to themselves and the world. They who turn themselves to the Lord or to heaven receive influx thence and are in enlightenment, and so are in the perception of truth inwardly in themselves. This influx takes place from the Lord through the internal into the external. This is here signified by going in hefore Jehovah. But they who turn to themselves and the world cannot receive any influx from the Lord or from Heaven, thus cannot be in any enlightenment and perception of truth, for the world flows in from the looking to itself, and altogether extinguishes or repels or perverts whatsoever comes from heaven. Thus they are in thick darkness concerning all things of the Church, of worship, and of the Word. This is signified by the veil before Moses' face".

The following number, 10703, explains the interior meaning in the words: "He took the veil off, until he came out" and then we are taught, "that this signifies a state of enlightenment then. This is evident from the signification of taking the veil off, as making tbe internal appear, for when the veil was taken off, the face with the shining of the skin thereof was apparent, and by the face are sigmfied the interiors, and by the shining is signified the light therefrom in the external. That the face means the interiors may be seen in the passage already cited, and that the shining of the skin of Moses' face is the giving forth of light, or the light whieh is from the internal in the external of the Word. It is called light because the light which illumines the internal man is Divine truth proceeding from the Lord. This is the light of heaven, thus the light from which Angels and spirits see and the man also who is enlightened has perception and intelligence. It is said light in the external of the Word from its internal, but thereby is meant light in the extemal of man, from his internal when he reads it, for the Word does not shine of itself but before the eyes of man who is in light from the internal. Without man the Word is merely the letter.

In seeking the truth taught us concernmg the influx of , good and truth from the Lord, by which man's interior is

enlightened and therefrom his external, we must bear in mind the general teaching that: "The external way by which truth enters is through hearing and sight into the understanding, but the internal way, by which good flows in from the Lord, is through his inmosts into the will", as it is said in A,C, 9995,

This draws our attention to and makes us recollect that the external or literal sense of the Word belongs to the things around us in the world, which we can observe and learn about through the senses of sight and hearing,

In A.C. 3138, explaining part of Genesis XXIV: 28-30, we read: "The subject treated of in these three verses is concerning the preparation and illustration of the natural man, in order that truth maybe called forth thence, which is to be conjoined to good in the rational. But with respect to preparation and illustration, the case is this: there are two lights that form intellectual things in man, the light of heaven and the light of the world; the light of heaven is from the Lord, who to the Angels in another life is a Sun and Moon, The light of the world is from the sun and moon which appear before the bodily sight The internal man has his vision and his understanding from the light of heaven, but the external man has his vision and his understanding from the light of the world, The influx of the light of heaven into the things which are from the light of the world, causes illustration and at the same time perception, If there be correspondence, the perception of truth; if there be no correspondence, the perception of what is false instead of true, But illustration and perception cannot be given, unless there be affection or love, which is spiritual heat, and gives life to those things which are illustrated by light",

We are repeatedly taught that the light of the Heavens comes from love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbour. Therefore if there is no correspondence in the man who reads with the love and charity of the Angels who constitute the Heavens, his interiors are closed, and no light from heaven can flow into what he reads, Then it is only the light of the world which illumines what he reads, and his perception of what he reads in the external form of the Word is false, "The interiors [of man] are not in the world but in heaven, and things that are of the world

cannot enter into those that are of heaven, physical influx not being given; but the things that are of heaven can enter into those that are of the world with man. Therefore as soon as the external man seeks to enter into the internal, which is effected by reasonings from the fallacies of the senses, the internal man is closed". A. 10049.

The error of understandig which makes some men think that the Holy Spirit operates from without, hangs together with the idea that there are no truths in the Word of the Lord's Second Coming except those that are seen in the sense of its .Jetter.

There are, and always will be, an uncountable number of truths in the Third arid Last Testament which men do not see, except in the measure that good from the Lord flows into tbeir will and joins to it the truths of the Word.

Concerning the conjunction of the understanding and the will of man we have very clear teaching in A.C. 10067: "Man's understanding is formed from truths and his will from goods, and truths are of faith with him, and goods are of love. Man imbibes truths from hearing by the sense of hearmg, and from reading by sight, and stores them up in the memory; these truths relate either to the civil state or the moral state, and are called truths of memory (scientifics). The love of man, which is of his will through the understanding, looks into those truths m the memory, and then chooses out such as are in agreement with the love, and those which it chooses, It summons and conjoins to itself, and by them strengthens itself from day to day. Truths thus vivified by love constitute his intellectual and the goods themselves, wnich are of the love, constitute his voluntary. From this it is evident that the good of love is really that which conjoins, and not the truth of faith, except so far as this has the good of love in itself. Whether we speak of love or of good, it is the same, for all good is of love, and what is of love is called good; and also whether we speak of love or of the will, it is likewise the same, for what a man loves this he wills. This is to be known, that the things which relate to the civil or moral state conjoin themselves in the external man, but those that are of the spiritual state, which are truths of faith and goods of love to the Lord and toward the neighbour, from the Lord, and which look to eternal life, communi-

cate with the heavens and open the internal man, and they open it so far and in such a manner as the truths of faith are received in the good of love to the Lord".

When love to the Lord and toward the neighbour is spoken of, the words "from the Lord" are generally added. This reminds us that we from ourselves can have no love to the Lord and to the neighbour, for all that which is our own is nothing but evil, and the good of love to the Lord and to the neighbour is from the Lord and is the Lord in us.

The good of love to the Lord and toward the neighbour, or charity, is that in man which is his Heaven, and from which the light of Heaven in his interior man can flow down into his external or natural man giving understanding and perception of truth. Without charity man is and remains in the darkness of falsity.

Reflecting on the teaching given us by means of the many passages from the Third Testament cited in this paper, and their connection with a great many others, which I have not time to quote, it would seem evident, that in the Church there will always be doctrinals taught, which are expressions of different teachers' more or less external or interior understanding of what is said in the sense of the letter.

They may appear dissenting, but if charity is alive and rules, no attention is paid to their dissenting quality, and they will be received and be of use as doctrine to different men's different ability to see and perceive truth.

Then there can be unity in diversity within the Church as there is in the Heavens.

TO DO AND TO LET DO

BY ANTON ZELLING.

"God alone acts; and man suffers himself to be acted upon, and he cooperates to all appearance as froon himself, though interiorly from God", T.C.R. 588.

Common use of language in Dutch connects the words “doen” and “laten” [doen means “to do”, and laten may mean "to let do” or "to let", "to let be done", "to have something done", "to permit", or "to leave", or "to cease doing", or "to neglect to do”] in expressions such as: "iemands doen en laten

nagaan" [to enquire into what one does and what one does not do] ; this is .derived from the spiritual world. Sufficient reason for us enter into this matter more profoundly, so that the mind may be enriched with one living word more. And the word "doen" does not live unless it he erceived to be one with the word “laten”. Just note these interweavings: facere in Latin, to do or to make, meets with fieri, to become, in factum est which signifies both "it is done or made" and "it has become" or "it came to pass". In to do therefore there is also to become and to happen, to come to pass. That to happen is connected with to make or to do is a so apparent in the word fact which is the Latin factnm, literally "made". The Dutch word "gelaat" [face] comes from "laten", in Latin and in English this word is facies and "face" from facere; here again “laten" and "doen".

The Lord is the Doing from Himself; man is the doing as if from himself; and this doing as if from himself is a letting be done a suffering that something come to pass, a letting the Lord’s wull be done. To do from within is a letting do, a letting be done, a suffering. Behind that unity of to do and to let do there is hidden the Arcanum of the Glorification and its image, man’s Regeneration. For what the Lord came into the world to do was to suffer much, to have the Prophecies fulfilled in Himself, thus to allow, to undergo, to submit; the subjugation of the hells and the ordering of the Heavens was a Doing from Himself which is not conceivable without a Letting from Himself; that Doing was one with Letting, with Submitting, with Suffering. Facere, to do, was one with pati, to suffer; thence the passion of the cross, Passio crncis, as permitted supreme temptation.

"Laten" is to submit, and even of a root related with the Latin tuli, to bear; it is also related with lassus, fatigued; gelove in middle-dutch also signified fatigued; and therefore "gelooven" [to believe] may be thought of as "to allow to let a thing he done". Said by way of paradox gelooven is nothing but an actively leaving it to the Lord, and in English the word to leave is connected with to believe, to love, to live; hence the word gelooven is also connected with overblijfselen and overlaatselen [remains], that is the thing remaining or left.

As soon as a word begins to live, it attracts all words

that are in connection therewith, and all those words commence to sparkle together with it as in a constellation. Not only is to do connected with to become, to come to pass, to submit, to suffer, to bear, to leave and to let, but also with to serve [dienenJ; so that it might be said that to do-is to serve actively, to serve is to do passively. This is the sense of the story of the Lord's visit to Martha and Mary. Martha is concerned only for her doings. Her service is only a doing. Mary, however, sitting down has "chosen the good part which shall not be taken from her". She is the wise virgin, while Martha proves to be a foolish virgin. Martha fancies she can do the Word without hearing it, Mary hears the Word in order to suffer it to do in her what it will do, namely to purify her part and to have it appropriated to her unto an eternally increasing blessedness. Martha with her doings chases away all affection of the true, while Mary allows the true to affect her in order that the true may operate in her. The affection of the true should be understood as a letting do aud affect. A derisive saying in Dutch is: "that does not do me anything [what is that to me]". On the other hand the word to make the true things out of the Word of one's life, might be understood as meaning "to have the true things out of the Word do everything to me entirely". Facere vera, to do the true things, must be more essentially understood, that is, not with the affection of Martha, but with the affection of Mary. What is a sick man, a patient, a sufferer, to do? That which is the patient's, namely to let the medicines operate, and then to let recovery take its course. His doing consists in letting do. In what is the spring rain beneficient and wholesome? By the soil allowing itself to be entirely penetrated thereby. The true things out of the Word are means to salvation, sweet spring rains; the receptacle thereof is the soil in its giving of life. Not to do the evil, or to leave the evil, is to allow the true things to do their benefits. Now this is to do the true things and to make the true things out of the Word of one's life. In this connection it might be of use to think of this that the word boos [evil] is of the same root as beuzelen [to dawdle, to trifle] and bazelen [to twaddle, to talk nonsense], just as in English evil is akin to over in the sense of transgressing, beyond yea yea, nay nay, MATT. V: 37. A wise proverb says that "idleness is the devil's

pillow". This idleness is to be understood as every state outside of the affection and the 'letting do and affect' of the true out of the Word, every state of busily dawdling and trifling away one's time with lots of doings that mean nothing and have nothing to do with life. The diligent Martha, busily trifling, forfeits her salvation, and she even speaks to the Lord anxious to master it over Mary. Her doing is all one emptiness, and thus the principle of evil. Wrongly started, evilly ended.

If to do has not inherent in it the faith of to let do, to become, to come to pass, to submit, to suffer, to bear, to serve, it is without any essential use.

This thought carries us far, very far, for in everything we may see to do and to let do, and this should even be seen as one, the one not the least more or less than the other.

The Doctrine of the Church is the understanding of the Church; every Doctrine of the genuine True is an understanding of the Genuine True. From this well-known statement it follows that the word understanding must indeed be a very precious word, for it is put on a line with every Doctrine out of the Word. Speaking in correspondences the Lord said of the understanding: "If thine eye he single, thy whole body shall be full of light", MATT. VI: 22. From this the understanding and the life prove to be one if the understanding be single. Just as behind a window there is a house, behind the eye there is a body, behind the understanding the life. A window alone, an eye alone, an understanding alone, is a meaningless thing, a thing without use. There must be substance behind it into which they act. And now notice the word substance; sub is under, stantia the standing, in English literally translated as understanding. This makes us see or lets us see that the understanding has everything to do with the substance of life, with the constituent parts thereof. Understanding in the proper sense therefore is substantial. A single eye is a substantial understanding. There is also an eye that is not single, and that is an unsubstantial understanding; such an understanding, just as the dawdling and twaddling of all philosophical systems outside of the Word, is a complicated projection on a surface that is not there, thus on a seeming surface, a"brilliant" surface with nothing under

it. Surface in Latin is superficies, from super, on or over, and ficies, just as facies, made, formed, or created. For this reason it signifies the superstructure as well as the surface. The single nnderstanding is one with the will, as the surface' of the water with the water. The true things make or form the understanding, the understanding, enlightens the substance of will and life. To let do and to do here again are together. It is known that not the eye sees but the sensory, not the sensory but the mind, not the mind but the soul, not the soul but the Lord. Thus the eye or the understanding if it is single, is an organ of the Lord. It is the Lord who sees through the Doctrine. And the only Lord makes or lets the man see or understand. Genuine understanding is the understanding of the genuine true, and the genuine true is the true from within or from the Lord. It is this true of which it is said: "When the good is being formed that it may appear to the mind and through the mind in the speech, it is called the true, whence it is said that the good is the Esse of the true". Ap. EXPL. 136.

With a view to life it should therefore be so uuderstood that "to do the true things out of the Word", first of all consists in this that one allows an understanding to be made for one's self by those things, which understanding afterwards is single when man henceforward lets those true things do everything they must do, namely purify, order, form, in short qualify the substance of life lying under that understanding. For there also is an understanding which, it is true, at first lets itself be formed, but afterwards does not allow the true things to pass further but causes them to rebound. The reciprocal or the cooperation of man in the Divine work of Regeneration consists especially in this that one is like a patient and understands the reception of true things rather as a taking of medicine, which we allow to do its work. It is not so much a working with the true things but rather a letting the true things work themselves. So the restful, resting body gradually becomes aware of enlightenment, an enlightenment and a lightening. The doing of many is too much awake, they do not know the good sleep in which the Lord teaches those who are His. Our substance is from the humus, the soil; and that humus requires its rest. The rest to let the things

do their work. A single understanding lets the true things which it nnderstands carry on their work in the body while it lies down; an nnderstanding that is not single does not let the body be qnietly imbned by them, and makes itself busy about not-understood and inconceivable things. Too mnch of doing and too little of letting things come. In a conversation with laymen the Angels said: "We will not say anything but what you understand; otherwise onr discourse falls like rain upon the sand, and into the seeds there, which, however irrigated ont of Heaven, still wither and perish", A.R. 224. Because it is the gronnd that is here spoken of, the understanding here refers to the single or the properly genuine substantial understanding, an understanding one with the will and the life, and not any separated understanding, not even that which can be raised into the light of Heaven while the will remains beneath. The Angels there are the true things which as a mild rain of spring do their work in thirsting minds. Those laymen there are the good who do the true things by letting the rain pass in order that the seeds may sprout forth and make fruit.

To do the true things is to let the true things grow, to allow them to take their way according to the Word understood; to do this is to let the New Jerusalem come into existence. The Power of the Doctrine lies or rests in quiet patience, in a quietly letting mature nntil the harvest. For this reason the bed corresponds to the Doctrine; for this reason too the Angels do not change their site.

Only the True understood can operate, but merely to understand is still far removed from letting the True operate; on the contrary, merely to understand gradually of itself leads to an operating with a true against the True; with a true from the Lord without the Lord being therein against the True which is the Lord Himself, dwelling in what is His. The love of the True for the sake of the True therefore signifies the love of the True for the sake of the saving influence of that loved True right through that love or through the life. The love of the True for the sake of the True means gradually to become still under the all, governing influx of the True. That love, as ordinary Dutch

speech already says spiritually, taat de dingen beeinken [lets the things sink into the mind]. That love is not a feverish chase for the sake of chasing, but the peaceful affection for the sake of being affected. In it is inscribed the Lord's word: "Without Me ye can do nothing". Now see what light there falls here on this small word "do". Does this word not say that the only Lord does, makes one do, lets one do? And that therefore the mere understanding alone or an understanding without the life behind it can do nothing, an eye that is not single and which lets or makes the whole body be unenlightened.

Let us in this connection compare these three statements:

I. "To make (facere) the true things out of the Word [things] of one'slife", A.E. 209;

II. "To do (facere) the true things, that is, to live following those things", A.R. 189;

III. "In as much as the true things of life become (fiunt) of life ... ", CANONS PROLOGUE;

and we see to do or to make put on a line with to become and to follow, thus just as much passive as active, and even not the least more or less. For to do the true things out of the Word, thus the true things of Doctrine or the true things of the Understanding, is to make them of one's life, and this doing or making is a becoming of the life by following with the life.

Now the question comes: what is the life? In the literal sense the civil life, the moral life, the spiritual life. But behind that there lies "till another life which is often passed over: the life from God the Creator.

There are three kingdoms of nature. In these from the Lord there has been put the conatus towards man, which conatus reveals itself in the uses which they yield to man as their king. The three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal, as it were stand open even unto man, and in him this conatus from the Lord is changed from the back or from the bottom. The middle end of Creation has been attained: the man robed with entire nature as with a king's garment. Now follows the final end: the angelic Heaven out of the human race. Created from the Lord the man is now drawn to the Lord. As the three kingdoms of nature stand open unto man, the man comes to stand open unto the Lord. This is "to

look from the Lord to the Lord", A.R, 56. There is also a looking from one's self to the Lord, but this is not life from the Lord but man's proprial life (ibidem). In this latter instance the subject is not the man from Creation, but some man or other from birth. The latter in his looking to the Lord as God Regenerator passes by nothing more or less than the Lord God Creator. Man's own life places itself not only outside of the influx from the Lord through the Heavens, but also outside of the influx from the Lord through Creation. Man's own life stands outside of creation just as much as it stands outside of Heaven. It is an unnatural life, however much it may present itself as civil and moral; it is really no life at all; there is nothing in it that has been created, it is a spontaneous generation from hell; "your father the devil", the Lord said of that own life. From one's self to look to the Lord is to see nothing of the Lord, let alone to be enlightened and warmed as to the entire body from the Lord. With regard to the proprial life in the unfavourable sense "an only lord" may be spoken of. Such always have "the only lord" on their lips, and indeed, for from one's self there is nothing else to be seen than one's self, one's self alone. For in that statement: "the life from the Lord is to look from the Lord to the Lord" the Trinity has been expressed in the only Lord, while in the word "the proprial life is to look from one's self to the Lord" that Trinity is lacking; merely a fanciful conception of an only lord, being a trinity of the proprium as to soul, body, and action.

What the man from Creation is, some man or other from birth forgets more and more; this is the degeneration of the times; some man from birth in fact is a brute, a monster. The proprial life is the life of a brute. The entire work of Reformation and Regeneration therefore is to redeem the man who is man from Creation from what is some man or other from birth. With the Regeneration or the Second Birth the Earth with its three kingdoms enters into the essence or into the nature of man as much as the three Heavens. How could it otherwise be understood that man also as to the body is made new in each part thereof? How could it otherwise be understood that the Angels accurately know all natural truths, MEM. 955? How could it otherwise be understood that the Word of the New Church consists of three parts:

I. THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS, comprising the three kingdoms of nature;

II. THE WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD, description of the birth of the man from God the Creator;

III. THE THEOLOGICAL WORKS.

Therefore we read: "Conjunction with God is eternal life and salvation; this everyone sees who believes that men from creation are images and similitudes of God", D.P. 123.

Into the proprial life of some man or other from birth the Divine Conatus through those three kingdoms of nature enters only pervertedly; into the life from the Lord with the man from creation, set erect again, that conatus flows wholesomely in, together with the influx from the Lord through the Heavens. The earth has become a new earth for him which offers him its uses anew, as homage to a king. Man has become man, living from the Lord to the Lord. He may as often as this is given by the Lord, learn to know himself again from nature, and no natural truth is hidden from his rational. Into this celestial love and wisdom leads the love of the True for the sake of the True, for the sake of life. Regeneration leads back to the heart of Creation; and to look to the Lord from one's self passes over the Creation, it is to will to be regenerated in something or with something that has not been created, for the infernal proprium from birth is not created. To look from one's self to the Lord, to an only, non-trinal lord, passes over the life, the life from the Lord which man has from creation, for this is the receptacle of that Life.

All former Churches began to fall when men began from themselves to look to the Lord. In the New Church a still greater danger threatens: by the abuse of the intellectual faculty many can force their way up to the point of reasoning from themselves about "from the Lord to the Lord", as if they looked from the Lord to the Lord. Mere nonsense and insanity will flow forth in ever greater measure from the unnatural sense of the letter of her Word not understood, or taken up without Doctrine.

For this reason our repeated and warning questions:

What is the proprium, what is the man, what the life, what the understanding, what to do and to let do? It is very well possible for anyone who looks from himself to "the only lord", to improve his life, to do the true things, to keep the

commandments, in short to teach in the streets and to do many works in the name of the only lord, but thus doing, a man becomes his own aspiration, his own ambition, paving himself a way up on high above the Head of tbe Grand Man, where such were seen. To look from one's self to the Lord may very well be combined with an appearance of repentance, a mortification of everything that does not agree with the unlimited aspiration towards the only lord. The own life is fully absorbed in the separated understanding into which the separated enjoyment is then put; man becomes an avaricious night-eye, a ghost, a religious maniac. The understanding in essence is not conceivable without the substance of life, just as little as an eye without a body; and for that reason it becomes one's self to such an extent that all substance boils dry and away. Hence it is that such men visibly dry up even bodily, declining before their time.

These understandings without substance do not know, do not acknowledge, and do not believe what repentance is, this forecourt to the Holy Supper. Because they do not understand what to do is, because they regard the doing alone in the same way as they look to an only lord. There is no self-examination, no repentance without a substantial understanding, without an understanding with life behind it, without an eye with a body behind it. Only to him who has loved much will much be forgiven. The essential repentance has reference to every True which we have not suffered to do its function, which we, although understanding with the understanding, have not suffered to sink down through the understanding into the body and into life; a True which we have withstood, held back, held fast, by which the eye from single became not-single and the body remained unenlightened. Instead of being humus for the sweet spring rain of the True, our understanding stepped through it with rubber-coat, galoshes, and an umbrella, and come back home we found ourselves as dry as dust. No, this is not a witticism, but bitter earnest. The unsubstantial understanding, the understanding alone, with no life behind it bnt a subterraneous life, looks to and takes cognizance of all meteorological aspects of Heaven, but remains unmoved thereby. It is all eye, only eye, for all things of the letter alone. It joins in doing with the others,

and if it did not do sufficiently like unto the others, it does repentance by a redoubled exertion. And meanwhile body and life pine away ever more beneath a hydrocephalous head of understanding-alone. That then at times the natural having become unnatural takes vengeance, we learn from the wise proverb "chassez le naturel, il revient au galop". For this too, misunderstood, repentance is done.

To the merely literal repentance there attaches a flavour of remorse, of irritation against one's self, which prove that the understanding is not sound. An essential, a substantial understanding teaches to see from the Lord that there are two things from the infernal proprium of the old will or the will from birth, two inclinations which ever again seek to deform that understanding: the inclination to have dominion, and the inclination to have possession. The deformed understanding rules over the True and wills to possess all the True. The daily repentance consists in a perpetual cleansing of the understanding from those two inclinations, for by the True man is regenerated, and the True enters only through the understanding, and only if it is let in, body and life are enlightened and warmed. The angelic rain must humidify the humus, but must not sink away in quicksand. The understanding alone is a reservoir, not humus. Repentance from love of the True for the sake of the True for the sake of life is the supplication for the continuous cleansing and ordering of the affection in order that the understanding may receive just that True and, having understood it, may let it pass through, which, having passed through, may do its Providential operation in the body and in the life; for a large part without the man knowing of this, in his good sleep. Once again: Hear the word affection also as a letting do and affect. The animals from instinct know what is good for them. "Man is a rational and spiritual animal; this sees the food of his life, not so much of the body but of the soul which is the true of faith, when he hungers after that, and seeks that from the Lord", A. R. 224. To see pertains to the substantial understanding. And what the true of faith does to the soul, the mau knows just as little as the animal knows what the food does to its body. From the Lord the human understanding has been given the capacity of understanding; the genuine True; from the soul arises the hunger

to let itself be qualified by the True understood; the received True is taken in by the soul and there the true enters into the conjunction with its good, the good with its true; and this is Regeneration without end, with endless arcana which the Angels into eternity do not fatbom. So "to do tbe True" proves to be the same. as "to let the True do", and this latter increases the fear of the former. If this were not so, coarsely said understanding should be called "gumption", to perceive "to twig", and to do "a bustle". And notice the Latin for understanding: "intelleetus", properly said "to read in between". The languages mutually show as it were a refraction. A word rarely allows itself to be translated directly into another language; generally there is a bending or breaking of the sense which is sure to have its profound meaning. Thus the Latin intellectus changes into the Dutch verstand [understanding], words of entirely different roots. But then, that legere, to read, in intelleetus has also the meaning of to follow. In him who reads holily the inmost stirrings of his mind or the affections follow the Text as the moon draws the sea. There arises a motion, and that which affects or that which lets be affected, reveals itself in between the Text; the faces or the countenances mutually become relucent; the Text at that place uncovers its face, and the mind, right through the understanding is altogether full of light, and therefore also shows a human form with an opened eye. "How readest thou?" the Lord asks of a scribe. This means "how does your mind follow the Text", or "how do you understand". Does not the common use of language say: "I could not follow him" in the sense of "I could not understand or grasp him". But the genuine essence of understanding, following, or reading, in its first instance is not a question of understanding but a matter of affection. What the affection does not wish to accept, the understanding never essentially understands, never understands in a substantial way, in a way that allows of regeneration. The understanding regulates itself according to the affection, and therefore the first thing of "doing the True understood" is to let the True do its adjoining function. This, as has been said, is a mysterious, arcane, Divine operation, which requires from man a tremendous reciprocal cooperation as from himself: his will must leave the evil, and his understanding the dawdling,

the nibbling. The parable which the Word gives us concerning Regeneration we may also apply to the doing and letting do: the caterpillar has many feet, and it spends its time in gnawing; afterwards it withdraws itself into a given place, busily draws threads from itself, spins itself in and lies down quietly; it becomes a cocoon and submits to a metamorphosis or lets this come to pass, and after that becomes a butterfly with two wings (wings signify power through understanding), and in its heaven plays its conjugial games. How many phases of doing the True do we not see here, and what is done in one phase is left in the other, and the doing and the letting do directs itself entirely according to the hunger, at first according to the hunger for natural food, at the last according to the hunger for spiritual food and the love of multiplying itself. In every degree and state man has to pass through this threefold phase, at the end each time again a butterflyegg for the next state. Each time anew his understanding must be ready for a metamorphosis; as a caterpillar he must always know the time of ceasing his gnawing, of drawing out the threads and spinning himself in; in the cocoon-state the True received and taken in mysteriously continues its operation and brings about the metamorphosis, upon which the butterfly then breaks forth from the cocoon. Man at the right time must be able to leave the doing, in order to let that be done to him which must be done for his salvation. For this reason the man who becomes more and more interior, in appearance, and even in fact, retrogresses before the busy and swaggering world of his surroundings. This is the reason why the evil can do uses for which the good are not to be gained. These are special uses, as for instance the restoration of order in times of anarchy requiring a courageous attitude and an active zeal in a sphere in which an interior man had long ceased to live. His self-collecting withdrawal into the cocoon is forgetful of his caterpillar-creeping, and he is fully occupied with the spiritual realities of the butterfly-state. That meanwhile the conjunction of Heaven and earth depends on his integer understanding of the Genuine True, of his interiorly doing and letting the true things out of the Word do, this the surrounding world ovedooks in its useless bustling, priding itself in actions, actions, and actions over

again. So it is that the world seeks tronble to evade the difficulties. Everyone's attention is fixed on a troublesome case or problem, but only the interior man exerts himself for the essentially "difficult conversion of the concupiscences of evil in the natural man into good affections", T.C.R. 203. If the point were to extirpate those concupiscences of evil in others and in one's self, every worldling in his time could be gained for this; to such a kind of coarse repentance there attaches no small self-merit which is pleasant to everyone in his time. But it says "the difficult conversion of those concupiscences into good affections". This repentance is entirely different. Not man converts himself, but the Lord makes him be converted and lets the man convert himself, and this indeed by the True understood, out of the new understanding, the substantial, the affected understanding; to do the true things out of the Word is to have the understanding ever more be and remain from the Lord, to suffer the temptations, to let the Lord's will be done in the becoming entirely new, renewing in the inmost of him a firm spirit, allowing truth after truth to pass through the single eye until the entire body is enlightened. Thus he comes ever deeper into the heart of Creation and of Regeneration, or, as it is said of the Angels, he strides ever farther into the spring of youth; and the words spring and youth point to the continuous creation, one eternal renewal. He looks from the Lord to the Lord. From the Lord is from the Father; to the Lord is to the Son; the looking pertains to the Holy Spirit, proceeding out of the Lord from God the Father.

COMMUNICATIONS

One of the most glorious and beautiful moments in the life of the New Church is indeed the Holy Supper.

When the people gather together on that day one already feels something that is not there at other times, something quiet, something solemn. Fewer members are gathered together. Did those others stlty away for fear of that grandeur, that holiness? Did they feel unworthy to attend? Were their wedding garments not in order? Did they not ask forgiveness of their brethren against whom they hold a grievance? These few that are come together in the solemn

service of the Holy Supper are quiet and devout, a conserration full of mystery hovers over all, time falls away the Lord is in our midst. And when the words are sounded "the Bread of God which cometh down out of Heaven and giveth life unto the world" then we feel that truth in us as clearness and brightness, and in our joyous ecstasy we would make all mankind participant of our blissful state. And when the priest blesses the Wine then it seems as though rose-buds had burst open and a sweet odour pervaded that breathless silence - and then we may participate in the eating and the drinking: "'Take, eat, this is My Body. Drink ye all of it, for this is My Blood".

A tremor of respectful awe goes through us after this ceremony. We would so very much like to stay in this state of genuine interior happiness. Slowly we return to our life in the world, but with a knowledge that makes us strong, with a faith that moves mountains.

For the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.

J.A. Scholtes.

"When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding ... go and sit down in the lowest room", LUKE XIV : 8 to 10. "A man" is the Lord; "a wedding" is the genuine sense of the Word, Heaven itself; "to be bidden" is the founding of the New Jerusalem out of the Lord's Divine Mercy. "The lowest room" (the Greek word for lowest is here eschatos, last, outermost) is: the first end the all of the last end, firsts in lasts, so the Letter the basis, the firmament, the contain ant of the Spiritual and the Celestial Sense; wherefore this parable is a teaching about Doctrine, which is to say that it must rest on the Letter of the Word. "To go" signifies the life; "to sit down in the lowest room" signifies, to will to be faithful in lasts according to the life, therefore, from the heart; to will to be perfect in the effects or to be in that use from the Lord over which man has been given dominion to administer. "To sit down in the highest room" means to wish to pass over that use in order to chase after a higher delight of a more excellent use. Not to know one's room is not to believe the Word.

Anton Zelling.

It is written: The internal sense of the Word is Doctrine. Love and faith are the internal sense. It is in the internal sense, in Doctrine, that we render the Word unto the Lord.

One cannot think "Word” and "Church" without saying at the same time "Doctrine". Denying Doctrine is denying the Third Testament. I know now that this Word is of untold greater wealth than I thought. Material in abundance has been gathered for confirmation. He who would see must needs see. This is the foundation for the further building of the Church, and without this conception of the Doctrine there is no further progress. The priestly work proper is possible only now.

Usually one sees only the letter, but sometimes this disappears and something quickens behind it that one is, as yet, little able to grasp. In reading the Word one progresses more and more slowly. Formerly one thought one understood and passed everything by. Now one sits staring at the letter and one notices that in reality one grasps nothing. And yet again one sees so very much. One can only bring all to the Lord and pray that He will give us what we need.

It often appears to us as if the Word destroyed us, but that at the same time it contained a promise. In the glory of the study of the Word is contained the great sorrow of the impenetrability of appearances. One does no more receive a single truth directly; every truth is a question. But we have the certainty of our faith: The Lord will open the appearances and we will be permitted to understand.

Romko Sikkema.

93 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR MAY 1937

TO DO AND TO LET DO

BY ANTON ZELLING

“Abide in Me, and I in you”.

JOHN XV : 4

“Abide in Me” is to let do; “and I in you” is to do. For to abide is to believe, to love, to live the Lord. To abide is to leave everything entirely to the Lord, and in this "leaving" there is the "letting do". Me regards the Divine Human, and on man's part the celestial substance of the new will; I regards the Light, and on man’s part the substantial understanding of that will, enlightening the whole body.

In saying this the inversion is also there, for it can now also be seen that to abide in the Lord requires from man all cooperation as from himself, which is all one doing, all one activity; this doing or this activity being genuine only if man can suffer or allow the Lord in that doing to be the Willing itself, thus the All of the Doing. "It is also known in Heaven that the Lord operates all things bv Willing, and that what He wills is done”, D. P. 96. How is it ever possible to open the paradox of the "as of one's self", this most precious arcanum of the New Church, unless the living and thence ever changing relation between to Do and to Let Do, between to Will and to Be Done is perceived? "No others but those who have suttered themselves to be regenerated from the Lord, act ont of freedom itself according to reason itself", D. P. 98. If the relation between To Do and To Let Do is not opened, man may fall into two kinds of religious mania: either into an imaginary "abiding In the Lord", without the Lord being in him, or into the phantasy of the Lord being in him

without on his part any obligatory abiding in the things of the Lord. We therefore read: "What is the Divine operation in the internal things without the co-operation by man in the external things as if from that [man]; for to separate the internal from the external, so that there is no conjunction, is merely something visionary", A. R. 45l. To do as if from one's self is to leave the evil undone, and for so much to let the true come in. In order to let the light in the shutters must be opened. To do as if from one's self is to actually hate the darkness and to love the light. To open [Dutch opendoen which contains the verb 'to do'] is equal to letting in. To do as if from one's self is to hear the Lord's knock on the door or to watch; to do from one's self is only to hear one’s self, or to sleep. When man knows not but that he lives, thinks, speaks, and acts out of himself, he is in a state of sleep; but when he begins to know that this is false, then he arouses as from sleep and becomes wakeful, see A.C. 147. To be awake is to live and be moved in God; to sleep is to move one’s self and not to live. To move one’s self is not to suffer or allow one’s self to be moved or regenerated; as such it is not a co-operation as from one's self but an opposition from one's self. The mere doing is not a letting the Lord do, but neglecting to do what should be done in order that the Lord may do - and this no longer is a paradox, but a self-damnation.

The two principal things of the Church are: I. to acknowledge the Divine of the Lord in His Human; II. to make the true things out of the Word of one's life; see A. E. 209. "Abide in Me" signifies to acknowledge the Divine of the Lord in His Human, to be in the wisdom that God is and what God is; "and I in you" signifies to draw the true things out of the Word and to live following that Doctrine, thus being a Wisdom of what is God's. The one refers to the will, the other to the understanding. That to acknowledge has reference to the will is clearly seen in this statement: "Innocence is to acknowledge that with one's self there is nothing but evil, and that all good is from the Lord; furthermore to believe that he does not know nor perceive anything from himself, but out of the Lord", A. C. 7902. The good of life is acknowledged to be from the Lord, the true of faith is believed to be out of

the Lord. In to acknowledge (Latin agnoscere) there is, even down into common speech, a sense that one scarcely wills it to be so; "you will have to acknowledge" then has the same meaning as "you will have to give way" which points to the effort of intellectually persuading a recalcitrant will which still feels otherwise. In the series of to know, to acknowledge, to believe, to perceive, the creation of the new will in the new understanding is to be seen. As soon as man has advanced from knowing to acknowledging, the will begins to allow itself to listen to the understanding, to be persuaded, and convinced; it still goes by fits and starts, for the will has still the greatest difficulty in agreeing to its being nothiug but evil, and to all good being from the Lord. For this reason to acknowledge stands in the forecourt and can still turn back. Only when the acknowledging has advanced into believing as into the rest-chamber, the acknowledgment proves to have been genuine, a full and willing giving way, a letting do. The voluntary concupiscences of evil let themselves be decently turned into good affections, the having to acknowledge from compulsion has become freedom, and the will now once for all and from the heart abides in the acknowledgment, you in Me. Only then is there essentially any question of believing that he does not know nor perceive anything from himself, but out of the Lord. I in you. Innocence is now complete, a new substantial with a new formal; man in the Lord's Wisdom of Love has himself become a Wisdom. The consecutive order has become a simultaneous order: the perception the inmost in the believing, the believing within the acknowledging, the acknowledging within the knowing. “Abide in Me” is theat voluntary acknowledgement of the Lord’s Divine Human, the acknowledgement that “without Me ye can do nothing". All essential doing is founded on this voluntary letting do. "And I in you" is the Lord's Understanding in man which draws the true things out of the Word or makes Doctrine, and, because the docile will is lit and warmed through and through, at the same time it makes Doctrine to be of life. On the Lord's part this word signifies: "In Me, in what is Mine, in Mine, it is I who do"; on man's part this word signifies:

"In God we live and are moved". For this reason the greatest blessedness for the Angels is in the continually increasing appearance of living from themselves; the angelic

which they brought with them from the world consisted in a doing from a letting-do from within; in the progression of heavenly blessedness the Doing comes to lie more and more within, ever more "I in you”. An image of this is seen in the joy created in every small child in his external innocence in being allowed "to do something himself; no greater satisfaction than being allowed independently to accomplish a domestic use. And do we not read of Angels before the Lord's Coming who were filled with the Spirit of the Lord to such an extent that during their mission they were in the appearance of themselves being Jehovah? The Most Ancient Church had an indebted possessive with a voluntary intellectual; the NewChurch on the contrary has a possessive indebtedness with an intellectual will. In the Most Ancient Church the letting do was the inmost of all its doing; in the New Church to Do is, the inmost. "Abide in Me" is the New Church; "and I in you" is the Doctrine. Church and Doctrine are related as Me and I; Me has reference to the voluntary, I has reference to the Intellectual. Every man-Church is in Me with the voluntary acknowledgment of the Lord's Divine Human, and of completely letting one's self be made human therein; in every man-Church I in you is as the operation of the Holy Spirit in the perceptions of his intellectual will, and therein all one glorifying doing. We might say "Abide in Me" is assive and "I in you" active. In this connection let us quote the following from THE WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD: "That which gives and acts, is called active force, that which receives and is passive is called a power; from active force alone without power, as from power alone without active force, no effect results; therefore no use either; active forces, however, adjoined to their passives, or principles to their organics or instrumentals, or associated by influx, produce efficient causes, whence [come] effects. From this very union result the sensations of our goodnesses, namely, that we feel it in ourselves, because He who is the fountain of life feels it in Himself, and from us by re-action", n. 80. So it might now be said that "Abide in Me" brings one into the power, and that "I in you", brings one into the force; into the power of prevailing over evil, into the force to give and to act the true things out of the Word, that is, to make them of one's life; into the power therefore to be Use. And because it is the man-Church

to whom the genuine sense of those words is addressed, "one's life" signifies the life of the Church, The life of the Church and the life of each man in whom the Church is, is the abiding thereof in the Lord's Divine Human; and out of this union the perceptions of its goodnesses or uses spring forth, namely that the Church perceives these in itself, because the Lord who is Life itself, perceives them in Himself, and from the Church by re-action. The Church has its good pleasure in the Lord's Divine Human; the Lord has His good pleasure in the Doctrine of the Church.

The denial of Doctrine is to pervert the essence of Innocence, the order of to do and to let do, the sense of Me and I. It is to pervert the essence of Innocence in such a way that the reading is "Man must acknowledge that not he but the letter alone knows; furthermore he must believe that with him there is nothing bnt evil; but that the mere knowing of the letter alone is the good". It is to pervert the order of to do and to let do in such a way that no difference is made between the True of the Word and the True out of the Word; the one is operated with, and the other is left undone, which is equal to doing powers in His Name, and nevertheless remaining locked out thus the Law is made powerless, deedless, passive; to do and to let do, the active force and the passive power made vain by their reversion, the union dissolved; thus force without power, power without force; thrrs no use of any kind unless evil. The True of the Word is the Divine Human, is "Abide in Me"; the True out of the Word is the Spirit of Truth, is “I in you". For this reason the sense of Me and I is lost, for they are made equal to each other in such a way that whoso merely acknowledges the letter alone considers himself to go out free, as did the Jews when they answered : "We are Abraham's seed, and have served no man". But the Lord said: "If ye continue in My Word, ye are My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free .... If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”, JOHN VIII: 31—36. My word is the True of the Word; the Son is the True out of the Word or the Doctrine; again "Ye in Me, and I in you".

Said in another way.

What the True does, when allowed to pass through and

let down through the understanding, is as much hidden to man as the foetus in the maternal body. "Moreover, of what consequence is it that man knows how seed grows up, provided he knows how to plough the land, to harrow, to sow, and when he reaps, to bless God", A.E. 1153. An understanding which also in this respect believes in the particular Providence, comes into a great fear of the Divine seed of the Genuine True; that holy fear is the living soul of the genuine doing of the Genuine True: "My soul doth magnify the Lord". It no longer receives solely for the sake of receiving, it no longer ruminates solely for the sake of ruminating, for this finally runs dead in self-intelligence and self-prudence. In the unnatural sense of a letter misunderstood "to do the True" is nothing but coarse selfdeception, where there is no question either of any true or of any doing. Essentially the True understood is already the True done, but note, the understanding then being substantial. The genuine understanding of the Genuine True can never be formed with any one who does the evil and thus thinks the false. And where that understanding has been formed, there the Lord gives the good into the true. See first what the understanding, the single eye, essentially is, and experience then teaches the rest, purely added things. Experience has to do with the substance lying under the understanding; while from the substance the true things come back, having become good things, having become things of life, from within, yea, as if out of the good sleep of that substance. For this reason the inner chamber of the mind is called the rest-chamber, cubiculum, from cubo, to lie in order to rest. For this reason too it is emphatically stated of some of the EXPERIENCES or MEMORABILIA in the Word that they happened in the sleep, in half-sleep, or when awakening; which points to a body lying in the bed. "As by Jacob is signified the Doctrine, therefore sometimes, when I have thought of Jacob, there has appeared to me, higher in front, a man lying in bed" A.R. 137. This involves the entire arcanum of to do and to let do, of reception and influx. The man (vir) is the understanding; lying in bed is the doctrine; and that which arises therefmm to life, in mighty and powerful stature, is the man (homo). For when man (vir) signifies the understanding, man (homo) signifies wisdom "because he is born that he may receive wisdom

from the Lord, and become an Angel; therefore so far as anyone is wise so far he is a man (hmno),. wisdom truly hnman is to be wise that God is, what God is, and what is of God; these things the Divine True of the Word teaches", A.R. 243. That God is, is from the Father; what God is, is from the Son; what is of God, is from the Holy Spirit. The man-Wisdom in all his doing and letting do fram the Lord looks to the Lord. Of such is the Kingdom of God, of such is the Heaven on earth, or the Church. In the New Church this too is revealed to the simple, and hidden from the most learned. For we learn that no others grasp the genuine sense of the Word than those who are enlightened. By the genuine sense is meant the genuine nat.ural sense, the genuine spiritual sense, or the genuine .celestial sense, no matter which; and by that therefore the genuine natural Doctrine, the genuine spiritual Doctrine, or the genuine celestial Doctrine, for Doctrine is the genuine understanding of the Word, and the understanding is not genuine unless it is enlightened, a single eye, so that the entire body is enlightened. For this reason we read: "Thus the spiritual sense of the Word enlightens men too, even those who do not know anything of that sense whilst they read the Word in the natural sense; but [it enlightens] the spiritual man as the light from the sun does his eye, the natural man, however, as the light ant of the moon and the stars does his eye. Everyone is enlightened according to the spiritual affection of truth and good, and at the same time according to the genuine true things, by which he has opened his rational", A.R. 414. Anyone who "knows what's what" on carelessly glancing over this statement considers it self-evident that he belongs to the spiritual men and he looks down on the natural man, not realizing how far, in his unnatural things, he stands below that natural man. He has never realized what it is to read, and it stands there clearly what it is to read: "To be enlightened according to the spiritual affection, and at the same time according to the genuine true things by which he has opened his rational". And elsewhere: "To read the Word is to understand out of enlightenment, thus to perceive", A.E. 13. To read thus is anything but a glancing over and a hurrying through. For this reason "his eye" in both the above places signifies the single eye, with an entirely enlightened body

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Behind it, not an empty and vacant understanding which merely argues- to argue is to doubt and to deny- but a substantial understanding which in the Word is put on a line with perception: “The understanding that is the perception”, A.R. 355.

This proves that merely to understand is not enough and is not even to understand, for a true is only understood when, having been understood, it settles. What cannot settle is not understood; the genuine understanding is the making it fusible, a melting of the true toward its good. If the True is food, the understanding is the grinding mastication so that the food may be received into the body well prepared. To understand is a reversion, a remelting. The Arcanum of the alimentary process represents the Arcanum of the progress of the True to the good of life, the Arcanum of to do and to let do. For this reason to eat signifies to appropriate. Behind this there are myriads of arcane. Only two examples. First: the animals from inborn science know their food. Now man is called a rational and a spiritual animal. Gifted with the faculties of freedom and of rationality man therefore, as a rational and spiritual animal must be able to learn to find his rational and spiritual food. The Lord makes [in Dutch doet from the verb doen, that is, to do] or lets man learn to find, and it depends on man’s understanding whether the food found profitshim, and then the food is from the Tree of Life; if not, the food is from the tree of science of good and evil. Second: To understand is not only a masticating grinding but also a tasting. For this reason in the scientific part of the Word it is revealed that “under the skin of the tongue itself, and under a certain nervous membrane pupillae lie concealed, but which stretch forth and reach out when the appetite is excited, and the mind desires to perceive the quality of meats and drinks”, RAT. PSYCH. XXXIX. In accordance with this we might say that in understanding the mind longs to perceive the quality of good and true. Behind the understanding just as behind the eating there is the mind with heart and soul in order to obtain and maintain a sound spirit in a sound body: it wishes to perceive, it wishes to be affected by the quality. To understand is to eat and to drink, but there is also an understanding which is a bolting down, a gormandizing,

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A toying with one’s food, or guzzling, slobbering, sipping; in short there is an understanding which is use and enjoyment conjoined, and an understanding which is use separated from the enjoyment. The first is substantial, to do and to let do in one; the latter is unsubstantial, a doing only, leading to all kinds of intellectual indigestions, the spiritual sense of that terrible word in ISAIAH: “But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgement. For all tables are full of vomit…”. XXVIII : 7,8, a description of the unwisdom of a man as a cerebral monster who uses his understanding only to pervert and soil every Doctrine out of the Word.

Both points taken together it might be said that man as a rational and spiritual animal only from the Lord knows to find his food, and only out of the Lord is enabled to desire the perception of the quality thereof. That knowing to find or the understanding, and that desire or the will, are the Lord’s with man, and they are appropriated to him as if his, as soon as he does not presumptuously claim them as his own property. The perception, the affection, or the enlivening, determines the understanding; and for all this reason the quality of the enlivening decides whether the natural man does or does not become spiritual. For the appetite is excited either from Heaven or from the world, an dwith the man of the Chruch the unreformed society is his world, his greater self, in which his understanding and his appetite degenerate more than he can in the least surmise, for otherwise he would guard against that as against hell. In every substantial understanding the Church is in its entirety; in many a society-understanding there is scarcely anything representative of the Church. The Church becomes externally visible in the society, but in many a larger or smaller society nothing of the Church is visible. Such a society is the world, slightly theologically tinted, thrown back again into all its misery. A striking example is offered by the following: In the world an important distinction is drawn between the “man of intellect” and “the man of sentiment”, the one being one and all “understanding”, the other, one and all “sentiment”. Both categories are social deformities, cultural

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monstrosities, outgrowths of a hardening of the will and a softening of the understanding. But what are we to think of it having become a point of serious consideration in the Church to divide the Divine Worship into two kinds, the one for those who are more "intellectually" inclined and therefore desire severe edifying services without much ritual, the other for those who are of a more "sensitive" disposition and therefore desire devotional services with much ritual. That such a thing arises in lay minds proves that it is not yet generally seen what the understanding is and that the understanding of the Word makes the Church. How can the Doctrine of the Church advance, yea, find an entrance, unless it is known, acknowledged, believed, and perceived what the Understanding is? For this reason our continual exertion to throw light on this subject from all sides of life. There are those who think in Doctrine, and there are those who think about Doctrine, just as the Word teaches us that it is a different thing to think in ends, causes, or effects, and a different thing to think about them. The writer does not consider himself one of those who think in Doctrine, but among those who think about Doctrine. Thence the repeated assurance that these articles are merely a consideration of life, really a consideration of effects, in order to arrive thereby at a doctrine concerning the Doctrine, to arrive at an answer to the question: what is life or what must life become in order profitably to receive the Doctrine or to make it of life. The Doctrine is the active power which must be adjoined to life as its passive, or be associated by influx, in order that there be force with power, power with force, thus effect, thus use. Let us then continue to consider life under the warm light of the Doctrine, to see where the hitch is which now here, now there, impedes the adjunction or the association by influx, with one man in particular and with society in general.

We have previously pointed out that Angels in their conversation with laymen directed themselves to the substantial understanding of the latter, because they spoke of rain, and rain refers to the humus. We then said: "The single or the properly genuine substantial understanding, an understanding one with the will and the life, and not any separated understanding, not even that which can be raised

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into the light of Heaven while the will remains beneath". For it must be clear to everyone that understanding is not just understanding, once for all the same with everyone, smaller or larger, but identical in quality. This is a phantasy of the so-called "exact" science, which has forgotten to see that it is not the extent that determines "the understanding but the quality, not the construction of ideas, but the substance, not the zeal but the affection. We so easily pronounce the word "the true", and this is because from childhood on we have been brought up to consider thinking as a game of ideas, a kind of ping pong with "truths" for balls. Commonly what are discussions other than dexterities with apprehension for a racket? "Ve may be practically sure that men who are very much ad rem or very witty, are merely natural men with their thinking close to the speech. The unsubstantial understanding is exceedingly "quick of apprehension" while the substantial understanding on the contrary is slow, at any rate unhurried.

The word verum, which we translate literally by "the true", comes from the verb var in the sanscrit, which signifies to choose, to desire, to believe. We can imagine that there will be those who are irritated by these etymologies and consider them as useless digressions, as a mere show of learning. As regards the learning this amounts merely to a suitable use of good dictionaries; and as regards the digressions, they all turn to one point: the genuine word for the proper essence of the matter. And as proof that it is no unnecessary digression to point to the origin of the word "the true", this quotation: "The Lord enlightens through the Word ... but this is done according to the quality of the desire for the true with man", A. C. 10290. Here in the Latin it says: desiderium veri, and these two words next to each other say the same thing as the word verum itself says in its origin: the chosen, the desired, the believed. One would have expected affectio veri, affection of the true, but it says desire, as if the better to bring forward the genuine essence of the true. The true in its essence is not a matter of notion but of desire. The mind desires to perceive the quality of the food, is what we have just been reading. The mind does not desire to load the stomach full, but to perceive the quality of the true things. And that the mind desires the natural food properly salted, "tasty" and not "insipid",

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is a correspondence with its spiritual desire for conjunction, for salt signifies conjunction. Every quality that agrees with the affection is chosen, desired, believed, in short, is the true for that affectiou. True things are desired things "desirable to the sight". And such [hoedanig] as is the affection, such [zoodanig] is the true. In this connection notice the words hoedanig and zoodanig, contractions of the older forms hoeghedaen and soghedaen, thus past participles of doen [to do]. As does the affection, so does the true. We learn that the Lord continuously gives the good into the true things of those who continually and faithfully live according to those true things which they receive from Himself in His Church, A. R. 380. Continually to give the good is continually to renew, and thus also to cause to appropriate entirely. This is done with those who continually and faithfully [getrouw] live according to the true things. Now is it not remarkable that the English word the true, is connected with trouw [faithfulness], trouwen [to wed], vertrouwen [to have confidence], and is thence connected with zich verloven [to be betrothed], huwen [to wed], gelooven [to believe], hulp [assistance], belofte [promise], overeenkomst [agreement], vast [firm], sterk [strong], zeker [sure], gezond [sound, healthy]; thus also in that language a word of desire and affection?

To receive the Genuine True is not a matter of notion alone, but of purified, or reformed and regenerated affection, of genuine conjugial affection. The True in itself is one and all living affection, and "the desire of the true" essentially is the conjoining meeting, the embrace of two aftections, from the Lord to the Lord, the fulfilment of choice, desire, and faith, on both sides, that is, on the Lord's side and on man's side. Of the little children in Heaven we are told that the particles of the atmosphere round about them are myriads of minuscule little children, from which they learn to understand that all that proceeds from the Lord, is living. A man who reads the Word holily is also such an Innocence for whom all that proceeds from the Word is living, and fills his atmosphere with true, desired things, minuscule in his image, according to his likeness.

In reading the following statement: "The true things of faith out of love are not bare cognitions of such things, and

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in the memory and therefrom in the understanding with man, hut they are affections of life with him", A. C. 9841, let us consider the main thesis which we have italicized: "The true things of faith out of love with man are affections of life". It might then he said that this whole statement is an unfolding of the interior sense of the word true, mindful of that remarkable word previously quoted in NEW THINGS: "The spiritual sense is the interior sense of the words, which is in the words of languages, especially the oriental", A. C. 10217. What the Doctrine therefore should resuscitate in the mind is the interior sense of the words. "The true" may remain a naked cognition, a dead notion, but it may also have a. living spiritual sense in the mind. Well then, if that word "the true" is listened to even unto its interior sense, it will prove to contain the entire statement italicized above as its spiritual sense. We have seen that etymologically the true signifies the chosen, the desired, the believed. The choice is from the will and the understanding; the desire is from the affection of love; the believing is there when the intellectual agrees with the voluntary. Let us now analyze the italicized statement:

the true things: are the chosen, desired, believed things;

of faith: faith in its essence is truth, is taught in D.L.W. 253; iaith that is faith comes from above, that is through Heaven from the Lord, is taught in A.C. 10033; thus faith is another, similar word for truth in the spiritual sense, and in the spiritual sense truth is the form of spiritual goodness, just as faith is the form of charity, or charity formed, A.C. 9783; for the Light received is faith, is taught in A.C. 9783:

out of: says as much as "following": this signifies that the true things are the formal of the substantial contents;

love: this is the essence of those things to which they owe their life or existence; true things cannot be chosen, desired, believed things except out of choice, desire, and the believing of love through wisdom, or of the will through the

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understanding; it is the love which receives the Light;

are: the spiritual reality; that which the true things essentially are;

affections: for the true things are chosen, desired, believed;

of life: love is the life of man, is taught in D.L.W.l;

with: this word points to the adjunction, this being the conjunction by the contiguous, which happens when the man loves the Lord, that is, does His precepts, and the precepts are the Divine True things of the Word;

man: man here signifies wisdom, and we learn that the love towards the neighbour from the Lord is the love of wisdom, the genuine love of the human understanding, D.L.W. 414.

When we say "the true" or "the true things" all this must already live in our minds as the spiritual or interior sense of the word "true", or else it is only a naked cognition, a worn down, dead notion in a worn down, dead word. Every man, every society, is himself or what is his own in that each one has other choices, desires, and believings in his true things .. In the choices other thinkings, in the desires other prayers, in the believings other lives. For this reason the true things of every Doctrine of the Genuine True are to be called "the prayers of the saints", of which we learn that they signify "thinkings which are of faith out of the affections which are of charity, with those who worship the Lord out of the spiritual good and true things", A. R. 278. See, all this is contained in the small word "true" when "the spiritual sense which is the interior sense of the words which is in the words of languages, especially the oriental" is unfolded. And we have seen that "the oriental languages" signifies the eastern provinces of the languages, there where the Lord's true Church is.

The True in itself is all one living affection, all one desire from the Love of the Lord and for that reason accommodated with so much Providential care. This is because

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in potency it is the form and quality of the good; and the good is the affection to which it gives expression and of which it is the expression. The True is the face and the changing features of the good. For that reason the Most Ancient had a silent speech; will and understanding with them were so much one that with them there was no question, in the sense of the original word, of a countenance [gelaat], for gelaat [countenance] comes from "zich ghelaten" [to conduct one's self] and thus signifies the soul's gesture. Their mind revealed itself in the gesture of the muscular fihres around the silent mouth, pure unfurlings, unfoldings of interior affections, which were to them as writing. In their hearts the Word was engraved, and that Word reflected itself in their countenance, the mirror of their hearts and of the Word therein. Only when in the course of time this heart became stone and the Word thereby disappeared, it pleased the Lord to give the Word a heart of flesh anew, by now Himself becoming the Word. Formerly the Word in men of good will - a will is good if it allows the true to pass through, and therefore does the true - had a countenance; but when the Word became flesh, from the integer Divine Human Countenance the Face shone forth as the Sun. It might be said that the Lord in states of Exinanition or Emptying showed a Countenance full of grief, fear and desperation from infinite Love; and in the states of Unio or uniting a Face full of glorification and faith out of the infinite Wisdom of that Love. In their evening the Angels have a countenance, but in the morningstate of the Glorifications heard in the Heavens the Angels have a face. In their countenances is reflected the Word "Abide in Me", in their faces is reflected the word "and I in you". In their faces they are entirely what the word facies says: a Thing Made "and behold, it was very good". Every Doctrine of the Genuine True is an angelic face, a Doing from within which in the Letting do, now understood as the Abiding in Me, shines forth in its fulness, in its virtue, and in its glory. Doctrine is a celestial face, Divine rays of light shining through an Angel's countenance, from within.

As soon as a thought such as this lives in the mind, everything begins to live or at once becomes new. This, for instance, at once becomes clear: such as is the affection

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such is the true; such as the true such the understanding; and conversely in no matter what variation. The understanding elevated into the light of Heaven, with the will remaining behind, is still a long way off from the proper genuine substantial understanding. All strife in the Church may be reduced to the intestinal enmity of the unsubstantial understanding against the substantial understanding. The internal of the unsubstantial understanding is in the will having remained behind, one dark power without any force, whereas the substantial understanding is both power and force, entirely one.

That there is this duality of understandings, appears from the following:

"To believe in God is the faith that saves ... for it is to know, to will, and to do; to Believe the things that are from God is an historical faith which without the former does not save, for which reason it is not the true faith ... ; it is to know, which is possible without willing and doing",

A) E. 349.

To believe in God clearly is of the substantial understanding; to believe the things that are from God clearly is of the unsubstantial understanding. We might say that anyone with more or less trouble "can get" those things; anyone may more or less "grasp" them, acquire them for himself and then "work" with them, and take that for willing and doing, alid then be more than indignant if he is told here or hereafter that notwithstanding all his "doing" he has not believed in God. But we have now learned to see that to do is an awe-inspiring word.

To believe in God is to look from the Lord to the Lord. To believe the things that are from God, soon becomes to look from one's self to the Lord, to an only lord, lord. It is called an historical faith because without the believing in God - think again of the series to know-to acknowledge-to believe - like dry sand, it falls asunder into mere hairsplitting, quibbling, letter-knowledge.

We have previously compared the substantial understanding with the surface of the water which allows all the faces of heaven by day and by night to pass through; looking up, the more deeply it looks into itself. Of that understanding we said that it does not allow itself to be separated from its surface any more than the surface of the water

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does from the water. Nevertheless, when the soul grows cold, the understanding hardens, instead of an attitude it hecomes a thing, it hecomes ice, and behaves itself like ice; as ice it shows cracks, flaws, unsound places; it begins to drift, and causes disasters. The mirror of the understanding, having become independent, being separated from the water of its soul is a foolish understanding, a foolish virgin, with infatuated power. And just notice the Latin word stultus, the foolishness of the foolish virgins; that word properly signifies "to stand there stiff, like a poker, like a broomstick". That word points to a stiff hard neck, to stubbornness, thus to an understanding where there is no suppleness in passing over into the body, into the substance, into the life. It remains on its own. The foolish virgins from the parable are unsubstantial understandings, they lack oil, they stand dry; the wise virgins are virgins of Doctrine, are substantial understandings. The enlightened man is a wise virgin, having oil in her lamp; the true gives light and warmth from the good of the affection, as the lamp-wick does from the oil. And in the true there is inherent the desire of sucking up the good as the lamp-wick sucks up the oil. A lamp with its oil is the substantial understanding, lit from the Lord. The wise virgins "believe in God", the foolish virgins "believe the things that are from God"; and these are not saved because those things are indeed from the Lord, but without the Lord in them, and because their helieving is man's, not the Lord's. To believe in God is Abel; to believe the things that are from God may end in becoming a Cain. The substantial decides and comes to view in the effects. To perceive those effects is the wisdom of life, is the power of Doctrine. For it is knowing the tree by its fruit.

Again, we can very well imagine that there are those who are irritated by a word such as "substantial understanding", considering it as a quihbling novelty of which nothing whatever is to be found in the Word. Are you so very sure of that? Then just read this:

"When love enters into the understanding, which comes to pass (fit) when the conjunction has come to pass (facta est, also: has been done, made, or: has become), then first it produces the affection of the true, thereupon the affection of understanding that which it knows, and lastly the affection of seeing, in the thinking of the body, that which it

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understands, for the thinking is nothing else but interior sight", D.L.W. 404.

This word contains an ocean of arcana. Let us only take up these things from it: the understanding is not the proper genuine substantial understanding before the love has entered into it. It is the love which actuates in the understanding the duality of faculties, the affection of the true and the perception of the true, which faculties meet with those who with the understanding wish to perceive the true things, and do not meet with those who merely wish to know the true things. Not the understanding sees, but the love sees out of the light which is the understanding; the wisdom of the understanding is out of the light which proceeds from the Lord as the Sun. For this reason the Lord said: "The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light", and immediately after: "But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness", MATT. VI : 22, 23. It says evil, not false. This teaches us for our life that too much attention is paid to the true understanding, and not to the good understanding. An evil eye may appeal to its true understanding, and to the books as well, cutting off every objection with the words: "Good or not good, that does not matter; is it true, that is the question!" An evil eye leaves the body dark and on that account carries all the discussions on to a body-less plane where an enlightened body or an unenlightened body "is of no consequence". This leads to so much fruitless arguing to which in the spiritual world sometimes a sudden end is made, by the awe-inspiring appearanee of an immense Naked Arm which has: inherent in it the strength to crush the very marrow in the bones.

The substantial understanding has an enlightened body behind it, under it, one with it. Thence that oft occurring expression "the understanding of the Word and the state of life thence", see A.R. 295. Thence is according thereto. The substance of the understanding is according to the state of life. Life is only in the good and true conjoined; the state is the position, the attitude, or the relation thereof. The thinking of the body consists of mere perceptions, enlightened out of the understanding. Where there is no substantial understanding there can be no question of perception and enlightenment, for there the true is

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arbitrarily chosen, desired, believed, according to the merely natural inclinations. And the characteristic of those inclinations is that they allow nothing to settle, thus preventiug or not allowing the internal sight or the thinking of wisdom to come into existence. Thus the love of self and of the world blinds itself more and more with a, foolish understanding raised into the lumen of an imaginary heaven. The love of self and of the world with the unreformed man of the church meets in his love of the unreformed society. If the Doctrine does not form the society, the society forms for itself a, doctrine out of its natural inclinations. So it is that the Lord asked Nicodemus: "Art thou a, master in Israel, and knowest thou not these things?" Nicodemus came to the Lord by night, alone. In this coming there lay the longing for the true for the sake of the true, for this drove him to the Lord with the longing for a new understanding, far from the collective understanding of his Israelitic society. And that this longing was genuine and was heard, is proved by the remainder of the story about him. All internal evangelisation therefore is never directed to any society as such, but to every individual in particular who is willing to come by night, alone, apart from the society, in this longing, first for the true for the sake of the true, and afterwards for the good. We learn that a celestial society is the more perfect in the measure in which each Angel is more his own. Every wrong society inverts this truth, and tyrannically, fanatically will leave no single member to be himself. So there comes into existence a, diseased joint thinking, a diseased society-understanding, an imaginary understanding on a bodyless plane. A unity of thinking and feeling to appearance only, but with which nevertheless each one within himself "thinks his own thoughts". The chased personality returns with seven spirits worse than himself, and the end is that there is nowhere any good of life, neither in the society, nor in any home individually.

The good of life is there when the understanding out of the love has the affection inherent in it of seeing in the thinking of the body that which it understands. Then man is in peace and his perceptions are in the light. A thing is perceived when the use thereof has been grasped, for the use is the saving essence of everything. "Those who

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have conquered in temptations have an interior perception of uses; for by means of temptations the interiors of the mind are opened; ... they feel in themselves what is good, and see in themselves what is true", A.R. 354. In the perceptiou the use of a thing is opened and the mind to which that use reveals itself, proves to be the appointed receptacle. In the perception the use is appropriated. For, this reason we learn: "'They who love the true for the sake of the true, are in enlightenment, and they who love the true for the sake of the good are the perception", A.C. 10290. Enlightenment shows the true things in their order, spread, forth; the perception is the correspondence obtained between the things internally and the things externally. In enlightenment the apperceptio comes to light, in the perception the light comes into the things; apperceptio is the preliminary perception. Enlightenment lets the things be seen, perception lets the things in themselves be recognized. Apperception in enlightenment allows of confirmation, perception in light says yea-yea: nay-nay. It is twice yea, twice nay, because the internal is reflected in the external, and that which is within recognizes itself in that which is represented without; correspondence is yea from both sides, the not-correspondence is nay from both sides. In the Latin for yea-yea it says etiam etiam. The conjunction etiam having the meaning of "also" consists of two words: et, and, and jam, already, now. There is in that etiam-etiam, "and now, and now" a cry of joy out of the Kingdom of God that has been found within, over the things that from now on will be added, one mild rain of correspondence, one blessedness of recognitions, one stream of revelations, into the eternal. Two signifies everything with regard to good. Therefore this "yea-yea"of the Lord is perception in man: "and behold, it was very good".

In all love of the true for the sake of the true there operates the preliminary perception, an advance from the Lord, in order to arrive at the final perception, the proper pereeptio: the love of the true for the sake of the good. The love of the true for the sake of the true is the use of service, the love of the true for the sake of the good serves: the use, causes use to come into existence. By way of speaking the caterpillar is in some kind of perception of tbe butterfly-state; this is the angelic which it carries with

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it into the Cocoon out of its world, its world consisting of the leaves of trees, grown in the light and in the sun into the desired food - the true things are the desired things, desired from some affection of perception; in the cocoon all the last impediments fall away: the enlightened perception is changed into a perception with the light shining through and the butterfly enters into its heaven. Every affection is of love, and every love is a perception for it wills to become one with its subject; and every perception takes up light from the spiritual Sun according to its quality, that is, as much as in the doing it admits and in the admitting does. The quality of the enlightenment directs itself according to the quality of the perception, whether concerning the things in general, or whether in the things in particular. They who are in enlightenment think conceming the things, they who are in perception think in the things, yea, they think the things and live the uses. Enlightenment throws light on the successive order in the perception the simulataneous order is lit through. In the enlightenment of the true from the love for the sake of the true perception is not yet lit through, still having many parts which are dark; in the perception of the true from the love for the sake of the good the entire body is enlightened. Only then is perception truly perception, or one lustrous recognition of the things within in the things without, "as in the Heavens so too upon earth", the external man one with the internal. The Word begins with being "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world", for then a light is given to the feelings. The Word in its fulness, however, is when it shines its light through the perceived things themselves, so that the letter of the Word and of Creation opens out of the Word and sends forth its rays before the opened mind, open even into the Lord. Every Doctrine of the Genuine True in its way is a lighted and lightening perception; and for this reason the Doctrine is compared to a lamp and to a candle.

The Lord while on earth used to introduce His miraculous healings by saying: "Be it unto thee according to thy word". The true things out of the Word are words of choice, of desire, and of believing, which words, once understood, are heard and granted from the Lord. According to those words it is then done.

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This is the true things of life done, and made of life.

"Between love and love there is no closer nor sweeter bond than wisdom", WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD, 55. To look from the Lord to the Lord is to be a Wisdom between the love from the Lord and the love to the Lord. From those loves the genuine true has this that essentially it is affection. For this reason the perception of the true is "every tree desirable to the sight", GEN. II : 9. Every genuine true is a bond of love, a pledge of love. The Dutch word for pledge, pand, comes from the Latin words panctum and pactum, agreement, contract, covenant. Every genuine true is thus a Sign of the Covenant; it is the desired, the chosen, the believed correspondence obtained, fulfilled, accomplished between love and love. Every genuine true is "very good", that is to say "good good', or "yea yea"; yea regarded out of the love from the Lord, and yea regarded out of the love to the Lord: Every genuine true is a Glorification in force in the Heavens.

In EZEKIEL, ch. I, verses 15 to 21, the Doctrine of the good and true in the Word and out of the Word is described (see SUMM. EXPOS. and A. R. 239), and we may rightly say that its doing and letting do is described in these words: "The wheels [the Doctrine out of the Word] went ... ; they turned not when they went. And when the living creatures [the Word], went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the Spirit [the Doctrine in the Word] was to go, they went ... ; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, they went; and when those stood, they stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them; for the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels". The wheels with the living creatures is "you in Me"; the Spirit of the living creatures is "I in you".

Conclusion.

The internal man is not reformed by only knowing and understanding the saving true and good things, but by willing and loving them; the external man however is

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reformed by speaking and doing those things which the internal man wills and loves; and in so far as this comes to pass, the man is regenerated. Thus to do is to follow and to obey. Then the state of wisdom dawns, a state in which the man no longer is concerned about understanding the true and good things, but about willing and living them. The caterpillar has become a butterfly. Knowing and understanding alone is to be only in the cause, which in the Word is compared to building a house on the ice, see A. R. 510. The knowing and understanding alone is to will to be wise from one's self, which leads to the doing alone or a doing from the proprium, thus to being in a natural separated from the spiritual; for to think and to will is spiritual, and to speak and to do is natural. To do or to live, in one's self or from the Lord, is the last end; and in the word last there lies hidden to let, which means that nothing in the external any more prevents letting the all of the First End come to its fulness, virtue, and glorious effect. The Latin for effect is effectus, from efficere, composed of ex, out of or following, and facere, to do. Thus in the word effect or final end the arcanum buds forth of the "as from one's self" or "to do and to let do"; for the doing of the external man is out of or following the will and the love of the internal; in his doing he lets the internal man altogether come into its effect; it is not he who does but the internal man does or the Lord through the internal man. To do as from one's self is to serve in humility.

"Man does not know in what manner the Lord operates in all things of his mind or soul, that is, in all things of his spirit. The operation is continuous; in it man has no part; but yet the Lord cannot purify man from any concupiscence of evil in his spirit or internal man, so long as man holds his external closed", D.P. 120. The lasts with man therefore are not lasts in the genuine sense until by opening [opendoen, which contains the word to do] they let through the continuous operation. Since this comes to pass only by shunning the evil things or following the Lord, the lasts with the man-Church or the man-Angel are the good things of life, or the true things of faith, willed, loved, lived. The lasts therefore are of the greatest importance, for these are the things that permit ingress into and through to Heaven. It is in the lasts that man must do as from himself in order

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that he can let the Lord do what He in His Divine Mercy continually wills to do: draw him to Himself in Heaven.

Just as little as creation is from nothing no less is regeneration from nothing. Just as man is called a microcosm and a micro-uranos, just so man may be called a moicrocreation and a micro-glorification. For when man has been regenerated, the order of creation with him is restored, so that man himself has become order. That order or the celestial man is one song of Glorifications; and radiates with Images and Similitudes of God.

No regeneration without complete cooperation from man as from himself. That cooperation is to look to the Lord out of the love to the Lord. That looking and that love to the Lord is not the Lord's unless that looking to the Lord has inherent in it the looking from the Lord, and unless that love to the Lord has inherent in it the love from the Lord. From the Lord and to the Lord are distinctly one, as the good and the true, as creation and regeneration, as the Coming and the Second Coming. From the Lord to the Lord is the celestial motion, is the Stream of Providence.

Man is not regenerated in anything else than in that to which he has been created. Every man has been created a most separate celestial use. Regeneration is a raising up again of that which has slid down into the evil and false, thus a restoration of creation, order, or use.

As long as man regards Regeneration or the Word out of that which has not been created with him, he looks from himself to the Lord, and sees nothing. As soon as man regards Regeneration or the Word out of that which has been created in him, he looks from the Lord to the Lord, and he learns to see his special use, which is to know, to acknowledge, to believe, to perceive. For this reason the first of Charity is faithfully and uprightly to perform the work of one's calling. A man's calling is a man's special use to which providentially he has been called. The faithful and upright performance of his duty reveals that use, and nowhere else than in that use the Lord reveals Himself in His Infinite Love and Wisdom. Therefore every self-examination which does not lead to a renewed discipline of discreet performance of use is merely a looking from self to self.

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The theses about "Use and Eujoyment" and "To Do and to Let Do" may be epitomized into one thesis, and into one word, the Hebrew word Eden, wbich signifies: Enjoyment. Man, according to creation, had nothing else to do but enjoy the use which the Sole Operator, that is, the Lord, alone Does, but to appearance or as fwm himself lets man do. The Only Lord does the use and He places man in the enjoyment of that use. Genuine enjoyment is only that enjoyment which is felt out of the spiritual. Enjoyment is spiritual from celestial origin; that celestial origin or source is pure Divine Use. Man has been created to be the enjoyment of use, the enjoyment of salvation. Man might be said to be one sensory of use in which the union of Love and Wisdom into Use is felt as inexpressible enjoyment. In that enjoyment the Lord is fully; it is Heaven. To place the enjoyment in the Use, or to enjoy the Use is all that man has to do; this is to love the Lord God out of thy whole heart, and out of thy whole soul, and out of thy whole strength, and out of thy whole mind.

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EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR JULY-AUG. 1937

THE NEW CHURCH THE NEW JERUSALEM

THE FIRST DUTCH SOCIETY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

Extract from the Minutes of the Special Meeting of April 21st, 1937.

The chairman, Prof. Dr. Charles H. van Os, outlined briefly the reason for this special meeting and then asked Rev. Pfeiffer to give an account of what had taken place in Bryn Athyn.

Rev. Pfeiffer related that he and Mr. Groeneveld arrived in Bryn Athyn on Thursday evening, March 18, filled with the desire to find, by direct contact with the leading persons of the GENERAL CHURCH, a common basis in some essential things of the Church whereby the serious difficulties could be overcome and further cooperation would be possible. Just as those of the Hague Society during all these years of controversy had rejected with deterniination the thought of separation, so in all their preparation for this journey and during the journey they had also been of this insight and conviction.

On the very first day after his arrival Rev. Pfeiffer had asked Bishop de Charms for an interview. He began the conversation by giving expression to his desire to find a common basis. Bishop de Charms said that he shared this desire but that the only common basis was "the plain teachings of the Writings". Rev. Pfeiffer said that he entirely agreed with this, but one of those plain teachings was that the Word cannot be understood unless man makes for himself a genuine Doctrine out of it, and that therefore also these Writings, being the Word, without such Doctrine remain a closed book; and furthermore that one of those plain teachings was that the Lord, as He is the Word, is also the Doctrine out of the Word.

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Bishop de Charms said that he could not see this otherwise than as arbitrary interpretations, and that he understood these teachings entirely otherwise. He was well aware of all those places. There was indeed taught there that the Doctrine of the Church, good and truth, and other things, were of the Lord; but it was never taught that they were the Lord. Rev. Pfeiffer said that there were a number of places that taught this. Bishop de Charms contiuued that he clearly saw in this new concept a confusion of the things of the Divine Proceeding, which indeed was infinite, with the created things of good and truth with man, which never were infinite, and therefore never may be called Divine. He cited a place from DIVINE PROVIDENCE, n. 219, that the finite cannot proceed from the Infinite. He summed up his belief concerning these things in the words that one may never call anything with man Divine, not even good and truth, but that this was human good and human truth. What was Divine remained always outside of the human mind; as soon as the Divine Proceeding touched and entered the human mind it ceased to be a Proceeding and was the created finite good and truth of man.

Rev. Pfeiffer said that the number 219 also taught that the Infinite can proceed out of the finite, however not out of the finite but out of the Infinite through the finite, and that hereby are clearly meant the genuine good and true things of charity and faith with man. He indicated also the places in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION where it is taught that love and wisdom are uncreatable. He gave Bishop de Charms to know that he considered this doctrine of the human good and true, that had never existed before in the Church, and that is not to be found in any place in tbe Word, to be of such a destructive nature that thereby the Church must lose her real essence, because by a conscious confirmation of it all regeneration of man would be impossible.

Bishop de Charms answered that he had a wbole series of places that taught human good and truth, and at the request of Rev. Pfeiffer he mentioned and read in part the places: DOCTRINE OF LIFE 32, DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM 30, 102, 179, 198. Rev. Pfeiffer was surprised at seeing these places, since they clearly taught just the opposite from what Bishop de Charms saw in them.

In the course of the conversat.ion Bishop de Charms com-

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plained also that DE HEMELSCHE LEER from the very first appearance had claimed a spiritual judgment over the GENERAL CHURCH, likewise on grounds of purely arbitrary interpretations. He said also that the recent Sixth Fascicle of the English edition was full of similar things, and as an example he quoted a place from the article of Rev. Hendrik Boef "The Church as our Spiritual Mother" where it is said: "We should especially be on guard against the poisonous thought that there is such a thing as human good and truth. He who holds this, is paralyzed as to the spiritual life of his internal man, as the life of the body is paralyzed by the sting of a scorpion", Sixth Fasc. 113. Bishop de Charms cited this place and added with an indignant voice: "I accept this thought of human good and truth and believe in it". In the course of this part of the conversation he said that if DE HEMELSCHE LEER continued in the future with such examples of impermissable spiritual judgment, and if a decided stop was not put to them, separation was unavoidable.

Rev. Pfeiffer said that he regarded the statement cited as a most important truth, and that the love for truth and the importance of a truly internal Church made it necessary to give utterance to such essential things. It was however wrong ever to see in it a personal judgment or a spiritual judgment which is forbidden. They had in these cases done nothing else than publish the genuine True of the Word, and if there were a judgment, this was the judgment of the True out of the Word.

Rev. Pfeiffer subseqnently related the gist of a conversation that he had had with Bishop Acton together with Rev. Pitcairn and Mr. H. D. G. Groeneveld, on the same afternoon. The conversation which for a considerable time was between Bishop Acton and Mr. Groeneveld, concerned itself with the possibility of being able to form for oneself a sure judgment about the good and the evil and the true and the false. Here Bishop Acton had apparently the same complaint in mind as Bishop de Charms, namely that we had assnmed a judgment over the state of the Church, a judgment that was entirely impossible. He grounded his argument on this, that the internal states of man are only known to the Lord and always remain hidden to the fellow man. Mr. Groeneveld acknowledged that the real state of

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the fellow man always remains hidden to us, as the Word also clearly teaches; but it was, nevertheless, incumbent on everyone, and especially on the man of the internal Church, to form a judgment, in the light of the genuine Doctrine drawn from the Word, concerning the good and the evil and the true and the false, of things that clearly appear in externals. He argued that if such a judgment were not possible, it would also not be possible for man to choose the true way, and to know with certainty with whom he must conjoin himself, and whom he must avoid, in the interest of the spiritual life.

Bishop Acton kept denying the possibility of any judgment in spiritual things. He said that one could never say more than that this or that appeared to be the truth, but certainty of judgment was absolutely impossible. He objected very much to the apparent certainty with which the new conceptions about the Word and Doctrine, and especially the so called judgment of the state of the Church, were being proclaimed in DE HEMELSCHE LEER. He elucidated his conception by saying that from his side he would never be willing to claim absolute certainty for the truth of his standpoint, yea, he would go so far as to say that he would acknowledge the possibility that the Dutch standpoint was right and his was wrong; the only thing he could say was that he considered the Dutch position false and his own position right; but he could not have an absolute certainty of it. Rev. Pfeiffer said that the genuine faith is nothing else than the seeing of the genuine True, and that the new principles concerning these Writings as the Word and the genuine Doctrine drawn out of it, principles that were taught in the Word itself, could stand firm as irrefutable eternal truths, for everyone who was in the genuine faith.

The conversation with Bishop Acton ended in his statement - similar to that of Bishop de Charms - that if the judgments in DE HEMELSCHE LEER of the GENERAL CHURCH did not cease, separation would be a matter of charity for both parties.

From what was said it appeared that in these two meetings both Bishops declared themselves in favour of the necessity of separation, unless essential principles were abandoned. The impression had been created, by the estab-

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lishment - on the part of the Acting Bishop of the GENERAL CHURCH - of the doctrine of the human good and the human true, together with the curtailing - by threat of separation - of the liberty to proclaim the True as also to point out the essential of the false, as taught in the Word itself, that, under these conditions, further cooperation in the present form was no longer possible. It was clear that no part of the principle of freedom could be abandoned. But one saw a deed of charity in proposing to the leaders to cooperate in a peaceable solution by making possible a new independent episcopal diocese for the new movement, whereby a complete break could be avoided. It was therefore decided to propose this to the leaders of the GENERAL CHURCH in a meeting which was to be asked for. But the proposal was refused. It also constituted the most important subject of the Ministers' Meeting and the Joint Meeting which was held shortly afterwards. For the particulars of these meetings Rev. Pfeiffer referred to the reports which were to be published at the earliest opportunity.

Some days after the meetings were over Rev. Pfeiffer was requested in a letter from Bishop de Charms to resign as pastor and as member of the GENERAL CHURCH. When Rev. Pfeiffer did not wish to do this because he considered it contrary to the interest of the FIRST DUTCH SOCIETY, he was informed on the 7th of April that his name had been removed from the list of pastors and members. By this action of Bishop de Charms, who with Bishop Acton had been the first to speak of a separation in charity, the First Dutch Society suddeuly came to be without a priest.

The chairman, Professor van Os, then gave the floor to Mr. Groeneveld.

Mr. Groeneveld told how he had come to the conviction by the things that had taken place in Bryn Athyn that a further remaining together was no longer possible. The principle of the human good and the human true that was now reigning there closes the way to regeneration. For if man cannot elevate himself to the genuine things of the Divine Human of the Lord and come into possession of them as if from himself, neither can he be liberated from his proprium and will necessarily remain in it. It is only through the

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power of such Divine things in the consciousness of man - Divine things that man never may attribute to himself, but, as it were, must always give back to the Lord - that the human things in man are brought into a true order and are established as truly human.

Mr. Groeneveld said that it must especially not be thought that we are now spiritual and they who cannot follow our insight are natural, but it here concerns a new basis for the Church and for the man of the Church whereby the ossibilit is 0 ened to come into the possession of

spintua lngs as 1 rom onese .

.., Mr. GrO€neveld further pointed to freedom as an inmost principle and an indispensable condition for the possibility of a Church. He also gave expression to his disappointment that by his actions Bishop de Charms without for a moment considering the Church in Holland simply deprived the Church of its priest.

THE NEW CHURCH 'I'HE NEW JERUSALEM

Extract from the Minutes of the Special Meeting of May 2nd, 1937,

The chairman, Professor van Os, gave the floor to Rev. Pfeiffer.

Rev. Pfeiffer said that in these last weeks and during his stay in Bryn Athyn while thinking about the things that now must come he had continually had in mind the words of the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, that in the New Church there shall be nothing external separated from the internal. There is no doubt that the ACADEMY and also the GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM in their foundation and first times were a genuine state of the New Church and were used in the Divine Providence to realize essential things of the New Church. The leading principle of these bodies, that the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are the Word, waas the essential that was then necessary as the basis of the Church. The setting up and realizing of this principle was not a simple or self-evident task; nor a purely intellectual one, but it was coupled with great struggling; and the spiritual temptations and victories of that time guaranteed a genuine essence of the Church.

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It lies in the proprium of man that each Church threatens to turn away in the course of time from the internal to the external, from essential to formal things, and thus to turn away from the Lord. We are now placed before the necessity of an entirely new beginning. We have not foreseen this course of development and until the last we have tried by all means to avoid it. The GENERAL CHURCH has definitely rejected the new things that in these last years have been brought to light out of the Word itself. It is these things that are now the essential which is necessary for the Church. The separation that has now become a reality has filled us with great disappointment. But still we can strongly feel that thereby a freedom is gained that we missed in the last years, and that in this new freedom a full development of the new things will be possible.

If it is said that in the New Church there shall be nothing external separated from the internal, what then is this internal? It is nothing else than the celestial of the genuine internal loves; it is the genuine charity and love to the Lord. It must be our end, and it must be possible to arrive at an organization of the Church, where, in all the principles of constitution and government, the emphasis is laid so clearly upon these only essential things, that the Church in future will be able to become conscious of what her real slate is. It is clear that the essential of the Church never lies anywhere else than in the regeneration of its members. Where there is regeneration there the Church is, and never anywhere else.

We do not stand entirely alone in our faith. In several other couutries there are some, although they be few, who share our faith and who unite with us in conviction and life. And who knows whether now it will not become possible, in the Lord's Providence, when the Church will have found the firm foundation of a genuine internal Church, by her Doctrine of the Genuine True and a new life according to it, that she then also may find a larger expansion. For, if we follow the history of the New Church until today, with its so often repealed collapses and vas lations, theu it would almost appear to us that in these things there was a ground for the Lord in His Merciful Providence to retard her larger expansion.

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LETTER OF RESIGNATION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE HAGUE SOCIETY FROM THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

The Hague, August 29th, H37.

RIGHT REVEREND GEORGE DE CHARMS

Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Dear Bishop:

The announcement of the separation of our priest, the Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer from the GENERAL CHURCH has deeply affected us, who are members of the Hague Society. According to the Documents concerning the Separation of the Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer from the General Church of the New Jerusalem, the separation took place because the Rev. Pfeiffer had expressed the intention of forming an independent body. The argument put forth lacks essential ground. The Rev. Pfeiffer could only have had this intention if it had been present also with us, since without members no body can be formed. We, the members of this Society, in cooperation with the priest, have always striven to preserve the unity of the Church, there being at the same time a great longing for a solution of the existing difficulties. Although by you not a single effort was made to preserve the unity, while at the same time respecting our freedom of thought, yea, a separation was even considered necessary, it was nevertheless attempted on our side to make it possible to maintain a bond by suggesting the institution of a separate diocese. The sudden separation of the Rev. Pfeiffer therefore shows us that the decision has not been led to by love and wisdom but by the principle of human authority. A separation of a priest from the members of his Society, with which members he cooperates for the upbuilding of the Church, indicates to us not only a lack of episcopal care for us, who are members of the Hague Society, but also a denial of the function and the use of the laity of the Church. It proves that the things of the Church are seen as beiug only in the hands of the priests; the result being that dominion and thus human authority breaks in, in consequence of which the priests are no longer servants, tho office to which

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they have been called by the Lord. Where there arises a priestly authority of this kind, the freedom of thought departs. It is this freedom of thought which we consider to be the essential of the Lord's New Church. This freedom of thought has been limited in the GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, which appears from the principle of human good and human truth now ruling. Human good and human truth is of value only in so far as it is derived from spiritual good and spiritual truth. Since by this principle it has been manifested that the Church has no longing for spiritual good and spiritual truth, but only for human good and human truth, it closes for the Church the way to an interior conjunction with the Lord and thus deprives the Church of the freedom as of itself to be placed in the possession of spiritual good and spiritual truth, as a result of which the Church would receive its Doctrine, spiritual out of celestial origin. It is this essential alone that is meant by the Doctrine of the Church and for which our eyes have been opened, and it is on this essential alone, that, according to our interior conviction, the upbuilding and the development of the New Church depends.

The Word given to the New Church makes a distinction between human good and human truth, and spiritual good and spiritual truth, and this Word teaches us clearly that spiritual good and spiritual truth is the essential for the Church and the man of the Church.

In THE DOCTRINE OF CHARITY, chapter III, in section IV (n. 56, 57, 59), we read the following:

"The neighbour which a man will love from charity will be spiritual good. Without this good there is no charity; for the good of charity is spiritual good, since it is according to this good that all in the Heavens are conjoined.

Moral good, which is actual human good - for it is the rational good according to which man lives with man, as a brother and associate - is neighbour so far as it is derived from spiritual good; for moral good without spiritual good is external good, is of the external will, and is not internal good. It maybe evil, which is not to be loved.

The laws of the Decalogue first become civil laws, afterwards moral, and finally spiritual; and then first do

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the goods become goods of charity, according to degrees".

Since our love for the truth longs for an interior conjunction with the Lord and the required freedom of thought is not permissible in the GENERAL CHURCH, therefore also there is no place for our love in that Church.

We request you therefore to remove our names from the roll of membership of the GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.

Very sincerely yours

CHS. H. VAN Os

N. V. OS-KLEINHOONTE VERSTRAATE

J. P. VERSTRAATE-VRUGTMAN

J. M. WEIJLAND

D. V. D. LOOS

J. v. D. LOOS

C. J. M. WEGMAN

W. WAALWIJK

J. L. TEERLINK

R. K. SIKKEMA

C. E. VANDER

J. M. V. DUYVENBODE VR.- RUHAAK

C. DE MOOIJ

E. C. DE MOOIJ-POOL

J. H. PFEIFFER-COURTIER H. BRANDENBURG-

GRAAFLAND

TH. VISSER

P. VISSER-POOL

J. LINTHUIS

M. A. LINTHUIS-POOL

P. GELUK

W. S. GELUK-POOL

H. K. HAPPEE-WIJNTJE for C.W. HEIJER

N. J. Vellenga

for H. A. C. HEIJER-GROENEVELD

N. J. Vellenga

GROENEVELD

M.J.GROENEVELD-LEDER

N. J. VELLENGA

T. VELLENGA-V. D. MEIJDEN

W. C. SCHIERBEEK

CH. B. SCHUURMANS

MARY BARGER

W. SCHOONBOOM

F. A. LANS

J. L. KLAMER

J. DE VISSER-SEMLER

J. KAMERLING

H. M. HAVER MAN

J. A. SCHOLTES

P. SCHOLTES-MOSER

J. J. DE BRUIN

J. C. DE BRUIN-V. D. FEEN

P. POORTVLIET

J. N.C.POORTVLIET-GELUK

C. P. GELUK

M. GELUK-KORSTEN

E. J. GELUK

A. E. A. MONTAUBAN VAN SWIJNDREGT-BRONS

H. M. V AN DER MAAS

M. J. E. BORF

H. V. D. FEEN

N. V. D. FEEN-VOGELSANG for A. J. v. D. Loos

D. 'V. d. Loos

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for A. P. GELUK P. Geluk

for M. A. DONKER-V.D.FEEN N. v. d. Feen- Vogelsang

for EMIL SCHULTZ Verstraate

for MARTHA SCHULTZ Verstraate

for B. J. URBAN-HiiBSCHER Verstraate

for ANTON ZELLING Verstraate

for LEONIE ZELLING Verstraate

for N. H. URBAN Verstraate

for PHILIPPE SMIT Verstraate

for O. M. BOODEN-ADELINK Verstraate

131 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR SEPT.-OCT. 1937

RECEPTION

BY ANTON ZELLING.

“I am the vine, ye the branches; he that abideth in Me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing".

JOHN XV : 5.

The Doctrine of the Church, which is out of the Word, teaches the reception of the Divine True proceeding from the Lord, A.R. 871. This is a statement which plunges us into profound meditation. It is the key which discloses the sanctuary of Doctrine and Religion. "What man wills or loves that he clearly perceives; it is otherwise by the way of the understanding only", A.E. 61.

Now the first thing that the Doctrine of the Church, which is out of the Word, teaches us to acknowledge is that the primary which the Lord possesses with man and with Angel, is his will. What man calls his will is merely his concupiscence, what man calls his understanding is merely his science.

The order of reception is as follows: "Divine Influx out of Heaven is into man's will, and through that into his understanding; Influx into the will is into the occiput, because into the cerebellum; and from that it passes towards the foreparts into the cerebrum where the understanding is; and when it comes by that way into the understanding, then it comes also into the sight, for man sees out of the understanding", A.E. 61.

Thus man does not see out of the understanding before the Divine Influx out of Heaven through the will has flowed into the understanding. And the Divine Influx does not flow into the will before the Lord possesses the will, and through the will the understanding. For this reason in the above quotation it is said to see, and to see in the spiritual sense means to believe. The Lord therefore does not possess

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the will and the understanding therefrom fully or into its finest ramifications before man from knowing through acknowledging has advanced to believing; or, what is the same, there is no qnestion of essential Influx unless it flows out into believing; for thus the Lord dwells in what is His, and perception is in its light. The understanding alone is an understanding outside of the Lord, outside of the Door, and therefore no understanding, but science alone, which ends in presumptuous schoolmastery or self-conceited pedantry, and this sees nothing and less than nothing. It only disputes, that is, doubts and denies. What? Well, the Divine Influx, therefore the believing or the seeing.

The arcanum of the reception therefore amonnts to this; Is there question of will and understanding, or of concupiscence and science. Will and understanding allow the Divine Influx to pass through, concupiscence and science hold it back by perversion.

The genuiue reception is by an intellectual volnntary, the spurious reception is by a scientificated concupiscence. And because reception essentially is a reception of the Divine Influx, the genuine reception or the reception from within has regard to the things, and the spurious reception or the reception from without to the forms only.

The cause of so much confusion is this that the spurious reception, because it is from without, so much resembles a reception in the natural sense; and that the genuine reception, because it is from within, has nothing of a reception in the natural sense. The spurious reception is a self -conscious grasping hold of; the genuine reception is a receiving above the consciousness. For this reason the righteous did not know that they had shown charity to the Lord, while the unrighteous knew no better than that they had preached the Lord in all the streets, and had done many works in His name. The Divine Influx which makes the reception, is not felt in the affections of the will because man pays no attention thereunto. The only thing he perceives by that Influx is that the things unfold, break open, and reveal their essence, that is, the good use of life. For this reason it is said that to bring forth means to receive.

Therefore in exact contrast with the natural sense, to receive, spiritually understood, is to produce. "The Lord produces the good things with man according to every state

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of the true with him", is taught in A.R. 935. The state of the true with man is the quality of his Doctrine. And such as that Doctrine is, such reception does it teach, which reception is a bringing forth or a production of good thiugs from the Lord. To produce in Latin is producere, literally to lead forth; the received Influx leads forth or out to uses in lasts. As soon as the lasts let through, the Influx proves to have been received, not until then. And what the lasts then let through, are purely good things of life, or much fruit. To this end the lasts of the vine hranches must regularly be pruned. The Doctrine teaches to prune for the sake of reception. Without Doctriue no fruit, or else nothing but wild bitter berries.

By the reception of the Divine Influx out of Heaven there is bringing forth or production. The reception therefore is known by the production or by the fruit. On the other hand, the spurious reception, direct or from without, is a gathering together of forms and of terms, truly dead in themselves, a heaping up of scholastic matter, merely a hot-bed of spontaueous generation.

The New Church is the Church of Reception of the Divine Influx out of Heaven, a Reception of the Lord in what is His. And because it is the Church of Reception, it is the Church of Production of the good things according to every state of the true with the Church in common or the Church in the lands.

The cause of so much confusion lies in the merely natural conception of the word "the new will". That which man calls his will, is merely his concupiscence. That which he commonly regards as the new will, is commonly only a new concupiscence. And every new concupiscence is the old concupiscence in a more interior, more evil degree. Before the Doctrine of the Church out of the Word can teach the Reception of the Divine Influx out of Heaven, the concupiscences of the evil with man must be converted into good affections. Concupiscences are perverted affections; affections are derivations from the will, as the arteries are derivations or continuations of the heart [continuations: Dutch verlengselen; the word verlengen has the same root as the word verlangen, to long for]. Only when the concupiscences of evil have become good affections, only then does the Lord in truth possess the origin or the source of those affections,

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that is, the WILL with man. This is the new will; new to appearance, now and eternal in essence.

And what applies to the "new" will, applies equally to the "new" understanding. Each new scientific is the old scientific in a more interior, more false degree. Before the Doctrine of the Church out of the Word can teach the Reception of the Divine Influx out of Heaven, the delusions of the false with man must be converted into true thinkings. Fallacies are perverted thinkings; thinkings are derivations from the understanding. Well then, only when the delusions of the false have become true thinkings, only then does the Lord in truth possess the origin or the source of those thinkings, that is, the UNDERSTANDING out of the WILL with man. This is the new understanding; new to appearance, now and eternal in essence. Thus it is self-explanatory that the rational is the receptacle itself of the light of Heaven; and therefore also that the free or the voluntary is the receptacle itself of the warmth of Heaven.

Every Doctrine of the Genuine True is Divine Order in man. Divine Order is Order of reception and production from the Lord. Reception and production in man and for man are identical, for to bring forth signifies to receive. The receptions or the productions are according to each state of the true with man.

The cause of so much confusion or disorder is this, that new concupiscences and new scientifics with so much jealousy and rivalry seek to counterfeit the Divine things themselves of the new will and of the new understanding, which with study and art is possible, see A.C. 10284. However, this is no reception or production from the Lord, but it is to regard from one's self to one's self and to the world. Study and art in this sense are nothing; and even as creation no more is regeneration out of nothing. Regeneration is out of the conversion of evil into good affections. Study and art only renew the concupiscences and the scientifics therefrom. The only thing therefore which the scholastic learned attain with study and art, is to kill off with themselves every universal influx instead of receiving, and to extirpate with themselves everything engrafted out of Heaven instead of producing; their civilization has civilized away all that was human with them; and with that the celestial arcana with them have become infernal problems, to all

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appearance in the same truths, but of which they did not perceive the things but only deformed the forms.

With the reception it is just as with clothing, from within something entirely different from what it is from without. Just as reception from within is to produce, just so clothing from within is to proceed, “for raiments are outside of the body and clothe it, just as the things which proceed are also outside of the body and encompass it", A.E. 65; where we read further that the raiments of the Angels are according to the sphere of life with them; and further that the Lord's raiments signify the Divine, proceeding, which is the Divine True conjoined with the Divine Good, which fills the entire Heaven, and enters into the interior things of the mind and gives intelligence and wisdom to him who receives. Notice the sequence: to receive gives wisdom, and the love from the Lord by the wisdom from the Lord produces the good things from the Lord. What else therefore is to receive than to produce? What therefore is any other receiving else than theft and perversion?

The cause of so much confusion is that the correspondence of truths with clothing is regarded merely from without, thus neither of them as proceeding from within, but as "dead in themselves", and on that account merely to be "received" or to be stepped into. But just as little as clothes make a man, just so little do truths make the man of the Church, unless both have been produced and have proceeded from within. For this reason too the Wedding Garments signify the Divine True out of the Word, which is something different from the Divine True of the Word, see A.R. 166, namely the Genuine True of the Doctrine of the Church. Everything that is from the Lord lives and is moved; "dead in itself" is only the infernal proprium: regardless with wbat new concupiscence it may "receive" or "indue" any Divine True whatever. This, manifestly, is a proof of God by Doctrine.

The Order of Society cannot set in, or the Doctrine of Society cannot come to life, unless the word of John the Baptist be understood, acknowledged, willed, and done: "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages", LUKE III : 14. This word precedes every Instauration and Organization; for no order

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of reception and production is possible unless all violence, all false accusation, all discontent cease.

This truth lies reflected in the following statement: "Whoso wills to remain in the sense of the Letter, let him remain, because that sense conjoins; only let him know that the Angels by those names perceive things and states of the Church", A.R. 41. To remain here does not signify to cling to or to stick in, for the subject is a conjoining sense of the letter. To remain in the sense of the letter here in the favourable sense signifies the faith of the simple, an integer remaining or living in the integer sense of the letter, under obedience to the angelic or the internal sense. To remain therein is to remain in the Lord's Divine Natural and to be conjoined therewith. To remain therein is to live according to one's station and state, and not above or beyond one's station and state; and thus to do violence to no man, neither to accuse any falsely, and to be content with one's wages. In this way man does not accuse falsely, but he receives, and in this way the wages are pure enjoyments of use; for eyery function, as is indicated by the root-meaning of that word, is essentially nothing but usufruct, genuine if man has been placed therein from the Lord. A man in his function is a man in his Eden, in his order, in his peace; in short in the fulness, glory, and virtue of the faculty that has been given him as if his and is felt as his. Only when the Lord finds His pleasure in that faculty - and this is "to perceive the delightful out of the spiritual" is there any question of function.

The Order of Reception makes one with the ordering of the recipients. The first is of the Instauration from the Lord, the second is of the Organization, likewise from the Lord, and to appearance as if out of man. The ordering is the first as to time, the Order is the first as to the end: the reception and the production.

In so much as the ordering of the society comes to belong to the society, in just so much the order of the Church comes to belong to the Church, and not the least more or less. Restoration of order of necessity brings along a re-ordering. For this reason the society must be ordered anew, for it has lost its orientation or its Orient. The Church is called the foundation of Heaven, the human race is called the basis of the foundation of Heaven. The human race will have been

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made equal to the Church, when once again "the theological things dwell in the highest region of the human mind", see CANONS, marginal note under "Summary". The theological things with the human race and with its imaginary churches have slid down to philosophical things. Whoso pays regard to the signs of the times, in the present-day state of the world sees the state of the Church reflected, the wrestling through a time of live anarchy to arrive at order and ordering.

There were three classes or degrees in society which had to correspond to the three Heavens: the aristocracy (from aristos, the best, and kratein, to govern) was held to be celestial, or wisdoms; the middle class was held to be spiritual, or inteillgences; the labourers class was held to be natural, or sciences. The sciences lit through by Intelligence, the intelligences lit through by Wisdom, the wisdoms imbued by Use, descending, as rain out of Heaven, having gone up as a mist from the earth. There is no doubt that the sharply outlined castes with the Hindoos still bear relation to the most complete Doctrine of Charity which the Ancient Chur ch possessed. The very word caste proves this, for the fundamental meaning in the sanscrit is pure, chaste, unmixed. That which is destroying the present-day civilization is that every degree or class has lost its virtue and has become heterogeneous, impure, unchaste, mixed. This is a matter of the very greatest importance for the Lord's True Church, for only through the Church does the human race become human, and without an endoctrined charitable spirit of caste no human society of any kind will prove possible. The human race, society, community, the commonwealth, or the world, has become babylonic in entirely the same sense as stands written of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 799: "In Babylonia there is not any spiritual affection of the true, not the understanding of it and not the thinking therefrom nor the inquiry and scrutiny of it, nor enlightenment and perception of it, and therefore no conjunction of the good and the true which makes the Church; that those have not these things, is because those superior in the orders also carry on a trade and pursue gain, and thus set examples to those inferior". Here the word of John the Baptist recurs, for what applies to the Church, applies to the human race, and what applies to the human race, applies to the Church.

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Without Doctrine no Order of Reception and Production; without Order of Reception and Production no ordering of human society - the signs of the times confirm this, "and except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened", MATTHEW XXIV: 22. The elect are they who receive the Divine Influx out of Heaven, and with whom the Lord produces the good things according to every state of tne true with them.

That man's co-operation is only as if from himself, by no means excludes that he be continually aware of his immeasurable responsibility towards the neighbour, and in a universal sense towards the entire human race. In this man’s regeneration is fully the image of the Lord's Glorification. Where man does not receive, there the Lord cannot produce; and where he revents the Lord from producing there he does violence to the neighbour, accuses him falsely, and in seeking after the higher delight of a higher use which is not his due, he lowers the delight of the use.

Whoso will remain in the sense of the letter, let him remain, because that sense conjoins. The natural sense conjoins in a spiritual-natural way for spiritual-natural reception; the spiritual sense conjoins in a spiritual way for spiritual reception; the celestial sense conjoins in a celestial way for celestial reception; but none of these three senses conjoins except by the Doctrine of the Church which is out of the Word, for without Doctrine there is no reception.

An army cannot possibly consist of only commanders-inchief, nor can there be any True Church of the Lord consisting of only Michaels without the Angels of Michael. The third Heaven and the second Heaven are not conceivable without the first; the celestial and the spiritual senses of the Word not without the natural. This is the genuine favourable sense of the words: "Whoso will remain in the sense of the letter, let him remain"; the genuine favourable sense also of the words: "Thus the spiritual sense of the Word equally enlightens men, even those who do not know anything of that sense whilst they read the Word in the natural sense", A.R. 414. The cause of so much confusion is that the word to read is passed over; and to read the Word is to understand from enlightenment, thus to percieve which is not possible unless by following the Lord, that is, to acknowledge Him-

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self or to defend the Divine Human. This is the poverty of the times, that the simple man is as rare as the wise man; for on all sides there is lacking his testimony to the shining of the moon and the stars, which enlightens his simple eye in the silent night. Only from the mysterious night of perception does the morning star arise, for "the Divine True is the all of faith and of love in the Lord", A.E. 63. The concupiscence of intellectual or artificial enlightenment only.is an infernal concupiscence, which obscures the morning star to the eye.

Without Doctrine in each state no Order of Reception is possible, thus no ordering either of recipients or of Society. For this reason the world suffers so hideously and the Church of the Lord so grievously.

The Lord in His Word calls for Doctrine; in His Doctrine for Reception; in the Reception of Him for Production; and in His Production for Conjunction of His Life with all and each according to the state of the true with them.

The word “The Doctnne of the Church teaches the reception" is a glorious word, but for the present a sad word. It is the great, final invitation, and scarcely anyone accepts it. For most reject the Doctrine of the Church; and among those who accept the Doctrine of the Church, again most disdain the reception. And yet it is the reception which makes man to be man, for only by the reception of the Divine Influx out of Heaven can man entirely love the Lord. The man who receives is in the state of wisdom and of innocence in wisdom. That state of reception is "when the man is no longer concerned about understanding the good and true things, but about willing those things and living those things; for this is to be wise; and man is able to will the good and true things, and to live those things, just in so much as he is in innocence, that is, in so much as he believes that he is wise in nothing out of himself, but that as to whatever he is wise, this is out of the Lord, furthermore in so much as he loves that it be so", A.C. 10225.

Verily, the word to receive plunges us into profound meditation.

The Doctrine of the Church teaches to bear much fruit.

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A COMMENTARY ON THE REPORT OF THE ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETINGS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, APRIL 1937

By THE REV. ERNST PFEIFFER.

The essential point of the "Report of the Acting Bishop" is the explanation he gives of the causes "why there should be such an impassable chasm of misunderstanding" between the two parties. According to Bishop de Charms the causes lie herein, "that a universal principle has been adopted in the light of which all else is to be interpreted and understood", namely, the principle "that all spiritual and celestial things received by man…are called ‘Divine’, because they are the Divine Proceeding” (p.190). He says that this principle has not been drawn from the Writings, and that he finds there “exactly the opposite, given directly and categorically in the Writings themselves”.

Bishop de Charms begins by saying that this opposite principle "is stated in D.P. 219 as follows: 'Finite cannot proceed from Infinite and to suppose this is a contradiction; nevertheless, finite can be produced by the Infinite, but this is not to proceed but to be created'''. To this he adds: "This means to me that ... nothing finite can be regarded as the Divine Proceeding. And, therefore, the spiritual and celestial things with angels and men ... are not meant when the Writings speak of Divine Good, Divine Trnth, Divine Love, and Divine Wisdom, all of which are the Lord" (p. 191).

That the finite and created is never Divine, thus that nothing finite in itself can ever be regarded as the Divine, proceeding, is for us a self-evident truth. The principle that all spiritual and celestial things received by man must be called Divine, because they are of the Divine, proceeding, is not in contradiction with the principle that the finite and created is never Divine, and so can never be regarded as the Divine, proceeding. This will be shown in what follows.

The whole position of Bishop de Charms rests on the supposition that the former principle is in contradiction with the latter. If it can be shown that they are not in contradiction with each other, but in complete harmony,

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the whole position of Bishop de Charms falls to nought.

In the truth that the finite and the created is never Divine Bishop de Charms sees a proof that the celestial and spiritnal things with man cannot be Divine either; for according to Bishop de Charms the celestial and spiritual things with man are finite and created things.

This principle of Bishop de Charms, namely, that the celestial and spiritual things with man are finite and created things, is indeed evidently opposed to the principle that those things are Divine. The question is: Is the principle of Bishop de Charms true and what proofs from the Word does he produce for it?

The celestial and spiritual things of love and wisdom flowing in with the regenerated man as his life, are they created things or are they of the Divine, proceeding, of the Lord? It cannot but astonish us that this question should ever have to be asked; for every simple man living in the affection of the genuine true, knows that those things are the Lord's with man, and a wise man ascribes them to the Lord. He knows that they are with man only as if they were his. Love and faith from it are the life of man, and life is uncreatable.

If love and wisdom with man are called Divine one must make a distinction between the created finite forms of the mind, of which it can never be said that they are Divine, and the celestial and spiritual itself, of which it can never be said that it is created. The created finite forms are the organic natural and spiritual forms of the mind; as to the intellectual they are the forms of the scientific and rational. These forms in themselves are never love and wisdom, or the good and true, or the celestial and spiritual with man. The celestial and spiritual which is the Divine, proceeding, descends into the mind when the internal man and the external man are conjoined reciprocally; for on this conjunction rests the possibility of the descent of the marriage of the good and the true even into the inmost of the conscious mind. Man thus becomes conscious of the Divine, proceeding, in the interior or rational man, which holds the middle between the internal man and the external man, in the warmth of charity which he feels and in the light of faith which he sees. This warmth of love and this light of faith are not created, they are the Divine, pro-

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ceeding from the Lord as a Sun. The created forms are warmed by this warmth and illumined by this light. But the Divine must roceed through these created forms, otherwise it is not the Divine, proceeding, but the Divine in itself. The good of charity and the true of faith with man, if conjoined, are the Divine warmth and the Divine light which, conjoined, proceed from the Lord as a Sun. They are the life of man; they are not created, for they are uncreatable. "The good and true with man is the Lord Himself", A.C. 9776. This Divine, proceeding through the finite forms of the mind is truly the celestial and the spiritual, love and wisdom, the good and true with man. It is only in this sense that the good and true with man can be called Divine. Therefore, too, it is not of man but always the Lord's with man.

It can now clearly be seen here that the principle that all spiritual and celestial things with man are of the Divine, proceeding, is not in contradiction with the truth taught in D.P. 219 that the finite and created is never Divine; for celestial and spiritnal things are not created forms. Bishop de Charms omitted the passage of D.P. 219 which is essential for the understanding of the question and which immediately precedes the passage quoted by him. We read there: "The infinite cannot proceed from the finite; ... but still the infinite can proceed from the finite, yet not from the finite but from the infinite through this". It can be clearly understood from these words that the infinite can proceed out of the infinite through the finite, and it can be seen to what, alone, Divinity is ascribed by us, namely, to the Infinite proceeding from the Infinite through the finite, and never to finite created forms.

It should be clearly realized that the good and true with man cannot be spoken of if one in doing so only looks at the created finite fonns; and jnst as little if one only looks at the Divine therein. For in the good and true with man, man is conjoined with God, and it is essential for the Divine proceeding that it proceeds through the finite. When the Divine does not proceed through the finite, then it is not the Divine, proceeding, but the Divine in itself. It is in this sense that I replied to the question of Bishop Acton: "Is man's understanding of the Word Divine"? with the answer: "Yes and no”, which caused many of those present to

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laugh, and which prompted Bishop Acton to say the words: "Don't blame us when you say that we do not understand" (p. 206). From this it was evident that there was no understanding of the essence of the good and true with man, namely, that by it is effected a conjunction of man with God in the Divine Human of the Lord. He who denies this essence of the good and true with man, denies the essentiality and reality of the marriage of the good and the true and the possibility of the conjunction of man with God; and where this marriage is denied and this possibility, there the spirit of faith alone is already lurking. The essential of the good and true with man can never be understood, if this conjunction is not seen. Finite created adjoined forms are absolutely indispensahle for the good and true with man; but nevertheless the Divine therein is the only essential. If one calls the good and true with man a created form, then one has taken away from it all that is essential.

Only in this light can the words of Rev. Theodore Pitcairn quoted by Bishop de Charms on p. 192 be understood. Mr. Pitcairn says: "When it states in A.C. 49 that they did not call themselves men, but only those things in themselves - as all the good of love and all the truth of faith which they perceived they had from the Lord', the reference is not to the goods and truths which flow in with the good and evil alike, but to the substantial forms of good and truth which were created and are continually preserved in them by the Lord". Bishop de Charms says: "Note, it is 'substantial forms of good and truth which were created and are continually preserved in them by the Lord' which are said to be Divine". If justly understood it may be said according to the appearance that the forms of the good and true are created, for without creation of orderly adjoined external forms the good and true with man does not find a ground and containant. It is in this sense that the word 'created' is applied here to the forms; but the good and true itself with man is not created, but it is of the Divine, proceeding. Mr. Pitcairn did not say that the created forms are Divine, as Bishop de Charms ascribes to him, but that in relation to created forms Divinity can be spoken of.

In this same way as Mr. Pitcairn spoke of Divinity in connection with created forms, it speaks in D.L.W. 53, quoted by Bishop de Charms on p. 193, of esse and existere

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in connection with created things, yea, even of life, and of love and wisdom, thus of the Divine, Bishop de Charms could not have quoted a plainer passage as a confirmation of Mr, Pitcairn's thought. This passage is as follows: "Of things created and finite may be predicated esse and existere, also substance and form, and even life, nay love and wisdom; but all those are created and finite. The reason why these attributes [that is these Divine attributes as to be, life, love, wisdom] may here be predicated, is not that those things possess anything Divine [that is nothing of to be, life, love, wisdom], but that they are in the Divine, and that the Divine [namely, to be, life, love, wisdom] is in them. For all that is created in itself is inanimate and dead, but things are animated and made alive by the fact that the Divine [namely, to be, life, love, wisdom] is in them, and that they are in the Divine", D.L.W. 53 (see p. 193). It is written there that although created and finite things never have in themselves esse and existere, still less life, nor love and wisdom, nevertheless, these Divine attributes can be predicated of them; but not because these things possess anything Divine - thus not esse and exist ere, not life, not love and wisdom, - but because they are in this Divine and this Divine in them. This is the simple and plain meanmg of this passage. To be, life, love, wisdom, can be predicated of finite and created things; but not because they possess them but because these Divine things are in them, Bishop de Charms reads that to be, life, love, wisdom are created. He regards to be, life, love, wisdom as being those created things; so he reads from this place; "To be, life, love, wisdom are in themselves inanimate and dead".

Bishop de Charms quotes the words "that love and wisdom are man" from D,L,W. 287 and says; "Here it is said categorically that 'love and wisdom are man'. It necessarily follows, either that 'love and wisdom' here meant are human, or, if Divine, then man is also Divine" (p, 191), By the quoted words "that love and wisdom are man" nothing else is said than that man is not man in himself, but that only the Divine Hnman in which alone is all genuine love and wisdom is truly Man, and man is man only by influx. Only by the reception of the genuine things of the Divme Human man becomes truly man. The quoted words thus by no means prove "that the love and wisdom here meant are

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human" in the sense that Bishop de Charms gives to this word. Love and wisdom can never be human in this sense. They always are of the Divine Hnman by influx as the Divine, proceeding. And still thereby man is not Divine; for without the reception of this Divine, proceeding, man is not man. So it can never be said and was never said by us that man is Divine. On similar fallacious arguments also rest the interpretations of the several other places which are quoted by Bishop de Charms to prove the position that the celestial and spiritual with man are human.

Bishop de Charms started his position by saying that he wishes himself to be led by universal principles found in the Writings themselves and by asserting that we are led by a universal principle that is not drawn from the Writings and that we in the light of this principle interpret and understand all else (see p. 190). From what was explained above it is clear that the principle that love and wisdom are Divine, is not in contradiction with the truth that the finite and created is never Divine; for love and wisdom are uncreatable; they are the Divine, proceedmg through the finite created forms of the mind. And from this it is also clear that the principle that the celestial and the spiritual is human is in contradiction with the Word. It is a position quite new, until now unknown in the Church; and it has been attempted to confirm it from places from the Word, the true sense of which has not been understood.

That this position until now was unknown in the Church, and did not rule, is clearly evident from this, that as to the good and true things of the Word the twofold essence of the infinite and finite therein was always acknowledged and realized. Without the life of the Divine, proceeding, the Word as to the letter is dead. The Word in respect to the letter alone is like a body without a soul (A.C. III). So, evidently, also with the good and true things of the Word the finite is adjoined to the infinite; and nevertheless the essence of the Word also after reception remains Divine. This essence is the life itself of the Word, and this is uncreatbale; it remains infinite even into lasts.

Therefore Bishop de Charms by his position that the good and true, love and wisdom, the celestial and spiritual, are finite created forms, proved much more than could have ever been his intention. For originally it was also acknow-

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ledged by our opponents as a matter of course that the good and true things of the Word with man are Divine; only concerning the Doctrine out of the Word it was denied. If Bishop de Charms's position were true neither could the Word with man be Divine. All possibility of redemption, regeneration, conjunction with the Lord is abolished thereby. Also the conception of the as of self, which yet is indispensable or the conjunction of man with God, has lost its sense thereby.

Why is the Doctrine of the Church Divine? Because the Word is Divine; for the genuine Doctrine of the Church is nothing else thau the true sense and Spirit of the Word.

In the beginning of the controversy Bishop de Charms's efforts were aimed to prove that the Writings themselves are the Doctrine of the Church, Divinely given, and so that it is not correct that the Church itself must make its Doctrine of the Genuine True out of its Word as if from itself. Now in his efforts to check the new principles, he has gone as far as to say that all love and wisdom with man, all celestial and spiritual, all the good and true, are finite created forms, directly opposed to the teaching in TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION that "Wisdom, faith, the true, charity, the good, are not creatable, but that the forms which receive them have been created", n. 40, 472. All the essence of the Divine in the conjunction of man with the Lord, also all the Divine of the Word itself with man, has been abolished thereby. We read: "The good of the Church is spiritual and celestial, becanse it is Divine", A.C. 10609, and: "The Divine with those who have faith in Him is love and charity", A.C. 2023.

As to the report of the meetings of last April I shall have to restrict myself to a few points. The request of Mr. Pitcairn to have a stenographic report made was refused by Bishop de Charms. In consequence the report is full of incomplete and erroneous renderings. The rendering of the things I said is generally erroneous. The secretary did not understand what I was saying. An example of this can already be seen in the correction which Bishop Acton felt obliged to send in. He writes: "Some remarks are attributed to me which are meaningless" (p. 311). I must say the

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same thing of numerous things ascribed to me; therefore I can not at all accept this report as a true record. It is impossible to enter into everything. Only some of the worst mistakes will be pointed out.

On page 196 one reads: "He spoke of the things that 'have the essential quality of being His things'. These are not human. If these things are not present the Church will gradually fall to be a merely human institution. 'The Infinite can proceed through the finite and remain Infinite' ". From this last sentence it can be seen what the subject of my words was. Man is truly man and the church is truly Church only by the things of the Lord's Divine Human. These things are not of man himself; they are the Lord's with man in the Church. I spoke about these things, for only these things are not human in the common sense. The intention of my words was simple and quite clear. I spoke about the things of the Lord with man, but the reporter says: "He spoke of the things that 'have the essential quality of being His things'. These are not human". A perversion of my words exactly into the opposite. From the fact that he puts between quotation-marks the words "have the essential quality of being His things", by which he gives the appearance as if they were my own words, and from the fact, that he puts the word His in italics and writes it with a capital, his intention in making such a report is evident.

On page 206 we read: "He pointed to the teaching of A.C. 1594. He spoke of the 'Divine perception with man'. They pointed to the plain teachings of the Word". These words have relation to a detailed exposition I gave about the essence of the Divine with man. First I quoted the text of some numbers out of the Word which Rev. Pitcairn had read in his address and which I had noted when he was reading them. Among others the following: "That the Lord is the Word is known, thus the Lord is Doctrine, for all Doctrine is out of the Word", A.C. 2859. "All good and true is out of the Lord in so much that the good and true with man are the Lord Himself", A.C. 9776. "The Divine True things which make the Intellectual and the Divine Good things which make the Voluntary are from the Lord, or are the Lord's, and the things which are the Lord's are Himself", A.C. 10645. After having quoted these passages, I reminded

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Bishop de Charms of his conversation with me on the first afternoon after my arrival in Bryn Athyn. Then Bishop de Charms said to me that he was well acquainted with places where it is said that good and truth are the Lord's; but evidently this did not mean that good and truth are Divine, for it is even said tbat the whole of creation is the Lord's. To this he added that if however I could indicate places where it is said that good and truth are the Lord, then it would be something else; for certainly it cannot be said that the whole of creation is the Lord. He asserted that such places do not exist. I made him observe now, on the basis of the passages Rev. Pitcairn had quoted, that there are many such places. It is literally said there: The Doctrine out of the Word is the Lord, and all the good and true with man is the Lord. After this I fixed the attention on a place quoted by the Rev. Pitcairn from A.C. 3061, where it is said that the deepest arcana can be revealed to none "but those who are in Divine Perception". So in fact I had done nothing else than read a series of literal quotations, in which quotations it speaks also of men "who are in Divine Perception". The reporter renders this discourse of mine with the words: "He spoke of the Divine Perception with man. They pointed to the plain teachings of the Word".

On page 208 we read: "(At this point Rev. T. Pitcairn objected to certain of Bishop Acton's doctrinal statements . .. . )". The words of Rev. Pitcairn which are omitted in the report, were of especial importance. He said: "We have often said that we have been misunderstood. That we have been misunderstood is once more clear from Dr. Acton's remark that we have set up a doctrine higher and more delightful than the Writings. Nowhere has such an idea heen suggested. We believe and have often said that the Writings are the Infinite Doctrine, the Doctrine as to the esse; that they contain all the True from the highest to the last, and that they are the fountain of all the True in the Church to eternity, whereas the Doctrine of the Church is the True which exists in the Church at a given time from the Word, and that it cannot be compared to the Writings".

The record given on page 217 of my last detailed speech is also so incomplete and in many respects so misleading that I can in no way accept it as a correct rendering. Some essential things that I said and which do not appear from

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that report, or even are not at all to be found there, are the following: I spoke among other things about the accusation by the Rev. W. B. Caldwell (p. 212), that from us the sphere of a subtle poison threatened to penetrate by and by to the simple and the children, namely, the Doctrine "that man could be a god". I explained how remote such a doctrine is from our thought and that not we are responsible for it, but those who spread such misrepresentations of our view. I also spoke concerning the remarks of Bishop Acton on page 216, "that the teaching was that controversies on doctrine did not divide, if charity were present, unless they were on the idea of God, or of the Word". Nowhere in the Word anything of the kind is taught. The teaching to which Bishop Acton alluded but to which he gave quite an opposite essence, is that there can exist in the same Church without difficulty differences of Doctrine "provided that one does not deny the principles, i.e. the Lord, Eternal Life, the ,Word", A.C. 1834. The explanation which Bishop Acton gave to this Doctrine is that separation was necessary if the differences of doctrine concern the idea of God or of the, Word, while the Word teaches that differences of Doctrine in themselves never cause separation, unless the Lord and the Word are denied. This explanation is characteristic of the spirit of intolerance prevailing with the leaders as to every new view which differed from the official doctrine of the GENERAL CHURCH being set forth by the present leaders. This exposition of mine has been omitted in the report. The essential point of my further speech was that in the New Church there shall be no external without an internal. Such an external is ruled by the Lord. If it is said which is the principle repeatedly uttered now - that the Church is ruled in a human way, then the administration of the Church has separated itself from the Lord. These words gave occasion to Bishop de Charms to say I accused the leaders of corruption and that they had separated themselves from the Lord. In my very last remark in the meetings of the Council of the Clergy (p. 228) I rectified this, showing that I had not given a personal judgment, and I gave utterance to my confidence that the leaders as persons had not separated themselves from the Lord. The words there ascribed to me by the reporter are without sense. He did not understand what I said.

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And so this report is full of similar inaccuracies. Only a few have been rectified here.

But in addition to such inaccuracies in the minutes, according to these minutes things also have been said which in themselves are not in agreement with the facts.

On page 185 we read in the report of the Acting Bishop: "After 1933 ... it was the desire of Bishop Pendleton that the matter might be allowed to rest with the hope that time might restore a greater measure of understanding. From that time on nothing further was published in the Life of a controversial nature". This is wholly in disagreement with the facts. It is indeed true that in that time the position was assumed of ignoring everything that came from our side. But NEW CHURCH LIFE repeatedly contained sharp attacks full of misrepresentations of our point of view. See the issue for November 1933, pages 478-479; December 1933, page 510; January 1934, pages 17-24, a sharp attack from the hand of Rev. Hugo Odhner; April 1934, page 121, Bishop Pendleton; July 1934, page 241: "the new Doctrine that man is Divine", words by Bishop de Charms himself; October 1934, pages 361-362, an address by Bishop de Charms himself; August 1935, page 259, words of Mr. Harold Pitcairn: "There is a new movement which takes the position that while the Writings are Authority, there is also another Authority. This other Authority is the regenerated man's understanding of the Word, and this understanding they Deify by granting it infallibility".

On page 189 Bishop de Charms states that I have expressed myself in the meeting with the Consistory as if I had thought "that we might go along together for two or three years more". I have never thought of a limitation as to time of the possibility of going along together, nor did I express myself in this way. It was always my hope until the last moment that a separation would not come at all.

On page 203 are the following words of Bishop de Charms addressed to me: "You say that you had never thought of separation until after your arrival in Bryn Athyn this time. I do not question your belief in this. But it does not square with things said to me as long ago as 1931, when you spoke with me regarding separation". When Bishop de Charms was in The Hague in 1931, he expressed to me the thought that he saw in the new things something

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that already in itself contained the germ of separation. I answered that I emphatically rejected this idea, and that the thought of separation was an absolute impossibility with us. Now Bishop de Charms says that already in 1931 I spoke with him about separation.

We read in the ARCANA COELESTIA n.1834, where it speaks of the wild fowl that came down upon the sacrifice of Abram (Gen. XV: ll) that the state of the Church is treated of there: "When the Church is raised up by the Lord it is in the beginning blameless and the one then loves the other as his brother, as is known from the case of the Primitive Church after the Lord's Coming. All the sons of the Church then lived together as brethren; ... but in process of time charity grew cold and vanished away; and as it vanished, evil succeeded, and together with these falsities insinuated themselves. Hence came schisms and heresies, which would never be the case if Charity were regnant and alive, for then they would not even call schism schism, or heresy heresy, but a doctrinal matter in accordance with each person's opinion; and this they would leave to each person's conscience, provided such doctrinal matter did not deny first principles, that is, the Lord, eternal life, and the Word; and provided it was not contrary to the Divine order, that is, the precepts of the Decalogue. The evils and the falsities thence which succeed in the church when charity vanishes, are what are meant by the fowl".

The external motive of the controversy between the leaders of the GENERAL CHURCH and those who accept the new position was of a doctrinal nature. From the number quoted it is clear that this in itself - if there had not come to it an element of difference of quite another kind - could never have led to a real estrangement and still less to a breach. If in the Church charity reigns then doctrinal differences do not lead to an estrangement; on the contrary in the end they contribute to the deepening of the genuine life and Doctrine of the Church. If however a doctrinal difference leads to estningement and schism it is a proof that charity has grown cold; and as charity vanishes evils succeed, and with the evil things false things insinuate themselves, thence schisms and heresies. This is the teaching of

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the Word about the origin and essence of schisms, and only in the light of this teaching will it be possible to understand in its essence the separation from the GENERAL CHURCH, which has now taken place.

Seven years ago the Society in The Hague brought before the attention of the GENERAL CHURCH a series of principles of a quite new insight into the essence at the Writings of Swedenborg. In a brief summary these new principles are as follows: The Writings of Swedenborg are the Word itself for the New Church; the Church can only receive the spirit or the essential things of this Word by the Doctrine of the Genuine True out of this Word. It is by this Doctrine that the Word becomes more and more the Word for the Church. And it is only by this Doctrine that the church becomes more and more the Church, and in an orderly way comes into genuine internal things, for the all of the Church is out of the Word; and "it is they who are in the true things out of good or in faith out of charity who make the Church, and it is the Doctrine that teaches those things; thence it is that the Lord, as He is the Word, is also the Doctrine of the Church, for all Doctrine is out of the Word", A.E. 19. These new principles have been drawn out of the Word itself and they are confirmed by the plain teachings of the Word itself .

These principles, which we saw as the genuine fruits of a sincere searching after the interior true_, and which we saw were to bring an essential renewal of the Church, were not accepted by the leaders of the GENERAL CHURCH according to the intention with which we had made them known. The essence and the high importance of the new principles lies herein, that by the Doctrine of the Genuine True, such as it can only be received in a regenerated rational and only in illustration, the proprium of man in a more interior, and on that account more essential, way can be seen, attacked, and subjected, and that by this for the first time the way can be opened for a real ruling of the Lord Himself in the human mind and in the Church. This is the true significance of the rise of the new principles; but they were taken as an attack on the existing organization of the Church. By some perception everyone who considered more closely the new principles could indeed observe their all-comprehensive essence and the far-reaching significance which their effect must

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needs have on the Church in her whole essence. By the Doctrine of the Genuine True, or the genuine Doctrine of the Church out of the Word, there comes an end to all merely human government of the mind and of the Church; with the genuine Doctrine of the Church out of the Word the time of the Lord's Divine dominion dawns.

That the leaders of the GENERAL CHURCH realized the all comprehensive essence of the new position is evident from the words of Bishop Pendleton during the meetings in April. He said: '''The doctrine of DE HEMELSCHE LEER ... was universal in its scope. If right it might prove to be a great blessing; but if wrong, it would prove to be the reverse. Realizing the sweep and importance of the new doctrine, I came to see in it one of the most fundamental heresies the New Church has ever had to deal with” (p.213). It is evidently the realization of the universal nature of the new Doctrine which determined Bishop Pendleton’s attitude.

It is characteristic how the uncertainty about the truth or the falsity of the new principles repeatedly was expressed in conversations or in letters. Not only with very many laymen but also with the leaders this uncertainty was often very great. And most of them looked forward to a pronouncement ex cathedra to which they expected they could keep themselves. They were especially irritated too by the great certainty with which the new principles were proclaimed and professed. It was opposed that no one could have absolute certainty in such things, and that time would have to show; they went as far as to say that they theoretically admitted the possibility of the truth of the new principles. We read in CONCERNING THE DIVINE WISDOM: "All truth is in light, and the understanding of man is capable of being elevated into that light .... They who are in the love of the true are actually in the light of Heaven, and on this account they are in enlightenment and perception of the true when they read the Word; the others, however, are not in enlightenment and perception of the true, but only in the confirmation of their own principles without knowing whether they are true or false", n. XI, Concerning Wisdom and Faith, 2.

It seems that the thought of the far reaching effect to be expected from the new Doctrine upon the whole essence of the Church, from the beginning closed the minds of the

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leaders, so that they were not capable of examining withont prejndice the principles as to their truth.

The way in which the GENERAL CHURCH reacted upon the new Doctrines usually bears the two following characteristics. As for the voluntary: the new Doctrine caused a storm of indignation which soon consolidated into a confirmed attitude of enmity; and, in consequence, as for the intellectual: an absolute lack of insight into the true essence of the new Doctrine. It is not difficult to see that the succeeding series of misunderstandings and misrepresentations were the direct consequence of the preconceived, strongly resolved will to combat the new Doctrine with all possible means. All articles written against it show great personal irritation. The things quoted out of the Word about the difference between the natural and the spiritual state of the Church and put to light in their application to the development of the New Church, were taken as a personal attack or as an impermissible judgment. When it was realized that all efforts to prove the falsity of the new Doctrines failed, they, having been driven away from one misunderstanding after another and from one misrepresentation after another, at last sought a refuge in the resolution to kill the matter by silence. The appearance of the different English Fascicles of DE HEMELSCHE LEER was no more announced in NEW CHURCH LIFE. The subject was purposely avoided. The independent study of the Fascicles was dissuaded and counteracted. There are whole socitiesof the GENERAL CHURCH where hadly anyone ever read a page of an original presentation. Even in Bryn Athyn I found during these last meetings from direct conversation the greatest ignorance about the essential points, even among the most prominent laymen. While it is a fact that in a living Church it is a necessity of life for the leading laymen to make themselves familiar by independent investigation with all essential points of Doctrine which can have a decided influence upon the Church, I found that they had not even had in their hands the latest number of the Fascicles. And meanwhile the leaders, where questions were being asked, used their authority to make the members, of whom hardly anyone had made an independent investigation, believe that one of the worst heresies formed the basis of the whole new position, namely, the basis that man was Divine.

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Some of the principal misinterpretations which have successively been put forward are the followiug: That we thought it was possible to make Doctrine by a mere knowledge of correspondences. That we gave to the Doctrine of the Church a higher significance than to the Word itself. That the Writings of Swedenborg were not the last Revelation, and that we would open the way to other "revelators" still to come. That we arrogated to ourselves a judgment of the state of our own regeneration and that of others, and of the actual opening or not-opening of the interior degrees of the mind. That we would do away with the Lord's dominion by instituting, a human dominion, to which we ascribed Divinity.

The falsity of all these assertions was shown in a long series of rectifications. Some were gradually given up and others maintained to the last, and in spite of repeated clear rectifications, spread again and again among the ignorant members; with gradually greater decision Bishop Pendleton indicated as the main point and the very heart of the so called heresy the thesis falsely ascribed to us that we made man Divine.

In my reply to Bishop Pendleton's address "The General Church and the New Doctrine", of February 1933 (See the Fifth Fascicle pp. 123-197) I showed, point for point, that each single assertion of the address lacked all ground. It was not possible to deny that every single rectification was true - they concerned more than sixty single points of misunderstanding and misrepresentation - but it was maintained that I, by tearing asunder the particulars, had torn the Bishop's article asunder in such a way that by it the essence of his accusation was not seen and so was not unnerved either. Bishop Pendleton thought that in his next address on the subject of "The Divine within Men and Angels" (NEW CHURCH LIFE, pp. 163-173) he had anew pointed out and judged this very heart and inmost essence. One finds this expressed in the final sentence of this address: "The fact stands that the doctrine of the Divinity of man is alien to and subversive of the consistent teachings of the GENERAL CHURCH" p. 173.

It is inconceivable that anyone having read DE HEMELSCHE LEER with some light should see the thesis of the Divinity of man taught there. Our thesis was that in the

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Church there can be no genuine true unless through the Word out of the Holy Spirit. The subject, therefore, was not the Divinity of man, but the Divinity of the things which are with man from the Holy Spirit.

So far the opponents' assertions always were evident misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the new things which were brought forward. It is only very gradually, as step by step the essence of these misrepresentations was shown by us, that Bishop de Charms formulated the new positive doctrine that the celestial and spiritual are human. In one of the meetings of last April he said - these words have not been recorded in the report - that they knew quite well that we did not believe that the Divine had been infused into man; that which they considered as the essential falsity in the new position was the thesis that good and truth, which man received by influx, pertained to the Divine Proceeding, whereas according to his thesis it was a created human good and truth. In the rise and formulation of this until now unknown doctrine came to light the very spirit of the vehement opposition which the new principles met with. At last they were exhausted in misunderstandings and misrepresentations. He, who would, could see that the new principles had not been touched by them. And still they had to be checked at any price. And so this new doctrine was made.

Among the first accusations against DE HEMELSCHE LEER was the assertion that we would place a human doctrine above the Word and that we would replace the Lord's dominion in the Church by a dominion of men. But in fact the attitude of the leaders of the GENERAL CHURCH during the whole conflict was that they always laid stress on the existing organization of the GENERAL CHURCH and at last that a made doctrine was elevated to the official doctrine of the GENERAL CHURCH, to which one had to bow.

I cannot remember that I heard this theory of the human good and human truth expressed by any other persou except Bishop de Charms. Several of our opponents openly made it known in conversations that they did not accept this theory. One of the ministers said: "The bad thing of our efforts to combat DE HEMELSCHE LEER is that by it we came to this theory of human good and human truth. I do not believe in human good and human truth".

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And, indeed, this is the bad thing of the last development of this crisis. It is this doctrine of human good and human truth which caused the breach. And such are, we think, the doctrines whlch, in the above quoted number 1834 of the ARCANA COELESTIA, are associated with schisms, schisms which arise from a lack of charity. May the leaders and members of the GENERAL CHURCH soon see the true essence of this teaching clearly, before they confirm it in doctriue and life.

159 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR NOVEMBER 1937

THE LORD'S TRUE CHURCH WITH MAN

BY ANTON ZELLING.

“The wise- man replied: Virgins signify "the Church, and the Church is out of the one and the other sex, therefore we too are virgins in relation to the Church". T.C.R. 748.

“Heaven is in man; the Heaven which is without man flows into the Heaven which is in him, and is received in so much as they correspond", A.E. 12.

"That which makes Heaven with man, makes also the Chnrch; for as Love and Faith make Heaven, so also Love and Faith make the Church; consequently out of what has already been said, it is evident what the Church is", N.J.H.D. 241.

Both statements may be summarized in this truth: The Church is in man; the Church which is without man flows into the Church that is in him and is received in so much as they correspond. And concerning the Church in man we have also this statement: "That the Church, like Heaven, is in man, and thus the Church in common is from the men in whom the Church is", N.J.H.D. 246.

Meanwhile in these three statements three different concepts of the Church have been given:

I. The Church in man or the Church in particular.

II. The Church in common or the Church from those in whom the Church is.

III. The Church without man which inflows into the former.

These three different concepts of Church may be summarized in this truth: The Church in common is from the men in whom the Church is; the Church which is without those men flows into the Church which is in them and from which is the Church in common, and is received in so much as they correspond.

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The Church in common therefore is from the Churches in particular; and where two or three of such are gathered together in the Lord's Name, there He is in the midst of them, MATT. XVIII: 20. Two or three are all essential things of Heaven and of the Church as to the good and the true, thus the Love and the Faith into the Lord from the Lord; to be gathered together in His Name, is to correspond by the Doctrine of Life; to be in the midst of them, is to flow into the Church in common out of the Church outside of those Churches in particular.

The vulgar idea of church is: a group of all kinds of people - and that is practically all there is to it. For it is not certain principles on condition of which all people, the more the better, may become members, that make the Church in common; but it is the harmony of the Heavens and the Churches in particular or in each one, and the correspondence of these harmonizing Churches with the Church outside of those Churches, which makes the Church in common. Only so the Church is the human Heaven, see D. P. 30.

To a Church in common which is truly Church, that is, "which wills to be conjoined to the Lord", A.R. 620, each Church in particular or every man in whom the Church is contributes his Heaven and his Church; this might be termed his heavenly contribution, the spiritual declaration of his principle, the natural tithes of his life. It is therefore not the principles from without but the principles from within that make the smallest Church, from several of which they make the larger Church; and then by correspondence the Grand Church out of the New Heaven flows into it and makes it, the Church in common from the Churches in particular, an image and similitude of God. Externally or roughly, at first sight, those principles from without and from within may appear similar, but internally or from enlightened perception they differ just as every non-church differs from every TRUE Church of the Lord; see A.C. 29, where we read: "By the Kingdom of God in the universal sense is meant the whole Heaven, in a sense less universal the true Church of the Lord, in the particular sense, every one who is of true faith, or is regenerated by the life of faith, for which reason he is also called Heaven, because Heaven is in him".

The vulgar impure conception of church neglects the main

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point, namely the Church in man, thus nothing less than the Church in common out of those in whom the Church is; in order to reach to nothing less than the Grand Church without man, in order himself to make it, to have it, to be it - a grasping Jewish coveting of a church, as a means for dominion and possession of all₁ in a coarse semblance of spirituality, which is only the learning of the scribes. The man from himself or the merely natural man is not the Lord's, but the spiritual man is the Lord's; hence it can be said only of tbe spiritual man that he is a Church in particular; see A.C. 4292, where it is also written: "It is the congregation in common which in vulgar speech is called a church, but everyone in that congregation shall be such a man [that is, a spiritual man] in order that-there may be any Church". Note: everyone shall. Does this not throw quite a different light on the word Church? Let us therefore in our thoughts keep hold of this fundamental rule: No True Church of the Lord in common unless purely out of Churches in particular.

There are "general churches" having absolutely nothing in common with "the Church in common", although they too, to appearance, acknowledge the Lord and although there too, to appearance, there is the Word. They are not the Lord's true Church or the Church that wills to be conjoined to the Lord, for their acknowledgment and their Word do not take place spiritually, because there is no communication of the Heavens and Churches in each one, but only an external, superficial clinging together of all kinds of people from all kinds of unessential causes. They do not form societies, homogeneous, but heterogeneous clubs. A society is Society when it is so impregnated by the Doctrine of Life in each one that it may be called a spiritual home, a spiritual family, or a spiritual race, and also forms these; a Doctrine of Society truly embodied. This is to acknowledge the Lord, for to acknowledge is not to grasp only with the understanding, or scientifically, but with the understanding to desire from the heart, and thus it is to love with the life. Every society which is not ordered from the Lord by the Doctrine, is merely a club, not a Royal following, but a court clique, which fact is borne out in the least of its actions. And the more it calls itself church, the more it proves to have usurped the highest place at the Wedding Supper, the

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chief seat which belongs solely to the Church without man or out of the New Heaven. To keep the lowest place is faithfully and continuously to strive for the correspondence between the Church in man and the Church without man, which correspondence and the saving influx therefrom do not come about except after endured dejections of the soul, the crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual temptations, by which the former life of man dies, and he has thence, before the world, become as if dead, see A. R. 639. If the larger man or the society does not endure these things, selling what he has, taking up his cross, and following the Lord, he then does not see the Church and what pertains to the Church, even from afar; what he calls his church, is merely his society; what he calls his society is merely a club, and that club is merely his own small world, one special part of the world at large; as such not human, but doglike, in the sense in which the Word speaks of dogs: "Those are signified in general by dogs who are in concupiscences of every kind, and indulge them; in particular they who are in merely corporeal pleasures, especially they who are in the pleasure of eating together, in which alone they take delight", A.R. 952. Eating together here certainly does not signify the Wedding Supper, but a joint gobbling the letter to one's fill; for which reason further on in this number it is said that they are fat of mind and therefore consider the things which are of the Church as being nothing, and thus stand without and are not received in the Lord's New Church. Such take their clubs for societies, their eating together for receptions; forgetting that the saving conjunction with the Lord is "according to reception, and reception is according to love and wisdom; or if you will, according to charity and faith; and charity and faith are according to the life, and the life is according to the aversion to the evil and the false, and the aversion to the evil and the false is according to the knowledge of what the evil and the false is, and then according to repentance and at the same time the looking to the Lord", A.R. 949.

The merely natural or the unnatural idea of a church, void as it is of any perception of what society is, pays attention only to a group of people joined together; the spiritual natural idea of a Church perceives the communication of its smallest Churches, whose agreement on earth

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concerning anything they might desire is heard from the Father who is in the Heavens, so that according to correspondence the Heaven and the Church ontside of it flows into the Heaven and Church which is in it. This is a true society, this is the True Church, for nowhere but in the consociation of the Heavens and the Churches does the love of the Lord come to life in the love of the neighbour in each one. "The enlivening things cause man not to know that he is in evils", is taught in D.P. 83. Thus the enlivening things cause man not to know that he is in a non-genuine society or in a small world of the ordinary world, and thus cause him to be unable to see the Church. The inmost of love is the enlivening. For this reason the agreeable affections themselves are the ends, and in the RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY we are taught concerning the love of society: "Our inmost delectations are not delectations unless out of the delectations of others we be convinced concerning ours". Thus the inmost delectations of Heaven and of the Church in man ask for consociation; it is these that from the Lord through Heaven in each one make the instauration of the society which is called "the Church in common". This society is genuine, man after man, or inner heaven after inner heaven; and according to the genuine conjugial correspondeuce (in the Latin word correspondentia the word sponsa, bride, lies hidden) the New Church flows into it from the Lord out of the New Heaven. This is the Descent of the New Jerusalem into the lands. This is the Effect in lasts of the principles from within or of the Doctrine of the Genuine True. Principles from without or direct taking cognizance of the Word do not effect, but they cause, or rather the concupiscences of evil by means of them wish to cause, a precocious descent; the ruling desire is to be the first, to will to have the New Church itself, yea, to will to be it. And there is not even the semblance of a society: "Thou blind pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also", MATT. XXIII: 26. But the enlivening things m which the man wills to remain, cause him to be unable to see that in the evil things of the non-society there is nothing of the Church but only dry sand which still more blinds the blind eyes.

Let us pause a moment before the word evil, for it is

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purposely kept vague, on the one hand as something very naughty aud mischievous but very pardonable with us and with those dear to us, and on the other hand as something darkly criminal with those not dear to us, Boos [evil] is from the same root as "heuzelen" and "bazelen" [to dawdle away one's time, to twaddle] and thus points to emptiness, to a lack of substance. And the word euvel (German ubel, English evil) comes from Over or without [outside] - see the Dutch words overtreden [to transgress] and te buiten gaan [to go beyond the limit] - and thus points to something abnormal, or a lack of rule. For this reason the Lord says that everything that is beyond the yea-yea, nay-nay, is from evil. All the extraordinary, extravagant, excessive things in the world are from evil. An evil man, to start with, is an empty man, separated, unbound, unmarried, that is ontside the conjugial; and in his desolate emptiness he sucks away all things which are from God, beyond or outside the fixed limits. Not only does he remain outside of the Lord, and the Lord says "Abide in Me", but he draws the true and good things of the Lord to himself outside of the Divine Order, for the enjoyment of dominion and possession, forgetful of use. This is his cruel pleasure; and for this reason also every pleasure is evil with those who are empty, and who therefore tear away every object of pleasure, whatever it be, outside of the original connection in order to violate it, clamorously and wantonly. Every apparent society is the very emptiness itself; it stands without, in an outermost darkness; it believes, outside of God, on things that were from God, but which with them are so no longer. The things from God are created receptacles, but with them they are vessels profaned or dragged away from the temple, no longer receptacles but dead in themselves, or whited sepulchres full of dead bones and foulness. Dead in itself is everything which does not truly receive and is not so received. To truly receive is to bring forth, as it is written: "To bring forth signifies to receive the good and true things of Doctrine out of the Word", A.R. 542. All Commandments command that no violence is to be done to the created vessel. But only Doctrine from the Lord can teach what the recipient is and what the receiving, for "the rational is the receptacle itself of the light of Heaven", A.R. 911; and in n. 871 it is clearly stated that the Doctrine of the Church.

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which is out of the Word, teaches the reception of the Divine lJ'rue proceeding from the Lord.

That the Doctrine teaches the reception proves that without Doctrine there can he no question of reception. Between the essential reception and the reception to appearance there is a difference as between the sight of the spirit and the sight of the body. In this connection just notice this statement: "Spiritual things (spiritualia) are THINGS (res), but natural things (naturalia) are the FORMS of those", A.R. 7. The essential reception, taught by the Doctrine, perceives things for the sake of the good use of life; the unessential reception however, taught by no Doctrine, forgetful of all use, plays with only the forms of things. Thus faith alone is a philosophising with the mere and empty forms of theological things, and as such it is the worst of all philosophies, being on a line witlh the so called "doglike philosophy", taken in the unfavourable sense, namely as a merely cynical way of thinking; cynical indeed, for every reception without Doctrine stands cynically over against the Doctrine, and denies that the Spirit of God or the Divine, proceeding, or the Divine True united with the Divine Good, forms and creates the Angel in Heaven and in the Church, thus makes him according to the quality and quantity of the reception, see A.E. 24. Reception is not a dead term, but a living word, and thence inseparable from the state of life. For this reason further on in n. 59 it is taught: "Not the light of intelligence makes the Church with man, but the reception of light in heat, that is, the reception of the true in the good".

Unless it is seen in holy fear what the created recipient is, and what the reception, it cannot possibly be seen with a saving horror what is evil. and what the concupiscence thereof. Then there is no acknowledgment of the heart of the Divine Human of the Lord, thus no Church. "Therefore your sin remaineth", JOHN IX: 41.

The love of self and of the world with its misconceptions has slain the word Church into one vague generality, a cavern for thieves and murderers. So it could come about that at all times there have been men, who imagined themselves to be the Church, to have the Church,.just as those evil husbandmen who wished to seize on their lord's vineyard by killing

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his son, MATT. XXI : 38. Such are also to be likened to those who were seen in a thatched hut, and who by their common united phantasy magnified each one his grain of gold to all the riches of the realm, T.C.R. 662. The thatched hut signifies their clefty union into the imaginary society of a non-church; their phantasy, their magic worship out of cat eyed concupiscence; their compulsory contribution of one grain of gold each, signifies a principle from without, scraped off directly from the Word; to possess all the riches of the realm is to be in the insane delusion of being and having the Church; afterwards for themselves to laugh at that delusion is to prove that outside of the concupiscent vision of being and having the Church, the Church in its essence is nothing to them, so that ,they consider themselves and each other as insane.

By these same misconceptions it could also come about that the appearance of "the fall of the Churches" was confirmed into a reality. No True Church of the Lord ever fell. Therefore it is said: "That the Church when it is such and persists, endures into eternity", CANONS, Redempt. I : 5. When there is spoken of the "fall of the Church" there is the same appearance as in "the setting of the sun" - it is only the earth that averts itself. That this is an appearance and that that appearance may in no way be confirmed is taught in the following statement: " ... the fall of the Most Ancient Church, namely of its posterity", A.C. 127. The Most Ancients were a Society, with principles from within, engraved on the heart, their posterity formed the semblance of a society, with principles from without, and with concupiscences of evil from within. According to appearance the Most Ancient Church was continued in its posterity, but its sun had set long ago when the posterity slid down into the deepest hell. It is at all times the posterities which make their clefty unions of men pass for the Church itself, without even from afar examining what it is they properly understand by the Church. The concupiscence has been satisfied by the visionary drunken delusion of "possessing all riches of the realm", and beyond that the investigation does not go. Thus the word Church becomes like a water-well with its mouth stopped by a stone, and then buried under a heap of sand of scientific reasoning. And so very ponderous "church" -histories can be set up; would-be impartial considerations which

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have nothing whatever to do with the True Church of the Lord in its essential things - the Ecclesiastical things are the Celestial things. But they treat only of the unworthy descendants of the posterities, their party-strife, their political-dogmatic bickering, in which nothing spiritual took place but a sliding down ever farther into the lower earth. History essentially is all the happenings which, spiritual out of celestial origin, are woven through the entire human race from above. True Church-history is an Epic sung in Doctrines, an Epic story of the influx of the New Heaven and the New Church without man, into the Heaven and the Church within him. In short, a self-sounding image of the Glorification of the Lord, every Doctrinal Song a special state thereof. All the rest is only the self-glorying account of posterities about their apparent societies, a registration of small facts with indices and ledgers, with man-traps and catches for an idle flow of words, a kind of double bookkeeping in which one's own insignificance is measured out in full length by the insignificance of all foregoers, followers, and successors, under the watchword of the phantasts of the grain of gold: what is thine is mine. In short, histories of a world in the world, and of as little use as all official writing of history. For the sole thing which the world's history teaches is that it teaches the world nothing.

The word Church must be delivered from the dark generality, in order that the myriads of particulars one by one, state by state, may come to light, until the one Only Day has dawned in which the Church is just as full of wonderful things as the Heavens: "as in the Heavens so upon the lands".

The word Church is a celestial word, for "what with man makes Heaven, this also makes the Church". The Lord makes by the Word; thus what makes the Heaven and the Church is all things which have been made by the Word, JOHN 1 : 3. Nothing of man makes Heaven and the Church; for this reason it is said "what with man makes Heaven"; also it says Heaven first, and then the Church. This is understood in every True Church of the Lord, but in every posterity it is first inverted by degrees, then denied, and finally forgotten, so that from itself it makes, has, and is what it calls "church",

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The fact that nothing of man makes Heaven and the Church with him, is just what makes it possihle for Heaven -and the Church to be in him, in particular and in common; and that they can enter into correspondence with the Heaven and the Church without him, so that the latter accordingly can flow into the former, descend, or make a dwelling. Every True Church of the Lord, or Church from Churches, is a Tree of Lives or Love and thence Faith; this stands in the midst of the garden, that is, in the will of the internal man; for the very first which the Lord possesses with the man and the Angel, is the will; but because no one can do good from himself, the will is not man's; what is man's is the cupidity which he calls will. "Because the will is the midst of the garden, where the Tree of Lives is, and man has no will, but cupidity which he calls the will, therefore the Tree of Lives is the Mercy of the Lord, from Whom is all love and faith and so all life", A.C. 105. Since man has no will but cupidity, which he calls will, neither therefore has he understanding, but only science which he calls understanding. The enlivening things cause the man not to know that his will is only cupidity, his understanding only science; and because the affections of the will make light, but the affections of the cupidity make fire, man, once he is feverishly possessed d that fierce fire, prefers the obscurity with its glow of coals to the light. Since the will is the receptacle of Love, and the understanding the receptacle of Faith, therefore the non-will and the non-understanding, or man from himself, cannot possibly be or have the Church and even cannot possibly see anything of the Church in, around, and without man. Therefore the saying that one is or has the Church should be opposed as an abominable misconception, this being equal to imagining that one is or has the Mercy of the Lord. The cause of this ingrained religious mania is the inrooted misconception of the word Church, and this misconception flows forth from the degenerate life of the posterities which pass their apparent societies for churches. In that idea of church as of something to be or to have, the words “be” and “have” betray the unbounded cupidities of dominion and possession. These cupidities dragged down the celestial word Church, extinguished its infinite sense, so that nothing remained but one monstrous misconception from which the proprium bulges out on all

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sides. How much more worthily, that is, how much more humbly; have the true masters of all times stood before tbat which to them was the Church, that is, art. It would not have entered into the mind of anyone of them to wish to be or to have art; they served art in a way in which no attribute of Heaven or of the Church could have been served more holily. In this they showed a wisdom equalling that of the Most Ancients. For none among them would have desired to occupy a place of his own with a style of his own in art, abhorring that as an infernal profanation. Their service of art was equal to the celestial Church of the Most Ancients in this that they did not desire the proprium. For this reason that what has been written ahout the celestial man applies to the wisest among those masters: “And yet, although he does not desire a proprium; one is given him by the Lord, which is connected with every perception of the good and the true and with every felicity; the Angels are in such a proprium, and then in the utmost peace and tranquillity, for within their proprium are the things which are the Lord's, Who rules their proprium, or rules them through their proprium. This proprium is the veriest celestial", A.C. 141. Only those who do not desire the proprium can perceive what the Church is, or what with man makes Heaven, or what the celestial proprium is when the concupiscences of evil have been converted into the good affections of the Lord's will with man.

Where the Lord is, Heaven is; where Heaven is, the Church also is. Thus only the Lord is and has the Church with man. For this reason also it was said: "the very first which the Lord possesses with man and Angel, is the will". For this reason also the name Jerusalem in the Hebrew signifies "possession of peace", and the Lord is called the Prince of Peace; thus He alone is the Possessor of Peace, He alone is and has.

The question will now be asked: What then may still be said of man in respect to the Church in its diversity of senses, if it may not be said of man that he is or has the Chnrch?

With this question, half in despair and half in irritation - the human heart is a vessel of contradiction - we find ourselves placed before the as yet uninhabited Heaven of the Church itself, with the melancholy realization that scarcely anything of the Church has been realized. A daring word

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in this bad world which can at once be innocence, piety and holy indignation itself, if it finds it convenient to do so.

The man from self or the merely natural man never either has or is the Church; but the man-virgin or the spiritual man, out of the Lord's Divine Mercy, signifies the Church, which then is appropriated to him as his. Then there is no question of the gross sense of having and being the Church, but of having the Church in ones self and of the Church being in ones self: he has the Church in him and the Church is in him. Man neither has nor is Life, but he is a recipient and a subject of Life. The Angels neither have nor are Divine True things, but they signify those because they are the recipients thereof. "All good of love is out of the Lord; the man, the spirit, and the Angel are only recipients; and those who are recipients are said to signify that which is from the Lord", A.E. 19. Of the recipient it is said that he signifies. "The container and the contents, like the instrumental and the principal, act one cause", A.R. 277. Thus a cup signifies the same as is represented by the wine, the cup being the container or vessel of the wine. The recipient signifies that which is received. To signify is to correspond for we read: "That they signify, is because they correspond", A.R. 290. Man therefore is of no significance before he is a complete recipient or before he is a Wisdom, for Wisdom is the form of Love or Love in form. It therefore cannot in any way be said of man that he has or is the Church, but only that he signifies the Church; and even this only out of the Lord's Mercy, for the recipient with him which signifies is not his but purely the Lord's, and only as if his. For this reason the wise man from the Society of the Prince of the Eagle said:

"Virgins signify the Church and the Church is out of both sexes, therefore we [men] too are virgins in relation to the Church, T.C.R. 748. Let us therefore. once for all, drop "to be" and "to have" and let us direct our attention entirely to the signifying.

The recipients signify - this statement is of infinite bearing; it delivers the word Church from the prison of misconception, of which the apparent societies of all posterities are the jailers. "There are two things which make the marriage of the Lord and the Church: Love and Wisdom;

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and the Lord is Love, and the Church is Wisdom; and Wisdom is at the right of Love, for the man of the Church is wise as from himself, and so as he is wise, he receives Love from the Lord" T.C.R. 748. The good and the true of Heaven are likewise the good and the true of the Church. But of Heaven it is said that they are there conjoined, but of the Church it is said that there they shall be conjoined. "The form of Heaven, according to which all consociations and communications there are made, is the form of the Divine True out of the Divine Good, proceeding from the Lord, and man puts on this form, as to his spirit, by a life according to the Divine True", N.J.H.D. 2. This is to be Virgin, to be Recipient, this is to signify the Church. (The root of to signify in Latin is related with the idea to adhere to, to be sealed, which points to adjunction; the Dutch beteekenen is related with to show, to teach, to shine forth, to radiate, to continue, which points to the reception of light, continuously, faithfully). How the word Church now begins to be opened. The Church in man is the recipient of the Heaven in mau, a form of wisdom signifying that Heaven. And as Heaven in man is the recipient of Heaven without man, and according to correspondence receives influx therefrom, just so the Church in man in particular and in common is the recipient of the Church without man, and according to correspondence the New Church flows out of the New Heaven into that Church in man or descends into the lands. The virginal soul of the genuine man of the True Church magnifies the word to Signify as the sense itself of the word Church. That word to signify, interiorly understood, further receives life, new life, in the common language, for when we say "an insignificant man" or “what does all that signify”, then we mean that we see neither form nor contents, thus nothing which affects us interiorly. Every True Church signifies the Lord, and a Church which does not signify something of the Lord "is of no significance", howsoever Divine the principles may appear from without. The word to signify is a Psalm in itself. The significations are waves of songs, pure Celebrations and Glorifications, and the recipients who signify are the sonus communis, the crystal common sound, both Divine; for it is Love and Faith, or the Lord, that are signified, and it is the Celestial Propriums that signify. And so we come to realize that man does not

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signify the Church, before he lives the acknowledgment of the One God and repentance of life as the two essential things by which the conjunction with the Lord and salvation thence take place, see A.R. 9. In a word: to signify the Church is to live the Church.

We learn that the Heaven without man inflows into the Heaven within man, and is received in so far as they correspond. The reception regards the recipient, the correspondence regards the signifying. For that which corresponds with a thing, that same thing it signifies. How much and in what quality a man receives, so much and in that quality he signifies. And since a man can receive nothing -whatever except it be given him out of Heaven, JOHN III : 27, it is evident that it is Heaven in man which makes the Church in him, just as the New Church without him is out of the New Heaven. That Heaven in him is the very first which the Lord possesses with man and Angel, that Heaven is the Lord's will in him, dwelling in what is His, that is, in the Remains. Does not a German proverb say: "Des Menschen Wille ist sein Himmelreich" [Man's will is his Heaven]? Rightly understood this is ancient wisdom: "The Lord's Will in man is his Heaven". If man allows his concupiscences of evil to be bent around to that Will into good affections, then he is altogether regenerated. That Will in the midst of the garden, or Heaven in man, corresponds with the Heaven without him in so far as man allows that Will or that Heaven in him to make the Church in him and with him. Without a preceding or primary Heaven there is no subsequent or final Heaven. This is the sense of "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its Justice, and all these things shall be added unto you", MATT. VI : 33. And out of those things that were said about Heaven, it is manifest what the Church is, namely Wisdom, the recipient, which, while receiving, signifies Love. Unless there is a preceding or primary Church in man there is no subsequent or finally descending Church. This is the sense of the statement that man in enlightenment shall make Doctrine for himself out of the Word. Man in enlightenment, means out of Heaven in his mind opened thither; we may speak of shall when the Lord once for all possesses the will with man; this 'shall' is no compulsion but the restored spiritual free; to make Doctrine means: what with man makes Heaven, this also makes the Church; the good and the true of Heaven

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are likewise the good and the true of the Church; in Heaven the good and the true are conjoined; in the Church the good and the true shall be conjoined; to make Doctrine is to accomplish that conjunction as from one's self; for himself means: that in him there be the Church which is the recipient of Heaven in him, or the wisdom which signifies Love; for without Churches in particular the Church in common or the Lord's True Church cannot exist, and unless there be the Lord's True Church the New Church out of the New Heaven cannot descend into the lands. The Lord's True Church consists of pure Doctrines. Its Society is truly recipient, cup and platter of the Supper which receive and signify the Lord's Blood and Flesh. "Bread signifies the Lord as to Divine Good, and wine the Lord as to the Divine True, and with the recipients bread signifies the holy good, and wine the holy true, from the Lord", A.R. 316. Out of the Word means from the Lord through the Word. From the Lord through the Word all things have been made which make Heaven and the Church in man and without man.

Thus we learn also to understand something else in the words: "The time comes when there will be enlightenment", A.C. 4402. This is mest especially a word for the Church, for enlightenment is the attribute of every True Church of the Lord. A church without enlightenment is an imaginary church with an apparent heaven as aureole, doomed to destruction. Enlightenment premises a recipient, premises a subject; and for this reason the promise that the time comes when there will be enlightenment cannot regard anything but the human race in relation to the Church, as the wise man said from the Society of the Following of the Eagle Prince. To shun evil as sin is to be in the good of life, and the good of life longs for the true things, and acknowledges them and receives them, see A.R. 379. The time therefore will come when the human race will be in the good of life; in fact for whom, or for what else, could enlightenment serve. Enlightenment thus on these things: I. that the Church Is; II. what the Church is: III. what is the Church's. For there is enlightenment as soon as the recipient of enlightenment is there, perfectly and in its integrity. A recipient is not something which simply receives for the sake of receiving, and deals with it for the sake of dealing with it. That is only memory-work, merely a stowing away without anything more, the building

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of storehouses and playiug storemaster over them. A true is genuine only when it fits conjugially to the will, and a recipient is genuine only when he, being the will and understanding conjoined, signifies Love and Wisdom conjoined, because he corresponds to those by the reception. Thon the susceptible mind, from the countless things that are in the Word, is enlightened; then the Lord's Kingdom is in the lands as in the Heavens; then every Church is a True Church of the Lord, an inhabited Heaven. There is no enlightenment without Heaven being inhabited. The Lord dwells in what is His with man, provided man dwells in the Heaven of the Church; there the enlightenment is, and nowhere else. It is the Angelic which man carries about with him that is enlightened. That Angelic or the good of life should first be sought, before all things of enlightenment can be added. "Heaven is in those things which are within man, and through these in those things which are without him", A. E. 107. Every imaginary church passes over the angelic recipient, and pants for enlightenment in the super-celestial things, according to the Lord's words: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things", JOHN III : 12. Man, however, in his evil desire of knowledge will not at all believe, neither the earthly nor the heavenly things, but he wishes to circumvent Heaven and go out beyond Heaven, he wishes to penetrate into those operations of the Lord in all things of the mind or the soul in which man has no part, see D.P. 120. The earthly things relate to the recipient who, being regenerated, corresponds to the celestial things and thus signifies them. It is twice said believe, once for the true things of life, and once for the true things of faith. For this reason the Lord in that conversation with Nicodemus touches on the arcanum of Regeneration, the birth from Water and the Spirit, or from the True and the life according, which Regeneration, with the recipient, consists in the removal of the evil things in man's external. The misconception of Nicodemus regarding regeneration is characteristic of the misconception of the imaginary church: the same thing over again from the same maternal womb. This imaginary representation from the misconception of an imaginary church is destroyed by this tremendous word: "And no man hath ascended up to Heaven but He that came down from Heaven, the Son of Man which is in Heaven",

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JOHN III : 13. Which the Lord in His Second Coming explains thus: "From this it is plain that the Son of Man is the Divine True in the Heavens, for this descends and thus ascends, for no one can ascend into Heaven, unless the Divinie True shall have descended into him out of Heaven, because the influx is Divine, hut not the reverse. And because the Lord is this True, therefore He calls Himself the Son of Man Who is in the Heavens", A.R. 9807. The Divine True into him is the Church in man; out of Heaven is the Heaven in the man out of which that Church descended. That Church out of that Heaven in man is an Image and Similitude of the New Church out of the New Heaven without man, for these flow into those according to correspondence. It is in this sense that the word Church must again be made living, for it is set and grown stiff just as the muscular fibres around the lips of the Most Ancient with their posterity. "O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise", PSALM LI : 15. The lip is the Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Church is the image of the Church, see A.R. 601. The lips are not really opened unless the muscular fibres round about are loosened from their concrescence, for the Doctrine interiorly is one and all affection, one and all Divine Worship, Adoration, or Praise. The word Church has become a stiffened lip, in which the muscles have grown together.

Say the word "Church" and the vulgar natural representation at once sticks to the idea of a human, humanized institution. That idea gradually has drawn to itself the entire sense of that word, subjected it to itself. "See, what buildings", the disciples in Jerusalem said to the Lord; beyond that their idea of the Church did not go, and for this reason they did not understand the Lord's answer. It is the same thing, giving an example from human society, as with tuition. The chief thing of tuition should be to lead the simple affection of knowing, inherent with children from creation, unspoiled, up to the final end: the love of being wise. By which then the desire for truth has been led up to the desire for the good of the true, for to be in the good of the true is to be wise. However, as soon as the methods of tuition lose the final end from view, the schools no longer answer their elementary use, and they magnify a desire of knowing at the expense of the true substance of life, which is then consumed in the hot fever of the mere knowing of

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things which for the greater part are useless. The following -passage applies to the schools also: "To learn signifies to perceive interiorly in one's self that it is so, which is to uuderstand and thus to receive and to acknowledge. He who learns in any other way, learns and does not learn, because he does not retain", A.R. 618. The school as outer court of the Church had for its mission that of respecting the Remains and of opening the natural mind for them; against this mission, however, man's own intelligence directs itself which with all kinds of arbitrary systems unhooks the school from the final end, making it a purely human institution, counter to the Lord. See also "what school buildings", but in them they learn and do not learn.

The Lord teaches man by the Angels or out of Heaven, in His Word. That inmost teaching makes the True Church in man, and she is the Church in common from such. That Church in common cannot manage without an institution from Divine laws in lasts; however, as soon as that institution becomes a human establishment which renders the Word powerless, there arises compulsion and deviation fixing the attention on dead accessories; the internal life of the Church withdraws itself, and the establishment is taken for the church, or the instrumental for the principal, the means for the end. To the coming enlightenment therefore there pertains the perception of what is the instrumental of the Church, and what the principal of the Church. That coming enlightenment will therefore have to be preceded by states corresponding to Exinanitions, or Emptyings which alternated with the Unions in the Glorification of the Lord's Human in the world. In short, states of desperation and utmost despair, in which man sees nothing of the Church in himself, around himself, and outside himself; states of most profound humiliation in which he finds he is uot where he thought he was, neither he with regard to the Church, nor the Church with regard to him. That the Heavens can continually be ordered from the Lord, is because the Angels are humiliations, at once obeying every New Thing. And the Church in the lands? The Church too ought to allow of a continual ordering, because it is Heaven, equally as much, without any difference.

Can the inhuman see the Human? Can the misconception of an imaginary church see the Ecclesiastical or the

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Celestial? An imaginary church busies itself with tbe pseudo-celestial things, and passes over the earthly things or the recipients. The True Church in man is built in him, an instruction in the true threefold sense, for instructio is 1. a building in; 2. teaching; 3. a charge. An Angel signifies him who is sent, and he who has been sent is one who has received charge to give a charge. The Church in man is Instruction out of Heaven in man; the Church in man is his Doctrine, spiritual out of celestial origin. Every misconception concerning the Church leads not to a building in, but to a building next to; not in man but on the inside of his exterior man. From afar it resembles a Church in man, but it is genuine no more than an irreproachable and pearly set of false teeth in the mouth, within the mouth, certainly, but not one with it.

As soon as the formal dominates over the essential, or the management over the Doctrine, the world is there; for the characteristic of the general run of mankind is that it makes every accessory matter into a principle, every principle into an accessory matter. The principal thing of every True Church in common is the agreement of the Churches in particular, and the principal thing of the Church in man is Heaven in man. When the principal thing becomes the acoessory, then this abominable inversion arises: Seek first all super-celestial things, and the kingdom of Heavens will be added unto you. This is violation of the end, this is eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A word such as "the fall of the Most Ancient Church, namely of its posterity", opens the ears for an anxious question: What is a Church, what is a posterity? The word posterity should be regarded loose from time. According to time it is they who come after the others, the later and the last. But seen apart from time, or spiritually, it is the many who are first who will be the last. It is the posterity in this sense to whom the Lord says: "Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen", MATT. XX : 15, 16. The posterity of all the Lord's True Churches are those who are called, who for the sake of the chief seats push by the elect or those who held the last place. The cry of the LAMENTATIONS is the cry of the True Church over the

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posterity which makes it into a widow's house for the sake or devouring it under the pretence of long prayer. A widow's house is a Church left without Doctrine notwithstanding that those who are in good desire the genuine True. Through the Doctrine the Word is infinite and inexhaustible, without Doctrine the Word is a limited number of books, soon devoured. Let every Church examine itself whether it is a , Church in common, that is, a Church from Churches, or only a church of posterity; this examination corresponds , to the continual ordering of the Heavens from the Lord. With this examination each time anew, each time more enlightened, the word Church would become living in each one, full of inexpressible things as Heaven itself, and no longer lie there, unwieldy, as a whale thrown ashore. Every posterity says of itself that it is and it has the Church, and thereby it is a church against the Lord and in favour of hell. For this reason we read as the internal sense of the third chapter of LAMENTATIONS: "Description of the Lord's combats against the hells, which were especially from the Israelitic and the Jewish Church, with despair, because aJl were in the evil things and the false things thence, and against Himself", SUM. Exp. Man in relation to the Church has to recollect that the hells are chiefly from the posterity of all True Churches.

"The Church in the lands is the foundation of Heaven", A.C. 4060. "The human race is the base on which Heaven is founded", L.J. 9. The human race is therefore called the base for the foundation of Heaven, which is the Church; base and foundation must make one, or else the building is on air. This signifies that the truly human comes to man from nowhere else than from the Church in him out of the Heaven in him or from the Lord through that Heaven in which He possesses man's will. This is the root of all acknowledgment from the heart of the Divine Human of the Lord. If that acknowledgment is not from the Church inbuilt in man through the Heaven in him, it is only the lip confession of the posterity who, with a desired and enforced proprium strives after things quite different from defending the Lord's Divine Human as a MICHAEL.

"By the Michaels the men of the New Church are meant, by Michael the wise therein, and by his Angels the rest", A.R. 564. The name of Michael signifies Who like God,

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and the internal sense is: "The defence of that part of the Doctrine out of the Word that teaches that the Lord's Human is Divine", A.E. 735. The word "to defend" in the Latin signifies to repulse, to ward off, to punish, to avert, to withstand, to turn off, to keep off, to drive away, to protect, to forbid; and the Dutch "verdedigen" [to defend] is related with geding [law-suit], gericht [judgment], gerechtigheid [justice]. To acknowledge the Divine Human is to defend it; and to defend it is to ward off and punish, and to forbid as the proprium's phantasies every other divine and every other human, whose only purpose it is to render divine one's own inhuman into a human good. None is good save One: The Father who is in the Heavens; and it is out of the Mercy of His Goodness that the Church is in man and he thence becomes man, and as a wise man a Michael. To acknowledge the Divine Human of the Lord therefore is of no signification unless it is done from a Michael and his Angels; their acknowledgment is to defend, and their defence is out of this threefold power of the Word: I. the power of combating against the evil and false things out of hell; this power is the power of the Divine True of the Word from the Lord: II. the power of affecting the animi, for the Divine True of the Word affects those who read it holily; III. the power of being wise as to what God is and what is God's, for this properly belongs to man when reading the Word, see A.R. 245.

It is the spirit of the posterities which over and again weakens and extinguishes the common perception of "What is like the Church", so that nothing remains but the empty word church with respect to a dead institution in a gross natural representation, and not even the institntion but the political management thereof; just as in many countries the word "state" no longer signifies the country and the country's well-fare, but a revengeful party-triumph. Let us take as an example that well-known statement that when a Church has "fallen", it is re-established among a sincere nation. Now this question: what idea does this generally give rise to? Do the posterities through whose doing the Church fell, at once cease to take themselves for a church? and do they while the goods and chattels of the Church are being carried over to that sincere nation, even generously assist them in that carrying over? or do they go on being and

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having a church, an imaginary church because the man has been thrown out? And that sincere nation, is it in advance made acquainted with the vacancy, and after its appointment does it send round word that in future the church is with it? See, the misconception of church of itself leads to these disrespectful questions, full of doubt and denial. For that the Church is where the Word is, this the posterity too knows. For this reason there is this word in the PROLOGUE to the CANONS: "At this day nothing else than the selfsounding reason of love will instaurate, because they have fallen". The falling to appearance refers to the former Churches, but essentially to the posterities. The self-sounding reason of love is the Divine True of the Word in its threefold power; the self-sounding (Latin suisonus) refers to the sonus communis or the common sound with the recipient. The self-sounding reason of Love is the Son of Man or the Divine True in the Heavens, whose descent into man is called to instaurate. Where the Word is - the word is is generally passed over in reading, and is signifies presence, dwelling - there the Word instaurates, and there thus the Church is. For this reason we learn that the Church is not because the Word is there, the Lord is known there, and the sacraments are there, but because they live according to the Doctrine out of the Word, see A.C. 6637.

Said by way of paradox it is not the Church that opens the way to Heaven but it is Heaven that opens the way to the Church or to Heaven on earth. In this sense that it is Heaven in man that first makes the Church in man, when his natural mind, by the removal as if from himself of the evil things in the external man, stands open up to that Heaven so that the natural mind also becomes as if spiritual. Only then does the Heaven in man begin to correspond to the Heaven without man; and according thereto the Heaven without him flows in, and according thereto the New Church out of the New Heaven descends into the Church in him. Thus then does the New Church dwell in what is hers. Every True Church is to look from Heaven to Heaven, from the Church to the Church. Heaven in man corresponds to the New Heaven, the Church in man corresponds to the New Church, and when they actually correspond, the New Church descends into the lands aud rests there as an egg in its nest.

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Every misconception of the chnrch involves the refnsal to be either egg or nest, and on the other hand the wish to be and to have the bird itself; the descent is taken for an accomplished fact and the New Church for a thing sensually manifested. Here the blind faith of a misunderstood letter is ruling, from which letter it is indeed concluded that the Church is, but not what the Church is, and what is the Church's; thus the Esse is accepted, but the Existere is left aside. Between the Esse of the New Church and the Existere of the New Church or its descent into the lands there is the immeasurable arcanum of the Apocalypse, which is this:

"And I saw another Angel flying in the midst of Heaven, having the everlasting gospel to evangelize unto them that dwell on the earth, signifies the annunciation of the Lord's Coming and of the New Church that is to come down out of Heaven from Himself. By an Angel in the highest sense is understood the Lord and hence Heaven also. By another Angel the new thing now fron: the Lord is signified; by flying in the midst of Heaven, is signified to look down upon, to look through, and to foresee [or to provide for], here for the new thing from the Lord out of Heaven in the Church; by the everlasting gospel is signified the annunciation of the Coming of the Lord and of His Kingdom; by them that dwell on earth the men of the Church are signifies, to whom the annunciation will be made”, n. 626. Here the Divine Instauration of the New Church is described, how from Esse it comes to Existere with the men of the Church, or with those in whom the Church is, with them only and with no others, which is indicated by the words to look down upon, to look through, to foresee. In man there must first be the Church before the New Church out of the New Heaven can descend into that as this new thing now. Hence the statement that the Church which is the New Jerusalem is first among few. Among few in the literal sense, merely quantitatively, signifies a small number, but in the spiritual Sense those words purely qualitatively indicate those in whom the Church is. A man then, in whom the Church is, has become truly man, for in him the man from creation has been redeemed and regenerated to a new Image and a new Similitude of God. Between this man and the man from birth there is no ratio, no more than between the essential and the unessential, between the genuine and the non-genuine; no

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ratio, but a contrast, And apart from person "few" signifies the first purely spiritual rational principles of Doctrine, just as the simple fibre of acelestial nature. For in the Church in common or in the True Church the male son or the Doctrine of tbe New Church is born, which precedes the instauration. And the flight into the desert "where she hath a place prepared from God, that they may nourish her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days, signifies the state of that Church then, that, meanwhile, there may be provided for it with many, until it grows to its statute", A.R. 547. To grow to its statute is until the Church, as has been provided, exists. And it is expressly said in this number that before this growth can take place "the New Heaven must first be formed which is to be made one with the Church in the lands". The foundation of the New Church is a most profound arcanum, it is an Instauration from the Lord, and an Organization from above, or a synthetic Organization; from the Soul the Body, and not the reverse. The New Heaven which must first be formed is from them with whom the true things of life have not the least more or less, but entirely and completely, become of life; and in this, that Heaven makes one with the Church in the lands. This is what has to be awaited and watched for, omniprovidentially. Therefore we read: "The instauration of the spiritual Church from the Lord or the regeneration of the man thereof", A.E. 281. Instauration is regeneration.

With the Lord's Coming into the world the Jews in their expectation of the Messiah looked beyond the golden present to a vague, empty, idle future. With the Lord's Second Coming the reverse may happen, namely a looking in which the sure golden future is overlooked and a vague idle present is swollen up to all the riehes of the realm. "The time eomes when there will be enlightenment" signifies that the New Chureh whieh Is, will come to its Existere in the lands, that is, in the Churches in the men or in the Church in common. All things of the New Church will be added unto those who have first sought and found the Church in themselves. That Chureh in one's self is formed by all things which fit the will; those things together with the will form as it were that fruit-egg on the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, a Paradise in Paradise, which, as we read in the WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD, awaits the fecundation from the Lord to bring forth Adam, the first

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begotten son of the earth, n. 33. The time comes when this Book will be perceived and lived as the Birth of the Church in the rational and spiritual animal: in man. For: "Conjunction with God is salvation; everyone sees it who believes that men are from creation images and similitudes of God", D.P. 123. The great lamentation is this that the man from creation, created in order to join nature to Life and Life to nature is not believed. The man from birth is the posterity of the man from creation, from whom he stole the rational and spiritual Angel's wings and also the animal landscape. Interiorly there will again grow wings to the man of the New Church or to Michael, and exteriorly there will grow his particular landscape from which he never departs, because therein he is in his appropriate element, as the deer in the forest, the bird in the air, the fish in the water. This landscape is the New Earth for Michael and his Angels. Then also the love for the country will regain a new natural sense, as living, animated, and holy as never before. As the world covers the earth, so in man the man from birth covers the man from creation. This is the great lamentation of all times and places that the posterity claims the right of primo-geniture. Therefore remember this well: the man of the New Church or Michael is again, that is, anew, or from the new, the man from creation or the son of the earth, crowned from the Lord with the Crown of the Churches to be king over the three kingdoms of nature, in an integer Society on earth which is the jewelled foundation of the celestial Society.

As soon as man imagines that the New Church is there, that he has the Church and is the Church, unmindful of whether the Church is in him, he proves himself posterity wishing to climb in from elsewhere in order to obtain the super.celestial things. He purposely passes by the Door of the Doctrine. Doctrine is of the Church which is formed in man-from the Lord out of Heaven in him. Love from the Lord is Heaven in man; the love to the Lord is the Church in man. The agreement of those Heavens and of those Churches in the lands forms the Church in common which in the Word is caressed by the sweet words vera, the true, intim, the inmost, universa, the entire, sola, the only. To this Church applies the looking down, the looking through, the foreseeing. Into it the New Church out of Heaven des-

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cends, in it the Esse of the New Church comes into Existere, that is, to a continual coming into existence, or into an endless ordering for infinite new beatitudes. And thence the human race will be transformed into pure Michaels and his Angels; Michaels with regard to the Internal Church, his Angels with regard to the External Church. This lies implied in the promise that the time will come when there will be enlightenment, for if thereby the final End of Creation were not irresistibly to be accomplished, namely not only a Heaven out of the human race, but also a human race or a Church out of Heaven, there would not be any power inherent in that enlightenment. But nevertheless the power is nothing without the might. And the might lies with the recipient. It might he said that the True Church in the lands consists of pure cup-churches into which the New Church out of the New Heaven flows down as Divine Church-wine.

Truly, the word Church too is a wheel that has to be lifted up from the earth when the creatures are lifted up from the earth, see EZEK. I : 15-21. What is the Church in relation to the Lord, and what is the Church in relation to the man-virgin? What is the Church in relation to the manChurch, and what is a church in the eyes of a churchman, a member of the church in the vulgar sense? To acknowledge the Divine Human is to defend it, to defend it is to be a Michael, and a Michael, no other but he who himself signifies what he defends. If this were not the case, man's regeneration would not be a faithful image, feature by feature, none excepted, of the Lord's Glorification, thus both of the Exinanitio and of the Unio. Lots of fools defend what they have nothing to do with, in which they have no part whatever; the world's history and the religious wars are full of such. This is no heroism, but a reckless fanaticism, which is of no significance at all. The time comes when there will be enlightenment, this also signifies: the time comes when there will be Michaels. There was a time that Attila and his Huos as the scourge of God came to devastate a christianity of fallen posterities of the Primitive Christian Church; reversely, when the time of enlightenment has dawned, Michael and his Angels as a blessing of God will come forth from all sides to defend and protect the Church of the Lamb in its final descent. Only a new human race can be the basis

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for the New Heaven, and it is this which, in the current misconception of the word "Church", is forgotten. A new human race is a truly human race; and this, as Church, is the foundation for Heaven, because it is in the wisdom out of the reception of the light out of Heaven from the Lord. The men of the New Church or Michael and his Angels are of that human race, and of them it is that the Word says:

"For these are the things that have been written in the set of two Works the one concerning the DIVINE PROVIDENCE, the other concerning the DIVINE LOVE AND DIVINE WISDOM, in which it has been shown that the Lord Himself is in men according to reception, and not any Divine separated from Himself", A.R. 949. This remarkable place clearly explains: The Word is not understood by just any churchman, but only by the man-Church. The Church is Church out of the Doctrine, Religion is Religion out of the Life following the Doctrine; the Doctrine is in Religion as the theoretical in the practical; to be affected by the former and the latter for the sake of the good use of life, see A.C. 9297, is to be in faith from the Lord. This the man-Church or Michael at once perceives, this the churchman or the posterity will never understand.

When with man the interior and the exterior are one, so the Doctrine has taught us, man from the Lord receives an Internal and an External. The interior and the exterior forming one, signifies the Church in man; the Internal and the External is the Lord in the New Church. Such are the men of the New Church, or purely Michaels and the Angels of his, not desirous of any proprium that feels itself, and therefore gifted by the Lord with a celestial proprium. With such there is an instauration of the New Church; not they organize anything whatever, but the Lord organizes them, with them, by them. For them "organization" is spiritual from celestial origin. For "the Church is firstly instaurated in the Heavens from the Lord, and afterwards through the Heavens in the lands", A.R. 816. It is Life which instaurates and thereby institutes the organ for the reception of life, erects it, re-establishes it, renews it. The instauration is the essential, the organization is the formal according thereto. The instauration regards the recipient, the organization regards the Life, the one looks down, the other looks on high. Organization alone is an external without an internal,

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indeed with things from the Lord but without the Lord therein; neither Life, nor recipient; instead of Life selfinterest, instead of the recipient the person. For this reason so much is organized in the world, sham and shallow things; not organizations, but machinations. The genuine synthetic angelic organization looks from the Lord to the Lord; it is organization instaurated by the Lord, of the recipients of Life, constantly with holy fear mindful "that what is from the Lord remains the Lord's with the recipients", A.R. 758. On this account it does not grow into concrescence, but stands open to the Lord. Organization in the genuine sense is a complete Doctrine of Charity in its full, glorious, virtuous effect. It is the cooperation as if from one's self in common; it is the Canons of the new Society, of the Angelic Nobility, grown to their statute.

Organization is an ordering of consociation, and there is no consociation without Doctrine of Society, Doctrina Societatis, which precious word occurs in an outline for an anatomic treatise in the Scientific Works (see the so-called Philosopher's Notebook, p. 263). A True Church of the Lord is a Church in common from men in whom the Church is. This is a heavenly society. A church from men in whom is no Church, is an imaginary church. This is a worldly club, which, as said, openly appears from their whole demeanour. The New Church which is, can scarcely, when descending, accommodate and apply itself to such in order that it may exist in that which is not the Lord's. Unless this is seen the genuine soil for the Lord's True Church is not there; and that soil is deepest humiliation (humiliatio comes from humus, soil), is the very lowest seat at the Wedding Supper. Of the Ancients it is said that in the tenderest conjugial love they begat children in the blessed thought that the Lord was to be born on earth from a human mother. Just so the genuine conjugial love shonld leap up in us with joy at the thought that the hereditary evil in future generations will be brought to a standstill and to retrogression, so that from the human race there will arise the Michaels and the Angels of his into whom by degrees the New Church will descend. Our hereditarily evil life conception in relation to the Lord's True Church must become less and have altogether disappeared before the Only Day can dawn from the East. To think this and to live accorcding thereto, continuously and faithfully, is

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the blessedness of not experiencing that thing but nevertbeless believing. To think this and to live according thereto with unwavering patience, is not to be a posterity but the forbears of the True Church; the least and the last thereof, but who are to have their blessed part in the glory of her greatest and first, that is, of the Lord in them, Who Is. WAS, AND WILL BE the All in all tbings of that Heaven-Church. For the New Church can truly testify: "Before the Ancient Church was am I".

189 DE HEMELSCHE LEER

EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR DECEMBER 1937

CONCERNING FAITH

By H. J. BROUWERS, CORONATION, ALBERTA, CANADA.

The church is a Church out of the Lord, exactly as Heaven is out of Him. When a church comes to the point of being administered by the intelligence of a world culture, it may be called a church in name; but in reality it is this no more. It is then what the Lord calls a cave of murderers. The good and true which belong to the Church can retain their loving and enlightening power only when at all times they look to the Lord. When love grows cold, light will grow dark also. And this will be a disaster for the whole church, for thereby it will run into the danger of becoming spurious. For just as the Holy Spirit is present in the warmth and light out of the genuine Doctrine of the Church, so likewise, hell is present in the cold and darkness from a falsely so-called philosophy. In the Third Testament the knowledge belonging to the New Church is made plain to the understanding so clearly, that one must he an evil man indeed not to see this. But just as always there have been people who embrace what is infernal, so likewise there are always people who seek their pleasures in deviations. The good and true that now is revealed to us must remain free from man's Own explanations. The good and true of the Church is of use to man only when those things are received in a simple and honest heart. One may wonder that there are always people, and, alas, the largest part of the human race is such, who, it seems, wish to explain the Bible to God, and who accept and reject for themselves whatever pleases their natural. Only the good and true that belongs to the Church can create Heaven in man. No other way or other means can be given. Since the Church is out of the Word (and the Word is the Lord), a denial of the one is a rejection of the other. The self-righteous will deny this, of course. But this does not detract from the fact that they who wish to follow

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another way than is indicated in the Word, close the Heaven of the Angels to themselves. All Doctrine out of the Word and the Church ought to be accepted as the Lord points it out as with His Finger. But how can people, who have the flesh and the world in their hearts, see even one genuine truth in the Third Testament? This is utterly impossible on account of their darkness and their evil heart. For the spirit of man, when reading, will find nothing else than what he loves; a goodman the good, and an evil man the evil. For as soon as the evil see something that is out of the Lord, they distort it to their own desires.

In the Christian world, no faith which truly brings good to man can be from any other source than from the Lord Jesus Christ. The essence of faith certainly must be genuine if faith is to be a power. Through faith out of the Word of the Third Testament, the genuine rational gives an inspiration. The Lord has come this day with great Power and Glory in His Word, and all who see this are hardly able to contain their gladness over this great event.

No man needs to try to justify himself outside of faith. For except for God, what is there in himself or outside of himself for man to lean upon or to trust? It is the genuine true out of the Lord which alone can be the power of a man. Peter already said it: "Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life". God's pure Spirit cleanses and men are justified therefrom. Justification can never be from man himself; not even in his cooperation with the Lord; it is all the Lord's. The Lord is to be known and acknowledged in all our doing and thinking. We never must lose sight of the fact that He alone is our justification. All that the Lord teaches must be accepted without reservation. The Lord is God from Eternity. This should be accepted with holy fear. And through faith, God will give a genuine rational, so that we will understand things of which we never have thought. God gives to him who has, and all is His.

God is in all men, otherwise man could not live. But in the faithless and those who believe wrongly, He is not consciously present because acknowledgment of Him is necessary thereto. The Lord then seems not to exist, or to be far away; and this, because of the wrong state of their spirit as a consequence of a wrong faith from a wrong life. The Lord comes nearer when He is known and is also

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acknowledged. Man is in the Lord when he, believing in the Lord, also keeps His Commandments. For only then is there conjnnction between onr spirit and the Lord, when we also keep the Commandments even as the Lord Himself did. If not, there is separation. In the perfection of faith, however, men become Sons, and He will make them into a Kingly and Priestly generation.

Nothing can ever be attained unless the reqnired conditions are fulfilled. This is also true with respect to the things which concern faith. Everything may be obtained from God, just as He Himself says that for all things one is to pray and it shall be given. But praying and expecting is in vain, when man's spirit has not been brought into correspondence. All that brings man into a state of fulfillment is written in the Third Testament. It is to live and also to think and to feel according to the true that has been learned. To this knowledge man should add daily by regular reading.

Everything that belongs to the preparation of a happy state of faith has been revealed. All who morally can distinguish black from white have the ability and power to bring this about. When there is no wish to make use of these means, one has one's self to blame for a discontented and disconsolate life here on earth. God has commanded that His rights are to be kept. But one is free to accede or to deviate. Our spirit is in a complete equilibrium because we are between Heaven and hell. Therefore it is our duty to believe correctly and to live the life of faith.

What we learn and what is spiritual belongs to the internal man. The effect of the things of faith belongs to the external man. The internal man is regenerated first and thereafter the external man. Thus it is seen that the external must be subject and obedient to the voice of the internal man, who is spiritual. This will be the case when the external man shuns sins as offensive to God. The whole process which concentrates itself in the effect must be brought forth from the inmost genuine rational and the internal spiritual. For even though the fruit is harvested in deeds, still it is always the invisible in us that believes. This is wrought in our spirit, that is in the will and the understanding. It is necessary that good should reign in our intentions if we are to have a happy life down here, and if we are to be blessed

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in the hereafter. When internally within us this wonderful principle, charity, animates with its power the external man, it will create a state that is like paradise. But again, it is always the difficulties of the flesh and the world that injure the conditions that make it impossible for this state to last permanently. With supernatural power, which the Lord alone has, what is inferior will finally be forced to leave the field. Not our will, but His Will be done. Every day we must be inclined to die as to the useless. And with praying and fasting, we will become more than victors.

God operates according to laws whose order is laid down in all that is created. It is impossible for God to do anything against the order of these laws. Every moment the order of God's creation has in itself the influx of the Divine power. To change the order of His laws, would mean a change in the Divine Essence, which is impossible. It is God's will that all men shall come to the knowledge of salvation. When therefore that knowledge is used well, it can be no otherwise than that man must be regenerated and become an inhabitant of heaven. On the other hand, when one lives evilly, it can be no otherwise than that one becomes a slave of hell. It is well said that he who does evil is a slave of sin, and that he who does good even though he often must force himself thereto, is a freed man of the Lord. It should not be forgotten that the Lord, when He was on earth was ohedient to all laws; from the Divine laws down to the natural ones. He is our great Example; He who resisted temptation even unto shedding His Blood and dying. Self-compulsion to use is normal. And since out of one's self there is no love of good, this must be exercised from God. In the regeneration of every single man the Lord shows in the reading of the Word, as with His Own Finger, the necessary true and good. Nobody can teach us as the Lord does in His Word.

The blessing of genuine faith was never felt by anyone who did not acknowledge the Lord as God. With the acknowledgment of the Lord as God, the natural opens itself to the spiritual internal. It is from this alone that man feels blessedness, rest, and peace. Where it is difficult to have faith, or where there is none at all, there·always lie certain sins at the bottom as the cause. A good and honest heart always will believe with ease. The internal man consists

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of things that concern the eternal, and his external of scientific things. Wherefore when the internal looks to the world, the Angels cannot remain with such a man. He attracts spirits who are such as he is himself, that is, without the genuine true and the genuine good. In order for man to become spiritual, substances are necessary which must inflow. This can never take place, when the conditions that must be obeyed are not fulfilled. The spirit is an organism, and we must will and think according to the things that have been provided.

Faith of life, which is of light, can be obtained only by going to the Lord. To this end the Lord has given the Word with its three Testaments. The Word treats only concerning Him, His Kingdom, and all that is concerned therewith. The Word ought not to be judged according to the appearance, for then the internal spiritual and celestial are not seen. There, in the internal, is the Spirit of the Lord, and through both knowledge and acknowledgment therefrom, one comes to the Lord. This is a spiritual reality to those who experience this in their life. It is a fact of truth.

Because the things that make the faith of man are spiritual things, and all of them stand in connection with God, yea, are God, so likewise the Lord Himself is Faith. If the Lord's Spirit, that is His Life, is not in faith, faith cannot save. Faith exists from all substances that make an Angel out of a sinner. Faith, therefore, is a power, and we speak in consequence of our Holy Faith.

Thus it is to be understood tbat it is absolutely necessary to go to tbe Word in order to have faith formed in one's self. Faith is formed in us, when we take up truths out of the Word. The faith of everyone is according to the truths that he obtains from the Word, whioh he loves, and which he thus appropriates to his character. The truth that is of God, then makes faith alive. God is Life. He who orders his life according to the Word, fares well as to the spirit and, as may be observed, he seldom fares badly as to the flesh, For anything becomes real in a character wheu it is lived. Religion, therefore, must he an experience, and it must be woven in us throughout. In so far as we live the faith, we possess it, and we profit therefrom. Faith without the living thereof and thus without the experiencing thereof is outside of the spirit and is useless. If faith is holy

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out of God's Holiness, it is also blessed from God's Blessedness. Wherefore it caunot be otherwise than that they who incorporate faith in their life are blessed therefrom. It will not be all at once that that blessedness is felt. But when there is righteous faith from an honest and good heart, it will not take many years before it has become an experienced fact. The time depends on resignation and many things such as the duration and the character of a person's previous sins, his unwillingness to believe, his despisal of the pure Doctrine of the Church, his obstinacy in living wrongly, acting deceitfully, committing adultery, being revengeful, and so on. And all those previous sins must not be committed again if one is to give up one's self and is to acquire an influx from Heaven. Thus self-conversion is necessary; for it is sins alone which stand in the way of the Kingdom of the Heavens.

The purpose of faith must be that it save man's soul. We ought, therefore, to have a saving faith. This must be so clear from the truths that are learned, that it leaves no room for doubt. 'Where a man doubts if his faith is a saving faith, there the truth lacks light. Every truth has its own light. But if there is no light, it is either not the genuine true, or the man has no desire for the spiritual. Saving faith acknowledges God, and therefore His Word. Saving faith is taught from the Third Testament, and it lives according to its precepts. Here is that hidden thing that can make man free. That they who possess the true Doctrine should use it every hour of their life, is the wish of the Angels.

To those who understand nothing of the Word, it seems as if the Word contains little, while in truth it has a great depth. It is to be compared to a gold mine, which is a rock from the outside; but inside_, in the measure as one penetrates deeper, it contains nobler gold. They who read the Word in faith and live according thereto notice that they have a better insight therein than before, when they reread places in the Word that previously they had passed by. This is because the enlightenment in their spirit has increased.

All the truth that a person learns, acknowledges, and accepts, is kept forever in his spirit. There is always enlightenment therefrom, as well as leading and protection, and this indeed through charity. The truths which thus

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have been received from God, gather themselves together into bundles, and these again into series. On account of this it is that everyone appropriates to himself a Doctrine from the Word. This is the work of God alone. The Lord brings all that man has acknowledged into an orderly disposition.

From this it may be seen how faith is perfected. Faith is composed from the true that is believed. Without the genuine true from the sense of the Letter no faith is possible. By occupying one's self with the Word daily a treasure is gathered, no one knows how. When the acquisition of the truth takes place according to order, there is coherence, so that one truth supports and illuminates another. Where it is believed falsely, there is no coherence. All that inflows into man from Heaven strives after the human form. But when truth is falsified, a monstrous form comes into being, wherein all things lie twisted up and topsy-turvy. From such a degenerated form nothing but evil can come forth, for all that is brought forth is according to its own form.

Truths are indefinitely diverse. If it is known that all truth is of God, and that everyone receives from the Lord what He gives, it may be seen how wrong it is to make a fight. No one has the right to deprive anyone of his faith and to force his own upon him. All truth is one in God, and all truth that is genuine is out of the Word. All who believe rightly are in God. And this infinite diversity is the fullness of God. He, therefore, who deprives someone of his fainh, has stolen from God, for in man faith is of God. Everyone possesses in his own mind more than one truth indeed, these truths also are all diverse. This leads not to disagreement but to harmony and perfection.

It is strange that unknown truths often produce a repugnance when they are learned for the first time. This is because we still have our life fixed according to our own old way. As soon as man sees that he must relinquish his proprium, he wants to draw back. But every good Christian wIll overcome his antagonism, knowing full well that God's truth is to be trusted and that it brings prosperity.

Man has been created an image of God, therefore it can be no otherwise than that the true that is read can also find a place in the spirit of all. Naturally, man must himself arouse these things, for upon this regeneration depends. Never should one doubt anything that God teaches; every

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year faith must become stronger in us. God provides in everything and He can do little good to man if we do not open our mind and do not walk in the way. The Kingdom is not so very far away from us; in a man's lifetime the whole process of r.egeneration can be completed. Nothing is lacking to him who believes as the Word teaches. For faith finds its reality from internal love.

Just as charity belongs to faith, faith belongs to charity. It is charity from which faith has its life. The inclination to truth opens the spirit so that it is seen to be true from the Lord. From this a genuine rational is born in man, whereby one is enabled to draw Doctrine for one's self from the sense of the letter. It is from charity, which is nothing else than to will well because the Lord commands it, that one comes into enlightenment, and throngh this becomes aware of the internal sense. The internal sense is nothing but love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor. It is through charity that the love is found that is hidden in the letter. They who are not well inclined toward truth, because they are not in charity, cannot see the internal sense. When the internal sense is pointed out to such people, they deny it. This rejecting of the internal includes also a denial of the Divinity of the Lord. When according to one's ability one has been faithful to the external, the Lord, in His own time, will entrust man with His internal. He who misuses the natural external never receives the spiritual internal. He who denies the pure internal, him God will deny also by taking from him the external sense which he thought to possess.

In the beginuing of the first Christian Church it was not foreseen that later on faith would be separated from charity. For this monstrous error man, has paid with his happiness. This is the origin of all falsifications in science, wrong education, agressive militarism, and so on. Our blessed God, who is Love in essence, can give blessedness to men only through their reciprocal, thus through reciprocal love. What is there more to be desired than to be happy, and to remain happy? Our experiences in youth teach each one of us through disappointments, adversities, and difficnlties, that our happiness cannot be entrusted to visible temporal things. If in our period of youth we will only put aside our proprium, and will not harden ourselves in bitterness and

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evil we can come quickly to better experiences, - internal experiences. From the beginning the Lord has taught especially concerning love, because this is the only means for man to become an Angel. The New Church will give love the high place it deserves; for this Church, being a spiritual organization, cannot do otherwise.

When the Church developes her Doctrine, the members should direct themselves accordingly. Not many people can develope much doctrine for the Church itself from the Word through their own ability. God, therefore, places in His Church men whom He has caused to be born thereto. It is then a duty for the members to follow and to obey the Doctrine of the Church, over and above the Doctrine which they draw for themselves from the Word.

Man must acquire for himself the truth that makes faith. For it would be of no value to man's life if the things that make faith were brought into his spirit without his will and understanding. Faith is a free matter, and must be acquired through everybody's free choice. Compulsion in matters of faith leads to nothing. The Middle-Ages have demonstrated this. Faith belongs to the freedom of man, and without this freedom no one can be regenerated. We read that the Lord makes us free through His Truth, therefore this freedom must be received in freedom also. Everyone, if he wills, can read and obey the Word. No power from hell can forbid him this. Everybody can love the true out of the Scripture, and everybody can apply in his life the true that he understands. The Lord protects the soul of everyone against violence in the acquisition of genuine faith. An evil spirit cannot come near when someone studies the Word with a good inclination. He who reads the Word out of a good heart surrounds himself, without noticing it, with strong spirits whom not a single devil dare attack because of the Lord's glory. The genuine good that is in us has power over evil even in its beginning. A little from the Lord is much.

From his own free will man can make the true of faith his own, and this by working wholly in obedience and charity. Man will then have made into an experience the deliverance from all suffering and plagues of the world. Man must choose between the Lord and the devil. Just as one has the power to make the true one's own, so likewise one

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can make falsity one's own. When one thing is not done, it cannot be otherwise than that the other is done. Onr internal is always under the inflnence of the spiritnal world. Therefore, when there is no reception of the higher, the lower flows in. The Lord provides that at some time in his life everyone shall be acquainted with the seriousness of his spiritual state. Upon such moments depends the decision as to whether one will be eternally happy or eternally unhappy. The years in which that decision is made are but a handful, as a rule between the twentieth and fortieth years. It fills every earnest man with dismay when he sees how most people let the opportunity to know God's will pass unused. Because of their restlessness and dissatisfaction such people can do nothing but go to false christs, who, lying, promise them all things, yet leave them in the grasp of sins.

It is of vital interest to acquire charity for one's self if the truth of faith is to become a spiritual property. It is only necessary to desire it from the heart, and it is given out of Heaven. That God commands it in the Word is with many not reason enough to wish it from the heart right away. In man's regeneration love to God, in its highest state, does not become a reality until later. When, through actual exercise in life, charity has come, man will exercise the good of charity for its own sake, prompted by the sweet indwelling of love and the proceeding certainty of a heavenly existence.

It is commanded that faith and charity are to be acquired for one's self. Since it is commanded, this is possible. We have obtained the power for the appropriation in freedom of faith and charity. To those, who have not yet made use of this freedom, it seems as if no such thing exists as the inflowing power of God. But does not the Lord teach in His Prayer, "For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory". Everywhere then, wherever that truth is accepted which He offers to all, there His Power is present. For the one thing includes and contains the other. In everything that proceeds from God, God is in His fullness, precisely as in that which goes forth from man, man is in his fullness. In man's speaking and acting is his whole spirit. We were made into a likeness of God, whence it is that all that the Lord gives, man feels as his own. If this were not so, man would lose his freedom and consciousness

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at the in flowing of God; however, exactly the opposite is the ease, namely I we feel more freedom, and we enjoy a life more our own, more conscious, more distinct. Obedience alone, through trusting surrender, will bring about this eternal glory for us.

When we have acquired faith and charity, then we should acquire also for ourselves the life from those things. For the things of faith and of charity have been given to be lived. They may be possessed apparently without the possession of life therefrom. The truth of faith and the good of charity are lived when they are used. What has been learned, comprehended, and acknowledged, must be aroused through exercising as often as possible. A gently disposed man will always make his labors useful. Everyone who makes an endeavor toward regeneration knows his difficulties; every heart knows its sorrowful pain. But when we know that there is no sorrow in our Blessed Lord that, therefore, nothing sorrowful can come forth from Him, then we see as in the clearness of day that the things that are surrounded by a spbere of damnation come forth out of our old sinful proprium. The whole process of regeneration is to break down the proprium and to build up the Divine. If you are not happy, do not seek the cause thereof outside "of yourself, but in your lower self.

Spiritual life must be received in the natural if it is to have existence. It is according to celestial order that the highest and higher is within in lower things, and the lower becomes a form of its higher essence. If one wishes to be regenerated, the natural should apply itself to the higher and internal. The natural must be taught, directed, and inspired, by the spiritual out of the Word and the Church. A fundamental willingness to obey all that is taught is absolutely necessary hereto. Without an affirmative, loving, attitude toward truth and good no inflowing from on high is possible. Highness is in us, for the Kingdom of the Heavens is in us. And where the will of the proprium is resisted, it cannot be otherwise "than that a higher measure of Divinely blessed love flows in. Humility brings peace into man's house. He has found the means to commune with God alone. He feels the Lord'" presence, and he is answered when he asks. The great God always continues to serve those whose faith goes beyond the external.

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When man begins to believe, his faith is natural. It cannot be otherwise. But when man is righteous in all things over which he is to take care in this unrighteous world, the spiritual of faith soon will come to him. In the beginning of man's faith, all the wonders which the Lord has wrought are believed from an affirmative heart. The reward for this is a state of peace. When man has acquired experience by the application of his unripe, young, faith, he quickly becomes aware that it is not well to remain a child in faith. When on account of being too gullible he often is deceived by the world, he starts to distinguish between men and men and begins to see what is good and evil in them and in their things. By faithfully making use of the things of faith, the Lord gives him a genuine rational; and being protected through the enlightenment thereof, he cannot easily be deceived or misled. And when he continues to go forward in repentance and growth with regard to the things shown him in himself, the Lord implants in his spirit the spiritual principle that places him for good above the natural and sensual. And proceeding still further he can reach even the celestial principle. Thus, according to the ability he has, man begins with a natural faith, and our faithful God draws him out of the mire of sins to the highest heaven.

In the degree that faith and charity become more spiritual man will live the new things more and more for the sake of truth and good itself. He now commences to experience that the Lord's blessing enriches much more than any worldly reward, and that no sorrow is added to these riches. Because he has experienced it repeatedly he now knows that salvation has in it more promises than the flesh and the world can give. It is the new religious sense of life out of the blessedness of love that is powerful to save one from hell. For the angels who are with us partake of the new life that is felt. Already the right of citizenship in heaven is lived on earth.

The Lord is Life and gives life. Now, when charity is separated from the acknowledgment of the Lord as God, that charity has no life and remains natural. It is the same with faith. Where faith does not acknowledge the Lord as God it is dead and earthly. As the lungs belong with the heart, even so faith belongs with charity. But both of these must be in the Lord, if they are to have the true life.

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For as the heart and lungs are dead when the spirit is not in the body, so faith and charity also are oead when the Lord does not dwell therein. The indwelling is there where a good and honest heart, free from all opposition, has the deciding voice with man.

That all that man possesses in himself comes from without into him is truly a proof that one does not have life from one's self. And how is it that they that refuse all that the Word and the Church teach often feel so miserable? It is because they have in themselves the things that are from the shadow of death. To feel miserahle is a state in ultimates. It is the effect of a cause. What and whereof is that cause? Here the genuine rational comes in to seek and to find. To him who uses his intellectual power well it will be given to see the cause. But one must be humble for that. As long as anyone tantalizes his neighbor with his haughtiness, the Lord will reveal nothing to him. And is it not a sad fact, that when the genuine true and the loving good from .the Word is shown to those who desire to remain in their natural lusts, that they ridicule this. Therefore, the Lord will not be able to answer them when fear and anguish overtake them. Such are vessels that do not hold water and will be broken to pieces.

Where God inflows, he is present with His whole essence. He flows in with both His Love and Wisdom. Everyone can take thereof as much as he himself chooses. He only has to acquire receptacles that can retain these costly things. As it is often written in the Third Testament, this is done by shunning sins as offensive to the Lord, and by entering npon a new way. That everyone takes from the inflowing love and wisdom his own portion for his enjoyment may be seen in the body. Children take less air into their lungs than adnlts and yet both are surrounded by just as much air. It is the same with what proceeds from the Lord. It is with us in superabundant measure; everyone takes therefrom according to the needs of his spirit. It goes without saying that they who do not believe in the Precepts of the Word, create in themselves, by their wrong habits, vessels that cannot take this up. The fault is with them alone. A separation of concupiscences, a trust in the Lord's promises, will give a desire for the spiritual that surpasses all fleshly pleasures. To believe is to do what

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the Lord commands, and to remove all that obstructs.

The Lord, who is present everywhere, wills to be received by all in His Love and Wisdom. From himself man has been born a form of hell. He is in all the lusts of the sins of many preceding generations. Hence, if God's Essence wherein His holy Life is, is to be received, it is most necessary that conversion and reformation of the understanding be brought about. Where there is a good will, even before anyone has been regenerated, the Lord gives a state of rest and peace. But this state mnst grow into a strong root of a strong tree. To this end temptations and combat are necessary. Even Peter foresaw, after suffering, the victory over hell when he said, "Brethren, rejoice when ye enter into temptation". The Lord teaches us to pray: "Lead us not into temptation". This like all other words the Lord has spoken contains many things. In the first place it is not the Lord who leads into temptation, but it is man's own evil. In the beginning of regeneration it seems to man that he is strong and that he stands above temptation. He therefore becomes careless and bold just as if he could play with evil. Then he is left to himself and experiences that without faith and love that look to the Lord he must suffer defeat, and that he can do nothing.

When man is reformed and regenerated, he has received a new understanding that enlightens him in all things, and a new will that gives him power for all uses. God wills that all men be delivered from all their false and evil. Never has there been given in the world so much knowledge concerning the genuine true and good as today, so that heavenly bread may be eaten daily if it is so desired. The Lord took care in Israel that quails were given for food, and He gave them Manna in the wilderness. How much more then will the Lord give His Bread and Wine, which is His good and true, when through excellent knowledge of the new things one has come near paradise itself. God makes peace in our thoughts, and we do not see it with our material eye. So likewise He creates in us glories also, a Vineyard, a Paradise, a Heaven, and the fleshly eye sees it not. But we become aware of it and feel it, and what we feel exists. Blessed is the man who enjoys God's Supper, which always remains offered. Such cannot hunger and thirst. God has selected them. In order to enter into the seeing

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and tasting of those things, the only thing they still must lose is their mortal body.

Man is a form according to his own character; handsome and normal when he receives the good and true from the Lord, monstrous and spiritually sick when he takes himself to be good and wise. A heavenly form in man places man in the position for all useful work. He has knowledge, good understanding, and with this a conscience that keeps him on the right path. Then it is indeed a pleasure to live. Every day is a constant meal, every hour a wedding feast. To such a man all things are good, for in all things he sees what is lovely. Such think little about the days of their exile while God hears them in the joyfulness of their hearts. They gladly do everything according to the best of their conscience, and thereby surround themselves with power. But how different it is with those that wisb to be good outside of the Lord. These cannot but separate charity from the Lord. In the first place, they doubt in their heart if Jesus Christ is real; and in the second, their natural in its uncleansed state is unfit for holy conjunction. Their form is a receptacle that devastates. And is it not on this account that all their losses and their final defeat come forth therefrom as a consequence? These are bewailers of their state, unfit for all trustworthy work. They are traitors that are caught in their own nets.

Everyone can know that he cannot save himself by his own power. What is it then whereby the Lord saves us? Man's salvation is not brought about outside of his spirit, but entirely in his spirit. A change takes place in the spiritual organism through reformation and regeneration, so that it is changed from a hell into a Heaven. The Lord does this out of His Glorified Human. The power that proceeds therefrom and is received from faith in Him performs this wonder. This is impossible without conversion, that is, unless there takes place an actual turning around of the natural determination. One should not only convert one's self as to one's external conduct, where men are able to control it; but also, and this is the most important thing, as to one's internal thougbts and inclinations. When no holy war is declared on these unclean doings, the Lord cannot send His Spirit into us towards upbuilding. A continual vigilance is necessary to bring this about. Day and night

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the Lord is to be asked for power in order to be allowed to watch. Watching, praying, and fasting, with respect to useless pleasures will finally glorify us with works from eternal life. We have not yet offered resistance even unto shedding our blood in the combat against sins. And yet we have the example in our Savior in how meek He was under superhuman temptation.

It is through the glorified Human of lhe Lord that we possess a visible God. And He is our Friend, when, by tbe keeping of His Commandments, we do away with our natural enmity. God has fully proven His Love in His Advent and Salvation, just as now again in His Second Coming. On his side, man must now adapt himself to Him, if he is to enjoy all this proffered advantage. This we do when we believe all that the Holy Scripture and the genuine Doctrine of the Church teach.

The Lord stands at the door and knocks; but it has been left to man's freedom to place his natural under the influence of the spiritual. Mutual approach is necessary for conjunction. The Lord is willing toward conjunction; it depends upon man himself whether the holy conjunction is effected. Here man stands in his own way through his sins. The fault lies only with the sinners. The Lord constantly invites and encourages thereto. He witnesses that His yoke is easy and His burden light; that His Commandments are not hard, that one is recompensed a hundredfold, and in the hereafter with angelic life. The means toward entrance is the laying off of the things that touch the proprium and the world. No one Can say that he caunot open the door. The Lord has given everyone a principle of free choice in spiritual things. This principle lies high within the human spirit where his charity abides. The Third Testament teaches that all other obstructions that hinder spiritual reception may be easily mastered when one can temper and conquer the domineering over the neighbor from self love. Rational thinking is necessary, and therefrom a just judgment. What does a man gain - every year may be the last - by giving vent to the enjoyment of his natural lusts for a short time, and thereafter to have to be miserable always. No, the Lord cannot but know better than we with our earthly feelings. Let us say, "Lord, Thy Will be done".

The Lord loves and wills that He be loved reciprocally.

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Just as a man who loves his bride expects also to receive love in return. Union with the Lord is a reciprocal union. It is only the true from charity that puts man in the state of being conjoined with the Lord. It cannot be said that something that is withont love genuinely conjoins. Hate cannot conjoin except with devastation as the end. And hate excludes the Lord's Love and where it discerns it, it will injure and kill. Where one denies himself pleasures from hate, the way will be opened toward conjunction with Eternal Love. Some not well informed people have thought that they are to await the coming of the Spirit in resignation. The Third Testament gives superabundant light in the things that concern the life of salvation. Now we know that God and His Kingdom are not bound to time or place. We understand that the possession thereof is a new state of the spirit. We have been taught also that genuine good things create this, and that our sins alone with their unreal pleasures prevent this. Therefore, when we have the knowledge we are against our best interests if we do not wish to use that knowledge. It seems to man as if his natural pleasures are the only real thing to him, and yet, all those pleasures are unreal. If a pleasure is to be real, it must come forth from a higher interior and must acknowledge the Lord. It is not necessary to think long in order to see that the Almighty God knows better what is good for us, and that He therefore can give more genuine pleasures than we know to seek out for ourselves. He that does not accept the Lord's heavenly interior retains his own infernal interior, and this means eternal misery. There is elevation into a higher interior according to the measure in which one comes to hate one's sins from one's lower interior.

All the true that makes faith becomes living through charity. And to will the good finds its embodiment in the doing of good works. The good of charity is genuine when it is brought forth through the genuine true. Therefore, it is of such great importance to have a rich Doctrine of the Church, for without Doctrine men are blind in the good. Church members who wish to be members with honor must place their spiritual interests clearly before the eyes. The explanation of the Scripture is not from man's proprium but is from the All-wise God, who Himself is the Word. One can never be in regenerating good unless one uses for

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food the pure Doctrine from the Third Testament. Herein is the Lord's Blood which must not be shed in vain.

In all use that a Christian performs is both faith and charity. If man is to do his duty before God and society, his new will and his new understanding must then determine themselves in his works. It may be seen immediately that a denial of one's own wiliness is at least absolutely necessary. Where man has with him the Lord and His Glory he cannot do otherwise than live an honest life. Not only this, but it is impossible for him to bungle things or to act deceitfully under any form whatever. To the religious man to sin is the same as to maltreat himself badly. He that possesses higher sensations from good works cannot retreat. Fright takes hold of his heart, should he even think of it. The blessing that is the reward of good works cannot be lost to those who taste this. Upright intentions inspire genuine uses. Evil cannot damage those who confine their activity to this. A strong hope is given them in the stormy night. And even though the oppooition seems strong God will vanquish it for those who steadfastly love His true. No faith can be separated by no matter what hell from Him who is our Power.

Even as the understanding and the will constitute man's spirit and the one without the other is not able to do a work, no more can charity alone or faith alone do a pure work. It has become a cardinal fault of some to think that one can be good by circumventing the true faith. What is genuinely good is born from an inclination of a preceding faith. One cannot be spiritual or be good in wisdom without the life from the true. But the difficulty is, the true that the Doctrine points out does not at all agree with the delightfulness of lusts.

Charity and faith, like husband and wife, bring forth posterity. Neither man alone, nor woman separated from man, is able to bring forth. Just so it is with charity and faith. The one needs the other just as it stands written in the Word, "He made them male and female" and "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder". It is to be known that this is said of spiritual things. The good without light from the true sees only by a false light, which misleads and causes to stumble. Truth without the Lord's good is as cold as frozen water. From man's justice outside

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of the internal that is the Lord's nothing can be expected but stupidity, unrighteonsness, and injustice. World history and not the least that of the last decades indicates this very clearly in the useless isms that have sprung forth, and which reign without any spiritual purpose. But God permits all those things from a wise cause, for the true first takes on its quality from opposites. And without reaction an organism does not grow into great strength. It is in the battle of life through opposition, adversity, and misery, that God's Spirit works powerfully in those that are His.

When the Word is read with an honest heart the genuine Doctrine thereof, together with spiritual life, will find entrance. Even so there are some who declare to have read it all, and yet they have no faith therein. One can be sure that they who find no rest and peace in the Spirit of the Word will find peace nowhere. The cause that those do not believe in the internal of the Word lies not in the Word but in their own deceitful interior. When one takes the welfare of one's neighbor sincerely to heart what can one have against a Doctrine that so stresses the love towards the neighbor. No Doctrine teaches so urgently that love is the chief thing as the internal Doctrine out of the Word. Some, however, do seek the love from the fleshly proprium but not that from the spiritual Divine. It is sins, no matter what, that are the only cause of unbelief in the Lord's Word and in the pure Doctrine therefrom. It does not pay to be a renegade. Who will bestow his trust and his friendship upon a turncoat, deserter, or traitor? Premised that such are not irresponsible they must be viewed as moral chaff that will be winnowed by a strong wind.

Faith must be from a new and pure heart if it is to become true faith. Hypocrites believe nothing in their heart that belongs to the Commandments or to the genuine worship of the Church. All that they speak about the spiritual has been learned by heart. They that are enlightened out of the Lord can see this distinction clearly. When anyone possesses genuine faith it may be seen in the light of his eye and it may be heard in the affection of his voice. It is not even necessary for the hypocrite to speak a word, the external signs of his interior untrustworthiness are stamped upon him. Of the interior of a genuine Christian it has boon said, “A man's heart notices more than seven watchers on a

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tower". Through this they know what is hidden. The hypocrite is wise in his own eyes, and when he has deceived those of little faith he congratulates himself, not knowing that the external signs of his internal perdition mark him anew, still more strongly. Even if in some cases the hypocrite is able to roast his catch, in the hereafter there is no question of this. The air that goes forth from their spirits is so nauseating that by that alone they are known. Besides, man's spirit is from his feet to the top of his head entirely as his character, so that what is hidden is fully revealed. God cannot be deceived.

Faith exists from the true that the Word and the Doctrine of the Church teach. The true of faith is conjoined to the good of love. When we know this, we immediately understand that with the evil there is no faith. For their evil is conjoined with its false which is opposed to the true. For external reasons snch can act as if they had faith, but in their interior, where their ruling love lives, they believe nothing that belongs to heaven. At heart the evil are deniers of God. All the truths from the Word and the Church belong to each other, as the links of a chain. And one may be sure that when violence is done to one truth it is done likewise to all the rest of them. One cannot rely on the verbal assurances given by a loveless man, when he declares to believe some truths of the Word and of the Doctrine and not the others. The evil from man's natural operates as an infection. Without reformation of the understanding it cannot be but that every thing such touch is in danger of becoming the victim of their perdition. It is fortunate that God foreknows their works when such have sneaked into the church. An opposition that stands outside of a body is bad enough, but now one hears of an internal opposition, a counter-struggle in the Church itself. That there are persons among the opponents that live natural-moral lives, and speak even rationally about some things of faith, detracts nothing from their evil nor from the danger they ean bring about. But the Chureh and its pure Doctrine is the Lord's. God is omniscient and omnipotent. To foreknow the things that will come to pass in His Church belongs to His Providence. When the true believers stand before the facts it is a sad thing to see in the Church persons pregnant with aversion to the Word and Doctrine

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even to the point of evil intent. But the Lord's Spirit in the Church will be able to cope with the opposition, for His promise to establish a Church has all the power. The Lord has those means at His disposal that will cause all profusion of opposition to melt away and disappear, When from evil petulance a man does not wish to follow the Doctrine of the Church it is better for him that he leave, for such a man does not oppose men but the Lord, And with God one cannot dispute. Besides, nobody can conquer him who is stronger.

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EXTRACT FROM THE ISSUE FOR JANUARY 1938

"The whole heaven is Heaven not out of the proprium of the angels but out of the Divine of the Lord; nor is the church the Church out of the proprium of men, but out of the Divine of the Lord; for all the good of love and true of faith is from the Lord, and the good of love and the true of faith make Heaven and the Church: Angels and men are only receptions; and so far as they receive, Heaven and the Church are in them", A.E. 23.

“When it is said that anyone signifies what is spiritual, it involves those that are spiritual; for there is no spiritual without a subject", A.C. 2706.

"It is not possible to speak of the good and the true without a subject, which is man", A.C. 4880.

"By the casting out and condemnation of the evil things and the false things thence is meant the casting out and condemnation of those that are in evil things and the false things thence, for there are no evil and false things except in subjects, which are men", A.C. 10623.

In all and the singular things of the upbuilding of the Church there is always an organic and a Divine Operation.

In the Word there occur: organum, organ; organicus, organice, organic; organizare, to organize; organizatio, organization; organismus, organism. - Organ, organum, organon, is derived from the Greek word ergun, work; ergatsesthai signifies to bring about, to perform. The intimate, inseparable relation between the organic and an operation thereby shows itself in this etymology in a remarkable way. An organ therefore is an instrument by which one has something said or done. - Organic, provided with instruments, is said of something provided with organs for growth, for life, for perception, willing, and acting. We have, in Dutch, the expression "fijne bewerktuiging van den geest" [the exquisite equipment of the spirit with all its necessary instruments]; we also speak of "organic laws", meaning laws that regard the interior connection of the hfe of the body of state. - To organize means to provide

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with organs for the sake of an administration according to an interior connection in accordance with forms and order; something has been organized when it has been completely formed and institnted in this way. - Organization is snch a forming, snch an. institution, into a living body. - Organism is the organic structure, the coherence of the whole, of such a living body according to its organs and its articulate stature; also the complex of the actions performed by the organs.

The Latin for Operation is Operatio. In the Word there occur operari, to work, to be occupied, to perform; operatio, operation, performance; opus, labour, work, performance, deed; opus est, there is need, it is necessary; opusculum, little work; opera, exertion, difficulty, occupation, in contrast with labor, which also means labour, more active or conscious exertion; operarius, workman, labourer. - The root of opus is related to the Dutch "oefenen", and the German "iiben" [to practice]. - From a shorter form of that root, namely op, has been derived ops, assistance, and opes, treasures, riches, wealth. Something similar occurs in the Greek: pragma in the singular, signifies deed, and praymata in the plural, signifies deeds, works, difficulties, and also property, riches.

Man is not Life, but an organ or a recipient of the Life. Man is a recipient organ of God, and he is an organ according to the quality. The external man is merely an organ or instrument of the internal man. Uses and ends and functions are the life of all organic things. No two organs are alike; nevertheless all organs together make a one.

The Divine Operation of the Lord is understood by the Holy Spirit. There is no operation at all unless in a subject. It is the free into which the Lord operates. The Operation of the Lord is into the love of man, and from that into his understanding. Unless love and nnderstanding, or love and wisdom, act conjointly, there is not any rational operation. Every Operation of the Lord is from firsts and lasts simultaneously, thus in fulness. An operation that does not regard the whole of the man, and the whole of the Church, is not a Divine Operation of the Lord.

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The internal Church is distinguished from the external Church hy the internal reception of the Divine things that make the Church. - The internal Church receives the Divine things internally; in it the Lord accomplishes a Coming into the Flesh, and after that it lives in the wrestling through the states that are necessary in order that He may accomplish His Coming in fulness, in a Second Coming. The external Church sees the Divine things only from without; its worship is an obedience from without. - In the external Church the conjunction essentially is only from the side of the Lord, for the conjunction from the side of the Church is merely ohedience; in the internal Church for the first time there is an essentially reciprocal conjunction, from the side of the Church and from the side of the Lord, both. -The external Church sees the Word merely from without, and it cannot see the high significance of the Doctrine out of the Word; the internal Church sees the Word from within; by its Doctrine of the Genuine True it is in an internal conjunction with the Divine Human of the Lord. The man of the internal Church seeks the sense and the power of the particulars of the Latin Word in relation to the singular things of his own state of life and of tbat of the Church of which he is a living member; the man of the external Church remains in the historical sense of the Latin Word and sees only the general intents thereof in relation to his life and the life of the Church. - "The Doctrine of the spiritual good, which is that of the love towards the neighbour, is ample and arcane. That the Doctrine of the love towards the neighbour, or of charity, is ample, may be evident from this, that it extends to all and singular things that man thinks and wills, thus to all things that he says and does; also from this that there is not a similar charity with one as with the other, nor is one the neighbour like the other", N. J. H. D. 107.

The Lord is the Word, for the Word is the Divine Human itself; but in so much as the Word is not received by life and doctrine, the Word remains outside of the Church. The Lord is the all in all things of the Church; but those Divine things of the Church are not there, unless they are born out of the internal. The one simple and resolute purpose of the man of the internal Church is to look to the Lord

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and to shun evil in order that he may internally receive the internal things, that is, the truly spiritual things, of the Word through life and genuine doctrine, and thus acquire them as an imperishable possession.

The man of the internal Church sees the Divine things within the Church; he knows that the genuineness and the fulness of his conjunction with the Lord depends on his relation to the Divine things within the Church. The Divine things within the Church do not exist without the living members as the bearers or the subjects thereof; for "it is not possible to speak of the good and the true without a subject, which is man", A. C. 4380. The man of the internal Church knows and sees where the Divine things of the Church are within the Church. The Divine things of the Doctrine of the Genuine True out of the Word that have been given in the midst of the Church, have been laid down in the natural and are there accessible to all, and anyone who wills may see whether they are the interior things of the Word of the Church itself, and thus truly the things of the Divine Human of the Lord. Whether he sees the Divine things, and in what quality, and in what measure he sees them, depends on the measure in which he is truly a member of the internal Church.

The True Church is before the Lord as one man. The living members are therein as if in one human body, with all its parts, organs, and functions. As the entire body depends on the head and is governed by the head, and all parts look to the head, so the Church has a Head, in which are those who are in the inmost or first reception of the Divine things, with regard to the Church as a whole. The Soul of such a Church is the Lord Himself, and the Spirit thereof is the Holy Spirit.

However, every living member of the True Church likewise draws for himself his essence from inmost or first reception in the degree in which he is; for only in the first or inmost reception of each relative degree is the celestial marriage of the good and the true, or the Divine, proceeding, the Lord's.

Only in a Church thus organized according to the essence

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of one Man, in which each one has found his function, and in which all mutually see, acknowledge, and believe, in each other in their functions, can the Divine Providence enter into its full operation, and do true spiritual freedom, unity, and mutual confidence, become a reality. "The Divine Providence is the Divine Operation with the man that has removed the love of self", D. P. 207.

If there is to be true instauration there must be true exinanition with all members of the Church. There is no fulness of operation unless from established order, after the victory. The time of the wrestling is the time of the Operation of the Lord.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR APRIL 1938

THE NAME OF THE CHURCH

AN ADDRESS BY ANTON ZELLING, DELIVERED AT THE SOCIAL SUPPER, MARCH 27TH, 1938.

Not for a. long time yet would I have overcome my hesitation of speaking before you, had I not been invited on Thursday the 17th March, after the close of the doctrinal class, to attend the board meeting in which the Name of the Church was discussed. That Name, THE LORD'S NEW CHURCH THE NEW JERUSALEM, has made such a deep impression upon me that I cannot refrain from making you acquainted with the feelings and thinkings which that Name called forth in me.

In this Name the Name of Our Father who is in the Heavens is hallowed, for it glorifies the Divine Essence of His Church.

What then is the Church?

Well then, if the great, great word is to be said once for all: the Church is the regenerated man, and, for the first time the regenerated man is the Church. For where else will the Holy dwell except in what is His? No one enters into Heaven but he who carries the Angelic thither with him from the world. What is true with regard to Heaven, is true with regard to the Church. No one, therefore, enters into the Church but he who carries the Angelic thither with him from the world. An angel is Angel in so far as he receives the good of innocence from the Lord, which good reigns, with the Angels in the inmost Heaven. The Angelic therefore is various states of innocence and charity, and the church is Church in so far as in its inmost the good of innocence rules. Innocence is the love into the Lord from the Lord, and this love is to love doing the Lord's commandments. If man is in this innocence or love, that is, if he receives this innocence of love, then he is

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in the Divine Human of the Lord, "ye in Me and I in you"; then on earth he is in Heaven, thns in the Chnrch. Just as Heaven is given only to those who receive, just so the Church cannot be given except to those who receive. It is the Angelic which receives, and there can be no question of the Angelic, thus of essential receiving, unless man as if from himself has entered into the way of Regeneration, not only by the wayside, but in the way, on the way. Without the Angelic a church is without reception or without Religion, and how could tliere be communication between a church without Religion and the Heavens? Such a thing is a thing of nothing, an apparent church, an imaginary church, a pseudo church.

One can never arrive at the living realization of what the Church is, unless one learns livingly to realize what reception is. Reception is the end of regeneration. All misconception of a church flows forth from the misconception of the reception. In the word conception there is buried the word captus, grasp. Every misconception is a grasping of the proprium, it is a receiving the Lord from one's self, whereas truly to receive is to receive the Lord from the Lord; so that essentially it is the Lord who, in the Reception, receives.

By to Create in the Word is understood: "To reform and to regenerate men, and so to instaurate the Church", A.E. 294. The Church in common is instaurated when the men in particular who are to make her, one by one are reformed and regenerated, so that one by one they are a Church in particular. The Church in common is an Angel, composed purely of Angelics. Every church common therefore which is not composed purely of pure Churches in particular, that is, of men whose formed Heaven within them receives the Heaven without them by correspondence - such a church is not the Lord's True Church. It may take its title from the Holy City, but in itself it merely is a filthy jerusalem.

It was said "if the great, great word is to be said", for indeed, this word mllst appear as a challenging presumption, and no sooner is it expressed but it meets with fierce resistance, which is instantly ready with low insinuations, such as: "In other words, you have arrived, and we have not".

What is it that is hidden in that venomous hatred? Nothing

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but the repugnance of leaving the proprium, nothing but the imaginary idea that one could be saved in the unremoved infernal proprium, if only one proves to know much, fancies to understand everything, and claims to firmly believe. The lust of dominion and the lust of possession feel themselves hurt; hence the hatred, the contempt, the indifference.

And still it is taught so clearly: It is not a looking to the Lord from one's self that saves, but what saves is the looking from the Lord to the Lord. To look from one's self is to look from the unremoved proprium; to look from the Lord is to look from the regenerated man or from the new intellectual will.

For this reason we repeat the question: What then is the Church? And now this answer: The blessed looking from the Lord to the Lord.

This is fully said in the Name "The Lord's New Church The New Jerusalem", for:

The Lord's signifies: from the Lord in His Coming; New Church signifies: the man's new intellectual will in his looking and lovingly doing;

The New Jerusalem signifies: to the Lord in His Second Coming.

In a word: The perfect recipient in his perfect reception; the recipient from the Lord in his reception of the Lord, thus the Lord in what is His.

The Church is the Lord in what is His. Unless what is the Lord's is there, the Lord cannot dwell; for this reason the root of to instaurate is connected with pole in the Greek, and with to fasten in the Sanscrit; {or this reason this word in the Latin signifies to renew, to repeat, to again celebrate, to repair, to again establish. Now listen again to this word: "To create is to reform and to regenerate men, and so to instaurate the Church". What else do we now read in these words? To create is to form what is the Lord's, and so to establish the Tent of His Holiness in order that He may dwell therein.

In every misconception of church that which is the Lord's is passed by, and there is the desire to have the Lord while passing by what is His, thus overlooking the regeneration. To express this in a very strange way: The Lord says: "Abide in Me and I in you"; in every misconception of church one wishes to be in I, and not in Me. One wishes for Heaven, but

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for the unordered Heaven from before the Lord's Coming, into which the hell of the proprium forced itself in. In short one wishes for the Lord in one's proprium, and not in what is the Lord's.

But to pass by what is the Lord's, is to have no part at all in the Lord. For this reason the Word teaches that the Angels at once obey all that they hear out of the Word. What they hear regards the Lord; what they at once obey regards that which is the Lord's. For if they were to hear more than they at once obey, the reception would lose its quality, and deteriorate to an inundation. It would cause a bottomlessness, a waste, empty, dark abyss. That the Lord continually orders the Heavens therefore signifies that the Lord continually governs what is His; that which is the Lord's with the Angel grows with the influx, and it can grow because the Angel at once obeys. That that which is the Lord's in man and Angel grows, lies involved in His word to the faithful servant: "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things". Each successive state of man and Angel, aud of the Heaven and the Church in them, is related to the former state as are many things to a few. This is the sense of increase, fructification, and multiplication to eternity. Notice here this form of speech: when anyone is full of a thing or sits listening to it, full of interest, we say: He grows in it, or (in Dutch) hij vermeit zich daarin (he is delighted with it). Vermeien is a vernal rejuvenation, an entering, evermore, into the May of youth [the word vermeien is derived from May]. This is purely angelic language in ordinary life. In the same way we might say: The Angels at once grow in and are delighted with all that they hear out of the Word. The continual ordering of the Heavens is inherent in their obedience; in their obedience they undergo the growth, just as we say of children that they have growing pains, a bodily state accompanied with pain. Because the Angels are regenerated men, that growth and that delight is not a passing fit, but lasting and steady, on the strength of obeying at once; at once, Latin statim, forthwith, in very fact, that is, in outermosts from inmosts.

What applies to Heaven, applies in the same way to the Church. The church is Church through what is the Lord's, and what is the Lord's cannot be made by anything but by

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the Angelic or the regenerated human. Unless the Lord dwells therein, He has no resting place to lay His Head. The head is the New Jerusalem, the resting place is the Lord's New Church.

Is it now clear that the instauration of the Church contains a conditional determination, namely man's regeneration? Have we not, so far, thought much too lightly concerning the Church? Do we not see everywhere innumerable dogmatic clubs calling themselves church, as if that were such a simple matter? Can that be a Church where one browses at will in all kinds of things of principle, while the principle itself is carefully kept outside of life? Can that be a Church where men say they desire eternal life, and meanwhile desire to retain their own petty life, with all the rude things connected therewith? Can that be a Church in which each one carries along with him his proprium, and attempts to draw all others by their propriums into the general proprium and hold them there, in order that a proprium, maximum, a grand proprium may come into existence, which from self looks to the Lord, an infernal growing and delight in abstractions without subject, in forms without substances?

We learn that the good and true is nothing without its subject; this means that it is nothing without reception; and reception signifies to be therein. How often do we not read that one thing or another signifies the good and true things, and those who are therein. They who are therein means those who have received these things. There is possibility of reception for the first time when between the receiver and the received there is a Divine relationship, a relationship as between the wax and the honey, both from the flowers, both through the bees. We learn: "The human understanding has been formed to receive the true things; for this reason it becomes of such quality as are the true things out of which it is formed", A.E. 243. It here clearly appears that the true things are received only in kindred true things, just as there is a relationship between the wax and the honey in the comb, a flower-relationship, founded by the bee as if from itself. The new understanding is a honeycomb in which the honey is such as are the wax cells. The bees make the wax and therewith form the cells, but the honey of the flowers returns to them from within. Bear this comparison in mind when reading this statement: "When

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the good is formed in order that it may appear before the mind and through the mind in the speech, it is called the true", A.E. 136. Now I would wish to illustrate the miracle of Reception thus: The flowers are the true things of the letter of the Word. The bees are man's regenerated mind. From those true things he draws two substances: wax aud honey. The wax is the true things out of which the perfect cells of the understanding are formed. The honey is the true things which the mind first entirely sucks in afterwards to return it from within; first the honey is in the flowers, then in the bee, afterwards it is in the cells. The honey is not the honey proper when it is in the flower, but when from the bee it is in the comb. Just so the true is not the genuine true when it is in the letter, but when from the mind it lies in the understanding. In between those two honeys and those two true things lies the arcanum of the Reception. And the inmost of that arcanum lies in the words: "When the good is formed in order that it may appear before the mind and through the mind in the speech ... ". When no good is formed and the mind nevertheless occupies itself with the true, it is as if one were to crush a mass of flowers in order to gain honey therefrom, which is an impossibility. The misconception of church brings such a misconception of reception along with it, certainly not as a thing Angelic; for in the Angelic the true and the reception are one, as Church and Religion are one. In its Religion or in its life the Church is in its subject. In the Angelic reception is one with regeneration. In so far as there is regeneration, in so far there is reception, and not in the least more or less. All misconception of ehurch therefore has come forth from the separation of Reception and Regeneration: one desires reception and anxiously leaves regeneration aside; one is afraid of that word. By silent agreement it is considered improper to talk about it otherwise than vaguely and theoretically; it is preferred in practice to leave that part entirely to the only Lord, that is, to the Lord left entirely alone in this; this is called to have faith and confidence in Providence, but it is rather a letting the matter rest, or, as a very ugly expression runs in Dutch: "de kerk in het midden laten" [to leave the church where it is, meaning to pursue a give and take policy].

Reception is the end of Regeneration; Heaven and the

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Church are that end attained, thus Reception in its fulness, glory, and virtue, or Thy Name hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will done. To hear without obeying is to receive without willing to be regenerated in order truly to receive; it is to have ears and not to hear; it is having not ears, but ear- holes, in at the one ear-hole, out at the other. We learn that whoso knows the modifications of the air, knows the structure of the ear, and whoso knows the structure of the ear, knows the modifications of the air: to such an extent the sound and the ear are in correspondence. To will to be regenerated is to will to have an ear hewn into the petrous bone which receives the vibrations of the true and makes them vibrate further through the entire body, so that it is thereby entirely purified. In order to receive the sound there must be an ear. In order to receive the Divine True there must be the good. The Word teaches: "To receive with the love is to fully receive", A. E. 8. For this reason with reception one should always think of regeneration, and with regeneration always of reception. They are inseparably one, as Church and Religion are one. The love of the world and of self has separated them. And so the churches of this world, such as the Protestant and the Roman Catholic, by an appearance of regeneration keep up an appearance of an internal church; the Protestant church has its strait-laced converts, and the Roman Catholics have their affable saints in the midst, differing by a degree from the others who ascribe all authority and power to these converts and saints. But it is a sham regeneration, not from the Lord but from the proprium; those converts are merely petrified of will, those saints are merely jellified of understanding. They pose as regenerated men, but the chief thing, the Reception, leaves them cold; all that they and theirs are after is authority and power. And, on the other hand, there is a learned world which has merely reception in view, which merely desires to be ear, entirely ear, an immeasurable sound funnel deforming the modifications of the air, and there is no petrous bone, no body, nothing but one large Danaidean tub. They are to be compared with the Sadducees; they fancy they can “receive” Moses, and nevertheless at the same time they teach that there is no resurrection. Resurrection is Regeneration. Doctrine is Reception. What can a doctrine teach if it does not teach Regeneration which

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leads to that blessed reception which is called the eternal conjunction with the Lord?

In short: all human reception premises a human organ. Such as is the organ, such is the reception. And the reception is perfect "even as thy Father who is in the Heavells is perfect", when the organ is built up from substantial forms corresponding to that which is received from the Lord. Thus when it is new or regenerated.

Regeneration is preceded by reformation; in like manner the Church instaurated is preceded by a church which might be called the fore-church. From that fore-church, if progress is made according to order, the Church proper detaches itself, and it is this Church which is the Lord's true New Church. For this reason in the APOCALYPSE the letters to the seven churches are addressed to the Angel of the distinct churches, that is, to the Angelic or to that which can be regenerated in the fore-church; those letters are a sevenfold Coming, or one and all Coming into the flesh; and everything which this Angelic hears it at once obeys and by this obeying, that which is the Lord's is ever more firmly instaurated; from the fore-church the Church proper is then born and emerges as a bird from its egg. Before the New Jerusalem can descend, from the human race there must first ascend the Church which can receive it. In the proper sense it is the Lord Himself who receives the reception, thus the Lord must first have come before there can be any question of the Second Coming or of the taking up again - REceptio signifies both a taking up again and a complete reception.

Where can the Lord be if we sit together as if none of us had "received remains, or even if we have received them as if they had not left a single angelic trace behind, so that in none of us they need come to life. The remains, we are taught, are various states of innocence and charily, cognitions of the good and true, and thinkings therefrom. That innocence is immediately from the Divine itself; it is out of this that man can look from the Lord to the Lord, with love into the Lord from the Lord; it is out of the given cognitions that man may acknowledge that the Lord alone rules the universe, that He is the all in all things of the good and true, and that man, spirit, and Angel viewed in himself is nothing; out of the thinkings therefrom, which equally are the Lord's in the remains, man may receive

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the Holy Spirit. The Remains and the Cognitions are threefold, and they desire thoroughly to imbue man, that is entirely glorify him within, order interiorly, purify, and gild him, to be a receptive vessel. If this has been accemplished so that man's state is full, that is, so that he has become rational and can essentially receive, then the Remains, entirely come to life, constitute the entire man, that is: Innocence, his soul; the Cognitions, the body; and the Thinkings therefrom the spirit, the sphere, or the operation going forth. Such a man for the first time can acknowledge from the heart that all the true which he thinks and all the good which he does, is from the Lord.

See how the threefold Remains and the threefold Cognitions reflect each other, so that no cognition is truly Cognition unless, out of the Remains, it is of purely Divine origin, having ceme to life by the Coming of the Lord into the flesh, that is, unless it is an affection entirely imbuing, purifying, and ordering, through and through. Cognitions in the intellectual alone are no cognitions but memory knowledges, and even then only of terms, facts, places. No genuine true and good things of the Church except out of cognitions; no cognitions except out of remains. Many speak with ease about cognitions, as if they had them in their pockets. But the cognition that the Lord alone rules the universe - something which everyone knows and does not know - is opened fully only in the inmost highest Heaven with the very wisest Angels, as appears from the APOCALYPSE, where one of the elders says to John, weeping: “Weep not, behold the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof”, V : 5. Stars signify cognitions, cognitions therefore are complete worlds, complete solar systems; unless the natural mind is in the good quietness and darkness, they will never shine forth. In all wrong knowing they have fallen to the earth.

Let us assume that we are a fore-church, not a club but a Society; the word Society contains the words royal following and honour; the following with reference to the life, the honour with reference to the good. In that case the Lord has come for all of us, for the Court and the Honour have reference to Him. In that case this Society of the fore-church has an Angel, yea, is an Angel, and in his progress to the

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Lord's True Church the seven Letters of the APOCALYPSE are for him to hear and to obey at once, in order therein to grow to her statute, that is, until the Lord's New Church is there, What perverse reasoning would it be to say: "Once the church is here, regeneration will follow of itself later on". As the result of drawing such a draft on the future one would continue in too much hearing and in too little obeying at once; at once, that is, in this state; finally one would become numb and thus obey no more at all. No longer even the appearance of a church, but a ghost church, each one frightened at the apparition of his own ghost: "I am a spirit, I am a spirit!"

Regeneration precedes the Church as the cocoon does the butterfly. The arcanum of the Instauration unfolds itself when the arcanum of regeneration unfolds itself. For this reason even the fore-church is holy to the highest degree, for it is full of the Lord; in her essence she is a sevenfold Coming or altogether a Coming of the Lord into the flesh, liberating, saving the Angelic in each one of us. The Coming into the flesh is when what is the Lord's begins to draw, and begins to live in the mind of the man. Expressing this in a proverb: Previously a man says: A bird in the hand is worth ten in the air [as the Dutch saying is]; after the Coming into the flesh the man says: One bird in the air is worth ten, dead, in the hand". By the Coming into the flesh the man falls down, humiliated, in fear of that which is the Lord's and which reveals itself in him and around him, in the Word and in Creation therefrom. A complete exinanition of his entire mind takes place; all that he took to be the Lord and the Lord's, flows away with the swooning proprium,

Until I Thee, 0 Lord, have found

Of my own ground to be the ground -

as runs an old Dutch verse. The intellectual proprium has forsaken man, and the voluntary proprium, having neither support nor hold, slid down along with it. The Coming into the flesh is preceded by great temptations, and we are taught that at the present time the Mercy of that spiritual temptation can be imparted only to a few. The heavy wrestlings of many therefore are only there in order to avoid the real wrestling, because the first conditions of life's order are lacking and remain lacking. They prefer to maintain the untenable rather than come to rest; so the way to the remains is closed off and the Lord's Coming prevented.

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The essential wrestling itself, however desperate it be, is never without the hope of liberation as a mild comfort, repeatedly felt in between, and without the growing perception that it is the Lord Himself who combats in temptations. Such a man has peace in the combat, peace with the combat, and never speaks of it. The man-Church or Michael Victor in his coming into existence, is silent. In the Regeneration he is what the Lord in Infinitely Divine manner is in the Glorification: a hero.

We learn that by the good of innocence all things of the Church are born with man. On the part of the Lord the Good of Innocence is the Divine Human, the Lamb of God; on the Ipart of man it is the love into the Lord from the Lord, or the love of doing His Commandments.

This Innocence or Love is the Soul of the fore-church or the society out of which the Church is born which in truth is called THE LORD'S NEW CHURCH THE NEW JERUSALEM. Naam [name] is derived from nemen [to take], to take the quality, to take up [that is, to receive]. Now there is no full reception unless out of all thy heart, and out of all thy soul, and out of all thy understanding.

The following summary may serve as conclusion: man is created, that is, reformed, in order to be a Church. Through the true the good; after that out of the good the true. Nothing but the good truly receives the true. To receive is to bring home. If the good is not formed, by degrees it becomes salt without savour. Hence that lamentation of the Church with MALACHI II : 10 : "Have we not all one Father; hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?"

In the state of reformation the man is the fore-church in order to become the Lord's True Church, provided he does not deal treacherously or profane the covenant. If we are that fore-church then it behoves us, as says the Word “to receive holily the Divine True in ultimates which is the Word in the sense of the letter, and thence to be taught”, A.E. 204. To receive holily is to receive with the affection of the true, that is, to receive with life, or to obey at once. To be taught in Latin is instrui, to be built in. If we receive holily, the ear

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will be built into us to hear the voice of the Lord; the cells of the new Understanding will be built into us to receive the honey of the internal sense.

That the Church must always be somewhere on earth is because only the Church receives the Influx from the Lord, and thus maintains the communication between Heaven and earth. The Church is the Reception in its subject, and that subject is the angelic man. Let this therefore be premised that all of us of the fore-church, without exception, must be angelic. Therefore even at these suppers we all, without exception, require a suitable wedding garment, or we do not belong here. And do you know what the wedding garment signifies? The Divine True out of the Word, that is the Divine True received.

CONVERSION

By H. J. BROUWERS, CORONATION, ALBERTA, CANADA.

Shall we convert ourselves? This question which each man once must ask himself introduces a very serious moment into his life. On the very now, today, the very moment that it comes into the thought, and on the decision that man then makes, depends what he shall eternally be.

A man who is not full of evil intentions cannot choose otherwise than that which is to his spiritual advantage. When we are taught from the Scripture that most men make their decision against themselves, our soul is appalled in us at the infernal powers that render it impossible for them to make the right choice.

With what great earnestness of love has the Lord urged sinners to conversion. The Lord even wept openly there where the hardened people would not have Him. To those who have refused, their fall has not unclearly been announced. But here, also, they did not hear, and acted as if they did not have to expect it. Therefore it will overcome them in a moment of God's great wrath. Then no more can be saved and all prayer is useless. The abomination of devastation which the resisters bring upon themselves has been predicted to them in the Scripture.

To really convert one's self one has to go to the Only

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God the Lord Jesus Christ. They who draw their religious knowledge only from the Word have the right means thereto. Conversion without the Word is equally impossible as to be conjoined with God who has not revealed Himself. God has no middle-man whom He clothes with His Divine Omnipotence. It is the Lord alone who can forgive sins. In the reading of the Word one can see the Lord. And the more sincere man becomes in his doing and leaving undone the more readily he can see Him in it.

The work of conversion, because it concerns man's spirit, is a purely spiritual work. One does not need to give away one's money, one's goods, and one's freedom, in order to be redeemed. But although the work of conversion is spiritual, so in the body it must be ultimated in conscious deeds. The Commandments must be kept in all work that one does in the world. When this is the leading thought in our works, from truly spiritual motives, then man will become spiritual and afterwards an Angel.

Man does not just suddenly decide to teach himself in earnest, therefore in reality, to be converted. Men who have much success and enjoy many natural loves consider that they have no need of conversion. But those who undergo inconveniences, affliction, and adversity, mostly think otherwise about it. By nature we are a form of the world and when we can enjoy our cupidities and lusts, it does not seem to us to be necessary to love the spiritual. But with a heavy loss or great inconvenience man is forced, as if by need, to seek the Lord. It seldom happens that someone who lives in riches and power does this. But, as in all other things, there are also some exceptions here. These are they who curb and confine their pleasures; they are wise men whom God seeks. Such receive a greater reward and thereby enjoy the external as well as the internal. God is Order and teaches His people order. Blessed is the man who bears temptation, and only when we have reaclied this truly spiritual state, do we begin to possess the life with its genuine riches.

Regeneration cannot begin in man when the worst sins are still present. During the reformation of the understanding one learns what sins are. One already has the ability then to purify one's self from the worst sins. The sins must be opposed and removed as soon as one learns to

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know them. The reformation of the understanding precedes the regeneration. The regeneration concerns the will. But because no new understanding separate from its will can be given, therefore already in the preparation the evils must be rejected. The enlightenment of the new understanding depends entirely on the love of the will. Where the will does not become active in the shunning of evils no heavenly light can flow into the spirit. Without continual love no reformation of the understanding, without the preceding reformation of the understanding no regeneration of the will, without a new will no Doctrine, and without the development of Doctrine the means are missing which can elevate man above the earthly things.

Even as the Kingdom of the Heavens is in man so the genuine Church belongs to his spiritual life. That which the Church is for him here on earth the Kingdom of the Heavens is for him afterwards. These two correspond. All that is good and true in man is from Heaven, and because of this also belongs to the Church. Since the evil and false hold back the influx from Heaven, so it also restrains man from belonging with his spirit in reality to the living Church. If one wants to be a member of the Church in truth, one must convert one's self from one's sins. Sin opposes the Divine and for that reason can receive nothing thereof. Self-deceit from one's own insight and evil must be abolished would man faithfully enter into the Lord's Church and share her manifold blessings.

God has entrusted to us a noble task which must be worked at continually and which must be brought to completion. There will be hardly anyone who after having recognized a sin can stay away from it fully and for good. Because the work of conversion is so difficult it may not be looked at with indifference, be delayed, or be denied. They who keep before the eyes of their spirit that which the Lord has taught from the Word and from Doctrine, that is, keep it in the will of the thoughts, will find power to shun evils. The Lord as the lover of souls will give a vision which is from His Divinity. What on the path of conversion has once been conquered on the lower self remains eternal. Man does not reflect on the states through which he has worked himself, yet all those states are present in his mind with all their glory. Conversion takes

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place bit by bit, first opposing the general and later the roore particular sins. It is possible for man to take up at one moment the project for conversion but the process in its entirety can only gradually be brought to execution, for it concerns his entire regeneration, which is an entirely new creation.

Sins must always be considered as being directed against the Honor of God. How would it be possible for a sane man who believes in God and in His Word to dare to sin intentionally? To keep the Lord in the thoughts by love has power in it. Where the presence of the Lord is forgotten one will always sin. But how could one possibly sin where His presence is acknowledged?

By the enjoyment that clings to it sin has a great attraction for man, but how dearly must it be paid for. And when the crime, which gives birth to spiritual death, has been completed then it is a false witness too, for it wipes the mouth and says: I have not sinned. One must know that the enjoyment which arises from faith is not less enlivening than the forbidden delight. Therefore man should cultivate a spiritnal will, for thereby only detriment is to be lost and advantage to be gained. The new will grows steadily when there is a strong intention present not to commit sins under any circumstances. Conversion cannot be spoken of unless the cnpidities of sins really cease.

The will is man, for in the will dwells all that one loves. Because entrance mnst now be refused to natural and sensual loves, it is necessary that the will be elevated above its evil. The will must be drawn np from its depth to a new height. Where the will remains in its natural inclination no spiritual cnlture, which is the only true culture, can be reached. The center of man's spiritual cosmos is in the will. This is the reason why man without renewing the will can never become participant of any wisdom and any happiness. Man's thoughts can never be genuine where a will inclined to sins is the ruling principle in his mind. Because man has learned from childhood onwards to behave decently he can naturally raise the appearance of enlightened thinking with himself and others. But it is a fact that, where the earthly will dominates everything in the mind, no good thoughts can proceed. The mouth can speak otherwise than the internal of man thinks, but this makes

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no change to the impotence of his unconverted mind.

The Lord's truth is pure, therefore it has in it those substances that wash away sins. The process of conversion is a spiritual washing. The sins are washed away, that is, they are removed from the center where they rule. When sins are removed the Lord plants the true and the good in their stead. The good must replace the evil, for otherwise the former evil threatens to insinuate itself again. In the conversion one must conquer the evil by the good. Spiritual charity is the powerful means whereby all former evil remains subjugated. Evil from hell has no power where a state of genuine charity remains in the bosom. The saving power of good has its existence in the sensatious thereof, just as before conversion the misery of hell was felt. It is just through this new state that sins are forgiven. The true and the good that the Lord now plants in man's spirit has all power over the old proprium.

Men cannot know from themselves what is good for them. Without the light of Doctrine they are like sheep without a shepherd. When the Lord was on earth and He saw this He was moved with interual pity for them. The grace of God provided the means of redemption. Today light appears such as there has never been in all ages. Now man can learn to know his God as never before and to come into conjunctiou with Him. Now the Divine Human has revealed itself so that all who choose can appropriate a treasure of spiritual riches. But today also there are people who say: We do not see it and we do not obey. Such enjoy their cupidities for a short time, and the Lord allows them to do this, but afterwards they are at once devastated, to reap all the abomination they have sown.

One cannot let one's self be sufficiently admonished against evil. The end in evil is to make man eternally unhappy. Even the Christian does not continuously realize that all man's misery proceeds from a lack of charity. But in the obedience of faith proofs are given in increasing measure that what does good to man is out of the Lord alone. He who has already tasted the delight of spiritual food will face his difficulties with increasing confidence. The high reward of the Lord is greater than we think we may expect. We may be certain that what in our youthful years appeared to us to be the best will later prove to be

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only filth. We need increasing faith to continue to give significance to life. We must increasingly keep going forward. This is our life's end for which we were not born in vain. And if here below we cannot obtain our right and share in external things, the Lord is our assurance that we are able to have it interiorly. For what right is greater than to receive God's friendship by doing His will?

To free one's self in deed from sins one must know his sins, and therefore learn to see some sins in one's self. One must penetrate with one's thoughts into one's mind and there see some sins whereto one is inclined. This is a disagreeable task, for one stands self-condemned thereby: but all who are Angels have done this and it must be done. The natural man alone does not wish to do so, and it also takes some spiritual courage to dare to do this. It is a genuinely honest work towards God, towards the neighbor, and towards one's own spiritual wellbeing. This willingness to see one's own sins creates a new state in the spirit, which brings us nearer to God. Due to the great use which follows one may not let this state pass hastily by. It is, as is understandable, degrading for a man to suffer this, but does not the Lord reward those who humiliate themselves? God shall honor such with an honor greater than that of men, He shall give them His trust and His might.

He who is not delivered from evil is a Christian only as to the external; but being a Christian as to the external and not as to the internal cannot profit man. The Lord can not work in the mind of a man from the external, for it is according to order that everything works from inmosts to outmosts and never from outmosts to inmosts. Being a Christian only externally finds its cause in an unbelief in the Lord's Divine Human. All who believe in the Lord as God and keep the Commandments are internal Christians and from this external Christians.

Throughout his regeneration the Lord shows man that, from himself, he is an unworthy sinner. Herein we have witness from men of the highest character, men who were chosen and beloved by God above others. One can read in the Psalms what the spirit is without God. Such see and understand their fallen earthly nature, and they know what they are talking about. Surely the necessity should be felt to go to the Lord, to regard His Word as most Holy,

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and to be in an adoring state towards His Church, His beloved Bride. We must put our destitution in spiritual things before us if we desire to keep our soul in wellbeing. That we are born in sins, that is, with an aptitude to sinning, we cannot help; but that we actually commit evil, is what makes us guilty. It is this guilt that works the curse of degeneration. Nobody can talk away his sins. Nobody can answer for his sins; but this does not take away from the fact that one must charge them to one's self. And what punishment there follows!

In regeneration the substances are brought into growth which change man into another creature. By bringing the things of faith into the act man finds a new strength and hereby sin loses its attraction. One begins to look down upon sin as something unnecessary and foolish, and hereby the inclination to evil is broken. The good must become firm in the mind and therefore the determination to it must steadily become stronger. The great means thereto is to pray. Who genuinely prays is in the presence of the Lord and cannot sin. Our life here below should be a continuous prayer. And to attain this we must separate ourselves entirely from the sins of men and the world. Where we see evil before us, in whatever form, there is the danger of weakening and deviating. Therefore the Lord said: "Watch".

In order to be really delivered from evil one must follow the Doctrine of Life. The Doctrine is a lamp and without this light man cannot take one step on the way to Heaven. The Doctrine is out of the Word and therefore holy. Whoever believes in the undefiled Doctrine believes in the Lord, for He alone gives the enlightenment to men to draw Doctrine out of His Word. The Doctrine of the living Church seen in its internal is nothing else than charity and love. These then constitute the essence of man's faith. These give the light, the power; they create and form all substances that are needed for regeneration. The true Christian can feel the difference in himself when he holds love fast or, stumhling, lets it go.

They who sin from an evil heart are faithless in everything. For whoever steals in the unjust mammon will also rob the holy. As is the will, wherein dwell all the loves of man, so are all his works. One often sees how people that, while still young, use all their energy to be disobedient

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to everything that belongs to the Lord, come miserably to their end. One cannot despise faith and at the same time expect that it will be well with one's mind. One cannot trample upon the spiritual and expect a good bodily health. In the error that one wishes to cheat the rights of the Lord and His Church all the seeds of hell lie hidden. And such deviators, who are an abomination to the Lord and to all true believers, what right have they to complain about their state? This also belongs to the punishment which they bring upon themselves. Sin is the only enemy of man, a cunning enemy, who is often present under apparently innocent forms. We need oil in the lamp to be able to see with light. Outside of God's enlightenment it is impossible to .know one sin in wisdom. JEREMIA writes, XVII : 9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" A powerful prayer in an undoubting faith will send the Lord's life into us. God alone can free us from our internal enemies, and out of this from our visible enemies. And in Him the righteous shall be given rest also in the midst of the struggle.

That sin kills the spirit is denied by unbelievers, because they deny all true knowledge from the Doctrine. But can those deny that disease kills the body? Disease has its cause in sins. One sees that where an ancestry has lived successively in good the posterity becomes bodily stronger. This bodily strength is a result of a moderate life, and this has a spiritual cause. Whether man plans to live or not to live the Commandments, this lies in him as a spiritual determination. The intentions of the will form the spirit by means of the true. We reap what we sow, whether we see it palpably before us or not. God can do no good to the man who deviates from Him. God is the Life and from this man has his health of body and spirit. When the body which still draws power from visible nature, suffers damage through a wrong life, how much more does the spirit which is entirely dependent upon the spiritual. Sinners are the antipodes of Heaven, and it cannot be otherwise than that they become wrecked as to body and soul.

All the evil of sin directs itself against God and the neighbor. It will not be seen by them who are not enlightened that all sins that they commit are against God and the neighbor. But let it be known to them that everything

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that is worked in lasts, comes to others. No one lives for himself alone, for it is a spiritual law that everyone lives for all and must be useful. Sin for the sake of its concupiscences has only itself as an end. It is contrary to the order of Heaven that man should live for himself alone. Where one begins to equip one's works for the use of others, there one loves the neighbor. Love to the neighbor is a love for his spirit, and therefore in the first place for what may benefit his eternal life. Such a love produces use, for it is led by the True of the Lord. And where the genuine good of the neighbor is regarded, there the love to God is present at the same time. The two Commandments, to love God above all, and to love the neighbor as one's self, belong inseparably together. No one would ever love the neighbor if the way therefor had not been taught to him of God. For genuine love belongs to a higher life, and the earthly has nothing in common with it. Love is the life of the Angels, and therefore they who live this life share in the blessedness of the Angels.

We have a long future before us; compared to this the time that lies behind us is short. With those who walk in the way of the Lord the future is always better than the past. One must let one's self be encouraged in the exercise of the good of the new things. One has in full the right to the hope that does not shame. We read of the supreme Leader that He bore the cross for the great joy that was held out to Him. And the Lord will fulfill our joy. Happiness comes into our minds when, trusting Him, we follow His Doctrine. God has everythiug that is good, and He gives it today aud to eternity. The blessedness of the Angels is so great that if man should feel but a part of it he would fall in a faint. Those who here on earth believe and live the revealed thinge will receive the crown of life for the faith that they have shown during their oppression. In this is the possession that is not reduced, that cannot be stolen nor corrupted. The spiritual possession, for the sake of the certainty that it has in it, is worth being labored for.

The sins that are hidden in us hide themselves as serpents in a rocky cleft. If we do not watch over our willing and thinking, they fall upon us at the most unexpected moment. Self-examination for our sins is commanded. When one does not discover one's sins, one cannot drive

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out those spiritual enemies. All the weapons that are needed for the spiritual combat are given in the Word. Whatever weapon one has one may be sure that, if the struggle is to be blessed, it must always be working through love. It i. the good will, with which one honors God in the keeping of the Commandments and wishes the neighbor well, wherein the power of heaven is given that makes us conquer. The whole struggle is the Lord's, for the victory is the Lord's. Therefore from the seeking out of the sins to their combating this must be done entirely out of the Lord. The necessity of making genuine Doctrine one's own is clear, for herein everything is given that is needed. Watching is a genuine state of life, wherein the thoughts do not deviate to temporal things. It is an excellent habit always to keep something of the Lord in the thoughts. The evil does not dare to attack where the savour of Heaven permeates our court.

When one has received knowledge one should begin a new life. For to what purpose should all that precious knowledge be given were it not to be used? The old of which one has long been a slave must be cast behind and must also be forgotten. One must now occupy one's self only with the things that constitute the spiritual life, and while still in the world, nevertheless one lets all one's temporal interests be animated from the spiritual and the eternal. One no longer desires promotion and just as little to become rich. One is more and more content with one's destitute possessions, knowing that we carry nothing with us out of the world into the other life. While one withdraws from the harmful influences, one should not, however, separate one's self from everyone. The withdrawing of one's self from sinners will rather signify a more interior approach to those who are of the household of one's faith. This the Lord will give us as a new blessing when now we also give more thought to our own inmost separation from invisible evil influences. When one is with his brothers in the Lord one cannot take witli one one's former anger and one's former filth. A purified mind, free from all evil, is necessary. The brotherhood is the Lord's, and although today the New Church still falls short in much, this lack yet may be completed, but only through men who hold honor fast.

By nature we are all a form of hate. Without conversion

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it is not possible ever to love genninely. To become a form of love the whole conversion of the soul must be worked through the true. Love is the essence of the thing. In the Third Testament we are taught that the internal sense is the love. And also the undefiled Doctrine of the Church is the love, for although it is drawn from the sense of the letter, still the Doctrine is indeed the internal sense. Consequently the internal sense is of vital importance for everyone's conversion. The internal sense is not given to no purpose. If we could receive the Holy Spirit without the internal sense it would not have been necessary for it to be revealed to us. But now we require to use the great advantage that the internal sense gives. We are now under another dispensation than the Christians of the first Christian Church. Since these new things are given in a form adapted to our mind they also require to be accepted in humility. May it be the end of the members of the New Church to live the internal sense. Thanks to the leaders that God has given to the Church, the Doctrine developes itself more and more. The new Doctrine is a pearl of great beauty, wherein all who will can take delight.

So long as the rational is not born man does not know how he stands spiritually. He judges only from natural light, and when, by virtue of his position and his culture, he is able to maintain himself in the world according to appearances, then he thinks that everything is in order. Man's proprial understanding regards only external things. It is unable to see internal valnes, until it begins to live from the Lord. The trouble and the work that the natural man suffets to gain rank and the world is all for naught.

For conversion to be genuine it must work from man's internal. And not only this, but it must be received by an open external, which only takes place by desisting from evil. The stream of life must flow outwards from within, if it is to effect its purifying power as such. A new will must be created, directing itself with power to the rejecting of the old. Herein the Lord must be continually looked to if one would reach this spiritual end. How upright and earnest one requires to be in one's endeavor. How humble does the state of the spirit require to be. Not the least interference of man's proprium may be permitted. A perfect surrender is commanded. An entire dependence on the

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Lord's Mercy is needed. Everything requires to be forgotten and forgiven. Nothing of the old leaven may be left in the mind. A strong longing for the presence of the Lord, a grasping at tbe eternal, must animate us. One must work in one's spirit and at the same time wait with patience. The struggle and the suffering must have their progress, but with the power God gives the deliverance. And after the night comes the fresh morning, with healing dew for the soul. The struggle for the honor of God is never in vain, for He will reward with a firm and pure spirit all those who regard Him as the Only Saviour.

What sadness and misery must man suffer already in his childhood and youth through his sins. The moments when the childish heart is tortured by fear find their cause in the sins. The boyhood years where unexpected blows and disappointments follow each other are the result of the sins that are already working. When the misery here below begins so soon, what must not the misery be when one sins in older age, and what must not the misery be in the hereafter. In this world one suffers only in a comparatively small measure from sins, for the Third Testament teaches us that this life is nothing compared to that of hell. But the measure for the punishment of sinning is out of the Divine Providence. When we undergo punishment during our exile from Heaven we may truly say: Lord, I thank Thee that Thou wert angered with us, knowing that the blows from within and without will help to make the spirit eternally free.

If we held the intentions of our old will subjected at all times, hell would have no power over us. For where the will from the proprium is reduced to nothing, it could not be otherwise than that the spiritual will would make itself felt. A long time is needed before the conviction of the true remains with us in all struggle and temptation. Doing the Lord's will prepares more pleasure for man than the things proceeding from self-love. To be in a spiritual state is always not to know the proprium, to be strange to one's self, even so far as not to know one's own person. Truly man must have experienced much, would he come to such a blessed state. In the Third Testament we read that man from himself always wills to go to hell, but that the Lord's great mercy restrains him every moment. We also read

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that it lies in everyone's corrupted nature from birth even to will to murder the Lord. Weare appalled by such things, but it works in us unto that good that we begin to believe everything that the Scripture teaches.

All sins have in their perpetration their own enjoyment. Of that which delights man in the moment itself, he cannot accept all at once that it is bad. We have the saying, "Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest". This is of course untrue and only appears to be so to the ignorant. They who have not tasted the right taste of lawful fruit lack the experience to be able to judge. Most men are silent about the reactions of the forbidden enjoyment; this is probably because it is too bad and too shameful. Cupidities touch the will and the will is the man. To remove and destroy cupidities signifies an entire change in the internal life of the man. This can only be brought about slowly. We read, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench." An immediate change from a sinful life into a life of the spirit is equally impossible as changing a serpent into a dove. If the interdiction against sinning were too strict then the spirit would be forsaken and this could have harmful results by which every use would be lost. We need a wisdom from the Lord in all things, and a knowledge how a thing must be done. Conversion is a work of the Divine Love which the Lord alone directs.

Those who do the good of charity dare not sin, for their good is directly opposed to evil. The happiness that they feel who have made this their principle, is the life that redeems them. For just as blessedness belongs to life, so damnation proceeds from evil. When man feels happy out of faith, the urge for sinning has been removed. The affection of the spiritual is always out of charity and the faith of charity. Therefore the rational must always let itself be influenced by the good. For man can never rise into a higher degree of Doctrine unless the true that he learns in its deeper significance becomes one with his good. In order to elevate one's self in all phases of regeneration to the love, man must continually put off something of the proprium. In the walk of life one must let one's self be accompanied by humility if one would profit from the spiritual things. Our happiness lies in those things; and when our life here below once has been cut off, then

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Nothing more can be added to the affection of our faith.

Whenever one decides in one’s heart to become good and to begin to do good one must consider that there is good that is out of the Lord and a good that is out of man himself. The first has the affection from charity in it, and the last regards the world and the proprium alone. The genuine good from the Lord is only given to those who desire to put themselves aside for the Doctrine, who refuse to mix their own insight with God’s wisdom, but in genuine humility desire to let themselves be told. They who have many gifts and thereby are placed over others have greater temptations than the man with fewer gifts. Because of this they must suffer more during the destruction of the proprium, but so much the more glorious is also their crown of glory when they faithfully struggle and conquer. Let the man of great brain power only consider that from himself he can do just as little as the ignorant. It is a fact that the gifted, would he make himself worthy of his vocation, has more need of the Lord than the less endowed man.

If one would receive even the least of spiritual good from the Lord then one must be in the state of great humility. Man must always feel that the Lord is his Saviour whom he can trust. One must not be afraid before the Lord. The Lord is a Pitier. We must always feel that we have need of Him. We must not only be in humility when we lie ill in bed or undergo painful affliction, but also when the wind again fills the sails and periods of prosperity arrive. These lessons must be learned well, they must be deeply engraved in the table of our hearts, that they remain with us. Everyone who comes into temptation or combat cannot but discover the power of darkness. Without the feeling of God’s help a state of weakness, dissipation, and dejection, makes itself master of the spirit.

To convert one’s self is a difficult task for those who have never done it. When one is still in the enjoyment of sins one scarcely knows that such a thing as sin exists. But God’s Providence provides that everyone becomes acquainted, at some time in his life, with the existence of spiritual things, and thus also with the existence of sins. In the beginning of one’s reformation one cannot go further than but to know that one is in sins. This is then believed out of obedience, without the man yet being able to clearly

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distinguish the sins hidden in himself. But as difficult as the conversion is for the unexperienced, the easier it will become in the exercise of this very necessary work. It is said that exercise gives birth to art. So also in conversion, where one is entirely dependent upon the Lord's help, the real effort will work a miracle. During conversion a good seed comes into growth. During conversion it will often appear to man as if it is an unavailing work, and this is because our utmost powers must be exerted without our tired eyes being able to see the victory as yet. But we have the promise of Him who sent us into the combat, namely, a complete victory in His Name.

That conversion brings difficulties with it everyone can soon see with a little reflection. This, however, may be no reason not to do it. The entire work of conversion must be done for the Lord, and when we keep in mind that God is Love, then it is unnecessary to feel fear. The natural fear that man feels for God proceeds from his sins and his ignorance concerning the Divine Love. The dread for God is in the measure that anyone sins. Sins make it impossible to believe in God's Love and Providence. Sins create a state of superstition, out of which always proceed ominous expectations. Sins have the punishment of retribution in them. And because the true that one exercises contains within it its reward of strength and trust, so the man who does this will begin to feel himself attracted to the Lord. The natural dread now makes place for a holy fear, and this last, flowing in from God, has a friendship for the Lord in it. A holy fear is to be afraid to do evil, because this is again.st the Honor of the Lord.

To be able to convert one's self one must learn to know the internal operation of one's spirit. In the internal of man lies the point out of which evil is committed. If man is not vivified out of the shadow of death by the saving good, the damning evil will overwhelm him. The human good is the innate evil, and this cannot save the soul, because it does not carry the substantial power in it. The evil in the human good is from hell, and since its form corresponds to hell, it can also not do otherwise than return to hell. The human good is the evil good and is, as such, blind and foolish, and it has as a consequence that man is unjust in his judgment. The Third Testament gives

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in a rational form, that is intelligible for all, the means that lead to conversion and regeneration. And the genuine Doctrine of the Church renders the arcana of the Word clearly, so that it is now possible by means of the internal sense to appropriate the spiritual.

The natural rational and moral cannot convert man. The natural rational extends itself no further than the world with its interests. It occupies itself only with temporal things. It has no care for the eternal and does not acknowledge that, but is openly or in secret hostile to it. The rational from the natural judges according to the appearance. What is does not see or cannot touch it rejects as being worth no consideration. How entirely otherwise it is with the rational that acknowledges the Lord and has Him as the light within it. The rational out of the Lord is the genuine Doctrine of the Church, whether that be spiritual-natural, spiritual, or celestial. The man who receives the influx of this genuine rational comes into a perfect state whereby his internal is one with the Heavens, and his external lives in correspondence therewith. Worldly things and the affections out of the proprium must be entirely relegated to the lowest place, would man begin to enjoy the spiritual life. The genuine rational is given out of the Lord's glorified Human, and when once this rational shall have reached the celestial degree, then man will receive the Holy Spirit itself. When the New Church shall have come to a mature state, the influx of the Lord's Divine Human in the new rational will be so far reaching that it will give all things here on earth a new essence.

When man deviates to such an extent into the purely natural that he becomes sensual then he is so far off the course that conversion is perhaps no more possible. When the spirit has once wandered so far that it no longer believes anything that the eye does not see and the hand does not touch then it becomes impossible to believe in the spiritual. The light which is from the Lord, is the life that gives man sight and insight. This is wonderful, and today it is given to everyone who accepts the Writings of the prophet Swedenborg as the Word given from God. The acknowledging of the true is already out of the light of the Lord; but only where the neighbor is loved, there enlightenment is given.

So long as man is not converted, his inmost is closed to

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Heaven, and he lives in thick darkness. Such men seek what brings their spirit to its fall, and despise and hate what could have become iheir blessedness. Even the basis upon which they stand as to their natural-rational in this temporary life, is drawn away from under them by sins. A house is no better than its foundations. When therefore their house is built out of iron mixed with clay, then their foundation can exist of nothing else than refuse. There can never be given any elevation to those who do not even have any wish for the genuine true and good. When the spirit covets the things of unbelief, then it descends and receives the fully from hell. Thus the unbelieving judge according to the falsity that is in hell, and they cannot do otherwise than see the celestial upside-down. Faith is not a matter of innate talent, but of the good will. To be a learned man does not mean to be a wise man, just as little as a merely trained body would mean that a man is healthy. But even as a healthy man is in his measure strong, so also a believing man becomes learned. And we often see with those who use all their energy to become bodily strong or spiritually learned, that weakuess and degeneration arise as the terrible consequence thereof. What we do or do not do, the one as well as the other, we must learn to work in the fear of the Lord. We need in all things more real and genuine knowledge, and who can excuse himself for his ignorance in spiritual things? For also in the world every citizen is considered to know the law.

When man's thoughts go out to sensual things then he judges only according to the external appearance. A thing is what its internal essence is. Therefore to be able to judge justly one should know the internal of a thing. As long as men's thoughts do not see the internal it does not exist for him and he runs the danger of denying the invisible spiritual life. The thoughts require to be elevated above the external things. But the spirit of the unbelieving comes in the course of time into a state wherein it is no longer possible to elevate the thoughts above the senses. This is at the twelfth hour, and the blow has fallen. After this such can never more think peacefully in their minds. They are the slaves of their thoughts, which, like the waves of the sea, now take them up, then cast them down again. The best that can be done with such is that they be placed

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under an iron yoke that prevents them from doing their evil. For their filthy thoughts, proceeding out of a degenerated will, cannot do otherwise than urge them to everything that is wrong.

Again the Kingdom of the Heavens has come near. The Lord has given a new Christian dispensation in the establishment of His New Church. The new joyful message will spread itself more and more. Although the New Church has as yet only reached very few, still the new things have made their influence felt under various forms. The Lord has come to men who are burdened with a falsified faith and who are without Church. They who now already enjoy the new things of the Church, can cause others to share in this advantage. It is an advantage both to live according to the true, and to make others acquainted with it. And as with the first Christian Church conversion was preached, so also is this the case today. For without conversion no sins can be forgiven. Sins must be subjugated, and thus their power must be broken. One may not go to work in the softest manner to heal the rupture of the people, and where it is necessary the leaders must show just anger. The truth is the Lord's, and herein there is nothing that can please man's will, for the Lord, has no favorites, and He does not accept the person. His winnow is in His hand and as in former days He will also purify His threshing floor today.

Men's conversion ought to concern the whole will the whole understanding, and the whole life of the mind. To convert one's self in part and, to leave other parts unconverted is no conversion. All natural sympathies, all solely natural loves, sentimentalities, and natural affections, must be purified and converted. How many natural things that, as to the external, appear good have all the evil and cruelty of the hells in them. How many natural loves which appear innocent are the cause of the fall of multitudes of men. And then the sensitiveness of those who swearly the senses as the only thing. The most horrible violences have been done by people who passed for good men as to their external, and this only because they gave the spiritual no honor above their natural. And then the energy devouring affections that leave man a nervous wreck. The Lord says it in His Scriptures with one word, namely, that one must die as to one's proprium, for therein health, honor, and

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strength, power, and the genuine life of man, is found again. What can man do without his God and Creator? He can only demolish, despoil, but never really construct. If the Lord had not placed a limit to man's evil, no fibre in his construction would remain whole, there would be no fibre that would not be destroyed. At no single point does man cease in his falling away from the Lord, and if a "to here and not further" had not been set, the misery that man brings upon himself would be unfathomable. But the penalty is heavy enough: that sinners can sink down to the deepest hell where the devils, because of their evil, are only leprosy.

How much also is prayer necessary during conversion. We have the words of the Lord: "How be it, this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting". To fast signifies to withhold one's self from useless enjoyments. Without continually praying to the Lord it is impossible to be saved from sins. Only the holy power that proceeds from the Lord's Divine Human can do this. Then one first sees how they, who think they can purify themselves by their own good, work under a deceitful light. Who does not pray to the Lord as the Saviour wills to take the place of the Lord, and, following the order of spiritual laws, can do no otherwise than fall down. Without prayer nothing can be done for the spiritual growth. Without prayer there is no conjunction with the Lord. And not to pray, because it is commanded, is a sin. It is a sin out of one's own false insight. The refusal to pray may be an indication of the denying of the Lord's Divinity. We also read: "The prayer of the just is powerful", and in David, that the Lord Himself "Spoke His prayer without lips of deceit". Prayer purifies man and makes him trustworthy before his Lord. Nothing is to be received from the Lord unless one lays off one's deceit. They who believe in the Lord as the Saviour and keep His commandments are also in prayer, although they be busy with other things, by the dutiful sphere in which they do their work. To be with the Lord, to think out of His Doctrine, is to pray. The Lord is always present to the faithful in their minds. Out of that is their peace, their freedom, their joy. On the contrary, they who are not in the Lord are near hell, and if they harden themselves against the Word and do not convert themselves, in the course of time they are in hell.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR MAY 1938

CONCUPISCENCES AND AFFECTIONS

By ANTON ZELLING, READ BEFORE THE SWEDENBORG GEZELSCHAP ON APRIL 9TH, 1938.

When the new Name of the Church was mentioned at the previous Supper a long motionless silence ensued. That silence, of which it would commonly be said: "an angel passed by", I cannot explain otherwise than as a retrospection all together and each one for himself of that for and in which we are gathered together. In that silence it had to become sensible to each whether there exists in this Society a common good out of which each one can live the Church. Out of that common good you could have accepted and received what had been said, or you could have refused and rejected it, with power and authority: Yea-yea, naynay. In the silence of all of you there was a moment of tension: Is it here or is it not here? Until one of you and afterwards another arose in order to express out of genuine affection the heartfelt desire for the common good and the good communion out of which the Church can become what it is in Heaven.

"The Kingdom of God is at hand" was said then; and this word, breaking that long silence, was an echo out of which the subject of that evening, Reception, can be taken up anew, ever more deeply and ever more all-encompassing, ever more penetratingly.

New things are things that are now come near_, now come about, and eternally valid; not things that have passed and gone, but things that are come near and for that reason irresistible things, irrevocable things. By what do you think would it be observable that the true Church is being instaurated from the Lord? Well, by this: that a beginning is made of locking out. Doors are being shut, one after another, doors on whose inside there is written "I am the

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Door'" and on the outside "I know thee not". The Church is not, any more than Heaven, simply an admission by request. Somewhere in the Word dogs are spoken of, signifying those who are in concupiscences of every kind, especially in merely corporeal lusts, above all in the lust of eating together; it is said that they are fat of mind and therefore consider the things that are of the Churcb as naught, and therefore stand outside or shall not be received into the Lord's New Cburch, see Apoc. REV. 952.

Such shall not be received into the Lord's New Church. Do you not notice from this word that the instauration of the True Church is accompanied with a beginning to be shut out? For let me tell you in all conscience: in the every-day conception of church and society those fat of mind, lustful of eating together, pass for jolly good fellows, intensely interesting talkers, in whom there is no vestige of harm. Do they not everywhere lead in the really jovial, amicable, collegiate spirit; are they not a guarantee everywhere for a pleasant sphere, an enjoyable evening, a successful gathering? Do you not feel that it could never be said that the fat of mind shall not be received into the Lord's New Church, unless, from within or from above, there were a power and a force active in the Church striking down as an awesome Naked Arm to batter close the Door for such as they? For who and what statute could prevent this? Where lies the measnre that determines that anyone is fat of mind? And whoso would point that measure would he not at once be told that we may not and can not judge a man's internal? In other words that the reception into, or the rejection from, the Lord's New Church is not to be decided by any man. And so we would run around in a circle and sink down ever more into a fatness of mind.

The matter is obviously different, and I would like to consider this with you from a new point of departure: and the kernel of this point of departure is of such vital importance that, for the time being, it calls for the sympathetic attention of all and puts aside all further problems of secondary importance. That kernel is the essence of the Reception.

Heaven is one blessed Reception of the Lord. The Angels are nothing but recipients, nothing but receptions. Thus the

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Church also is one blessed Reception of the Lord in the lands. Thus the men of the Church, too, are nothing but recipients, nothing but receptions. What is the conjunction with the Lord, what is the regeneration thereto, what are the communions, the consociations, except reception; what is enlightenment, what is perception, otherwise than reception? Examine the Scripture and you will find that it all terminates in this beatitude:

BLESSED ARE THEY THAT RECEIVE.

The Reception involves everything. It is clear that the blessed love of the Lord and of the neighbour receives well and truly, and that the miserable love of self and of the world receives evilly and falsely. Therefore, that in the former instance the will and the understanding well-ordered and conjoined receive the good and true, and that in the latter instance the will and the understanding disordered and monstrously deformed receive the evil and false.

This argument, if we may be allowed to make use of a homely expression, so far "rolls like a ball"; and as a rule arguments do not go much beyond veering from right to left and from left to right between the terms of good and evil, true and false. But what at once renders the subject a good deal less easy is this: that it might be said that the concupiscences of evil and the good affections are seused by the same nerves. And that this is so, is manifest from this word: "the difficult conversion of the concupiscences of evil into good affections", T. C. R. 203. Evil things cannot be converted into good things, but concupiscences of evil can be converted into good affections. Note well, it is said concupiscences of evil, and not evil concnpiscences; it is said good affections, and not affections of good. Good affections means simple affections; simple signifies the one, and something is 'one' when the true is out of the good. We sometimes say, "he is a man all of a piece". This in the always favorable sense signifies a simply good, a truly simple man. Genuine simplicity is always a duality, the understanding of the good and the understanding of the true: together one. In connection with good affections a single eye is spoken of, thus a good eye.

Concupiscences are also interior, are also affections, but not good or simple; they do not lie quietly and at anchor

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and therefore they must be converted, inverted, reverted, in order to come into the truly good position to eternity, in order to lie definitely anchored in the Heaven of the internal. In the good affections the way has been opened inwards, and by having gone inwards they are free again to go from within, hither and yon, all according to ebb and flood, in and out as the breath. In the good affections within and without become one, Heaven and earth: one.

Concupiscences then are interior affections that have lost the way into which they have been created from without to within and from within to without, first by the hereditary evil and afterwards by the actual evil. Beware of bluntly identifying the word way with the word true and then shoving it aside. The Dutch word waar [true] from its Sanscrit root var means the desired, the longed for, thus out of the affection of love. And the Dutch word weg [way] through wegen [to weigh] and wagen [to dare, to go out] turns to bewegen [to move] and bewogenheid [motion, emotion, affection], thus out of the affection of love. A way we follow without being moved is not that Way which is the Lord. And a true that is not the desired sweet and narrow bond between the love from the Lord and the love into the Lord is not the Truth which is the Lord. The good affections are the true way of life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life: one's concupiscences are interior affections that have lost their way, are at sea. In the characteristic Dutch expression de kluts kwijt zijn the word kluts is connected with klots, golfklots [the sound or the beating of the waves]. The waves follow the current and the wind; de kluts kwijt zijn [to be at sea] is to have lost one's course, not turning inwards, but crooked, averted, aslant. Concupiscences, it might be said, are halfway affections that, instead of first going altogether inside there where the good might be formed, when halfway in turn right about face and go out again. In a manner of speaking the concupiscences thus have not left the outmost, they have not lost that from sight. Now all such unrelinquished outmost is the evil of such affections, evil because deprived of the inmost, thus empty. Now listen once again to this word: “the difficult conversion of the concupiscences of evil into good affections”, We learn that man as from himself must remove the evil things in the external man and that then the Lord

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removes the concupiscences in the internal man, as well as the evil things in the external man. Taking both these teachings together I see it this way: to remove the evil things is to cease from turning right about face when halfway; all concupiscences were originally simple affections; but just as the loves of self and of the world were originally of celestial origin, they also became ensnared, tangled in themselves, and then became deformed. Concupiscences are affections that, having been torn away from their moorings, made a short-circuit in the sensual for the sake of the lascivious. Concupiscences are affections that have lost their purpose and thereby the purpose of the things through which they are affected. And yet they are such that always something of the celestial origin still remains, even with the worst man. For that reason it has been written about the worst man that in his mind he can open, by turns, the door to Heaven and the door to hell. If he opens the door to Heaven, which happens when he is in society, then, for a while, his concupiscences of evil are good affections turned upwards or inwards; if he opens the door to hell, which happens when he is alone, then the former good affections are what they essentially are: concupiscences of evil turned downwards or outwards. It might be said that along the same nerves good affections ascend and concupiscences of evil descend. These two doors never stand open at the same time, for by the draught that would then be caused the most direful profanations would take place. (This, in passing, gives the spiritual cause for the innate dislike of us all against draught caused by opposite doors standing open). Similarly it has been written of the worst man, that he lives with his chaste wife in the top floor of his house while he keeps a harlot hidden below; an example of a monstrous duality: in upward direction good affection, in downward direction concupiscences of evil. These are infernal states of confirmation, inconvertable in themselves, to which the Lord's words apply: "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he fancied he hath". The concupiscences have become confirmed to such an extent that they can no longer be converted; for this reasou it is that from the concupiscences, now become second nature, the first nature, which is the good of affection, is entirely taken away as well as

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its recollection: this is "to fancy one has". The parable of the man who swept his house with brooms and went forth and, finding no rest, returned with seven evil spirits, whose end was worse than the beginning, is a similar image of the worst man who fancies he can jump across from concupiscences to good affections and who, nevertheless, could know and feel or realize that none but the couverted concupiscences of evil are the good affections. To leave the concupiscences of evil for what they are and to go seeking the good affections entirely somewhere else is the doing and letting do of faith alone. And in this way there arises that amphibiousness, that half-heartedness, which can be called sirenlike. Of the sirens it is said in the Word that they have the art of making their voice heard out of some place where they are not: that means that from above they show themselves as good affections, but below they have remained concupiscences of evil, a nymph's body terminating in a fish's tail, swimming around in the sea of the separated natural as mermaids, or flying around as birds of prey with virgins’ faces.

When all Remains have been withdrawn from the good affections, so that those good affections have become concupiscences of evil, the Remains yet have left something behind therein, in the same way as there adheres something of a magnetic influence to the iron filings that a magnet has been passed over. Something of the original direction, position, destination, remained behind in the concupiscences, something of sensibility, of instinct, of conscience, in short something of remembrance of the noble descent on the strength of the Remains. Out of that something the man as from himself cooperates with the difficult conversion; this is preparing the way for the Lord's Coming. Against this something the evil man purposely works his way to hell.

From this we conclude that in every concupiscence of evil it is most certainly perceivable of what good affection it is the perversion. This, on man's part, is the starting point of the difficult conversion. It might be said that both the good affections later on, as the concupiscences of evil did previously, move along the same lines, along the same nerve fibres; but with the concupiscences the net is tangled and there is only contact with the sensual for the sake of

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the lascivious; whereas with the good affections the net is directly connected with the Lord, yea, is in the Lord, so that it is the Lord Who is affected in the affection, Who feels the feelings, Who thinks the thinkings.

The hopeful part is that all unconfirmed and no longer confirmed concupiscences are, properly speaking, tangled good affections. As soon as the tangle ceases to be, the proprium ceases; the way to the Remains opens wide and it begins to be possible for the Influx to be received. This is to become like the little children; all good affections are little children. To the little children or to the good affections the Heavenly Arcana are revealed, which remain hidden from the intelligent or from the concupiscences of evil. The proprium, which bloccades the Influx, is nothing but a muddle of concupiscences and this is nothing but affections torn away from their connections, knotted and then deformed. When the man has become Order, that is when the concupiscences have been reduced or converted into good affections, he not only no longer has a proprium but he is no longer able even to long for it. Concupiscences make a tangled ball, good affections are properly sorted; concupiscences kindle a lewd fire, good affections shine in a chaste glow. In the concupiscences it is the man himself who wishes to feel; he wishes to feel from himself and the end is that, as the saying goes, "he feels himself". Anyone with whom this is the case is in the concupiscences of evil. In the good affections it is the Lord Who feels, and He lets man feel all His good will. The concupiscences let the man desire the proprium, the good affections allow the man to desire the proprium ever less. The infernal proprium is nothing but a confirmed complex of concupiscences. The celestial proprium is nothing but the complex of good affections, entirely from Him, of Him, in Him, and, nevertheless, given to man to all appearance as if from himself, of himself, in himself. . That appearance is the celestial proprium. For that reason the infernal proprium possesses everything and has nothing, and the celestial proprium possesses nothing and has everything.

Now, as soon as a man, out of the after effects of the Remains from the Lord, begins to feel in a concupiscence of what affection it is the inversion, the reversion, the aversion, the genuine conversion enters; for then it no

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longer turns right about face when it is halfway to the outside, which outside then is the evil, but it directs itself to where it originally came from· and where it should return to. The concupiscence was in the lascivious, the affection is in "the sensual. Man comes to his sensee, and think here of that great word SENSE. Concupiscences are affections run wild, driving all things away from their purpose into every kind of wrong direction. Every Coming of the Lord has this effect upon the concupiscences that these may be said to bring to their senses the good affections that they are the reversion of. This is the sense of not breaking the evil but bending it to the good. It is brought to the senses of the concupiscences that, in fact, they were good affections and can again become so. The evil, that is all things of the intellect alone, is at once released and a submerging, a settling down, takes place in the will. It is out of the Remains and by means of the all but effaced angelic trace, which they left behind, that the concupiscences, which have died off in this manner, now, for the first time, can flow back again to their source as affections. Now, being converted into good affections, the concupiscences of evil take something they originally lacked, namely a. root in themselves, so that they are no longer drawn away by the carefulnesses of the world. The concupiscences of evil may be said to be a wild tree that the good affections are grafted into as a noble shoot and where the evil juices change into good juices. Unless there were a vegetal relationship between the wild tree and the noble shoot, the grafting would not succeed. The unbridled evil growth of the wild tree was halted, that is all. A disease was brought to a standstill, a fever stopped, a slow and difficult convalescence is at hand. A good begins to be formed and this can take place only when the good affections loosen themselves from the concupiscences. All Coming of the Lord consists in this loosening, this being delivered. Previously the concupiscences threw all things back, now the affections permit the passage of the things unto that ground which is the Lord; for the Omnipresent Lord is at the same time without and within, at the same time the outermost and the inmost, the First and the Last in firsts and lasts. He is in the True that enters, He is in the Good that is formed by the True. He is the True that proceeds from that Good

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and He is the Use in which they are one. We learn that when the good is formed in order that it may appear before the mind and through the mind in the speech, that then it is called the true. In other words: the true out of the good is the genuine true. Again in other words: the received true is the genuine true. For this reason" we learn: "The genuine true is out of the celestial good, and thence out of the spiritual good", A. E. 324. Out of means being of that and out of that, thence, therefore proceeding. Tbus the received true is not a disappeared true, a swallowed up, a consumed true, but a reappearing, a returned, a renewed true. The received true is the true in its Second Coming. The arcanum of the Reception lies in this virtuous circle: the true enters through the affection as an affection, there becomes the good, and goes forth again as use. The genuine reception may be known by the fructification. Through the proprium, that labyrinth of concupiscences, there runs an Ariadne thread; that golden thread is the good affection that lies corrupted in every concupiscence. To follow this thread by leaving the evil is first to seek the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness and to surely find it. In to find there is the word in, a bringing out from within.

No reception before the good is being formed. That good, formed in each one separately, is the common good of all together. The church is Church out of its Reception; the reception is Reception out of the common good. The common good is the Power of the Church out of the Lord; in that, appearing before it by virtue of that good, is the Church's Autbority out of the Lord. Essentially it is the Lord Who, in the Reception called Church, is the Door, the Janua with the Janus face, for the one "I am the Door", for the other "I know thee not".

The Church in common is the Church in the common good or in the fulness of its Reception. And the Reception in its fulness is the fulness of the Reproduction, Reeeptio and Reproduetio in the Word stand inseparably together; a striking example is given in CORONIS 26: "The faculty of receiving and reproducing the inflowing things from God entirely as from one's self."

It was previously asked: By what, do you think, would it be observable that a true Church is being instaurated

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from the Lord? The answer was: Well, by this, that a beginning is made of locking out. This signifies that a beginning is made of shunning the evil; that there is a progression in forming the common good; that the receptio or taking up again leads to the reproductio or the again bringing forth of purely good and true things. What applies to man applies to the Church, and hence it stands written for both "that the Lord brings forth (producat) the good things with man according to every state of the true with him", A. R. 935. Every state of the true is every state of reception. According to every state of reception The Lord's True Church flows over with good and true things, it flows over with gifts from the spiritual world. The genuine reception is a horn of abundance, a Horn of Might and an Abundance out of Influx. It is to the common good of the Chmch that the Lord's word applies: "For unto him that hath shall be given, that he have abundance"; and also that other word: "'Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them".

To meditate on the Church is to meditate on the Reception, and to meditate on the Reception is to become fearful of the common good, "for this is none other but the House of God". Out of that common good, the ground of the ground of the Church, the base of the foundation of Heaven, every man has his angelic, every angelic has his function, every function has its usufruct. Only in that common good do the Statutes arise; in the word Statutes we find the word stanchion, as in the word Instauration we find stake, pole, and pale, hence to stake off or out (to determine, to outline) to impale (to enclose), and to pale (to provide a bar or fence); laws are enacted, and only the common good will permit the law to be laid down to it.

When will the common good cease to be an empty term; when will it start to be formed and become a stumblingstone and a head of the corner? As soon as the Word is read holily. Eating out of the tree of the science of the good and the evil is "dying to die", degree by degree. To read holily is following to follow, and so, through living to live. To read holily is to become mindful of the affections in the concupiscences and, for their sake, to turn one's self away from the evil outside things to such an extent that the concupiscences change themselves to good affections.

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The artificial light of the natural lumen then disappears with that, and for the first time the Moon rises in good darkness.

The sign of this reading holily is that the spiritual sense begins to shine through the literal sense, begins to instruct, that is to construct within, to build in, that is it begins to shape the good. The spiritnal sense is tbe letter living, because then the literal sense has already entered the interior of the mind as a true, a desired true, in order to become the good there, which then reappears as a genuine true now able to receive the Life of the letter, that is, the Heavens within.

The common good begins to be formed out of each one in all together, out of all together in each one, as soon as the good affection has been found again and man has thereby become again as the little children, wide open to and gradually brimful with all the Remains Come Again. As soon, therefore, as the good affection in the mind blossoms into interior festivity.

For this reason the sign of the common good is purely new human things, not as the very newest fashion terms for the same evil, false, empty, ugly things of times past, but spontaneous creations, made through the Word out of its Reception, or produced, led forth, from the Lord. No more difference between Heaven and earth; there is now a breaking through of Heaven into the Church, of the Church over the lands. In this connection let us point to this word: "Heaven is in those things that are within man and by means of those in those things that are outside of him", A. E. 107. Well then, the genuine or the new human things have their seat, their dwelling, their Heaven, within man, and by means of those are the things that are outside of man which are tbe signs and significations of those new human things. From God through the Word are all things made that were made. The Lord is the Only Man. The genuine human things are therefore the solely human things; new human things therefore is meant to express: now remade, solely, and forever, of the Divine Human. For this reason we might also read the foregoing passage in this way: "The Divine Human is in those things that are within man, and through those in those things that are outside of him". In this full sense the new things are

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Divine Human things, which expression sounds as blasphemy to those who place the human things outside of man. The things outside of the man lie in the reflection and the resplendescence of the things within the man; this the concupiscence of evil denies; this the good affection perceives. The concupiscences of evil act towards the good affections as the lean kine towards the fat kine; they eat them up and only empty terms remain. Note well, that both the concupiscences as well as the affections are kine, and how this correspondence agrees and harmonizes with the lowing of the kine signifying the difficult conversion of the concupiscences of evil into good affections. What the true and good, or genuine, or new, or solely human things are every concupiscence of evil at once knows, acknowledges, perceives, as soon as it has been converted into a good affection. The concupiscence wrenches forward and askew, outwards, the affection draws straight back, inwards. The human things of the concupiscences of evil lie in the outermost darkness where they only appear to be as if human by the phosphorescent lumen of the proprium, bnt out of the light of Heaven they prove to be monstrosities. The human things of the affections lie in those things that are in man. The Word teaches: "To know, to understand, and to do, makes the Church and forms Heaven with man", A. E. 108. I should like to understand that in this way:

To know, to understand, and to do, or to progress in an orderly manner to the final Reception, makes the things that are within man; if the state is full Heaven has been formed, or the Reception follows in the things that are within man or in the Church within man. The common good can then be seen as the common will, which becomes the receiver of the Divine Love. Without that common good or the common will, thus without the will to know for the sake of understanding, understanding for the sake of doing, the Church cannot be made nor can Heaven be formed with man.

Therefore, what is the principal thing? Well, it is this, that the concupiscence of evil with man is touched in that spot where it can be converted into a good affection. Where, in a manner of speaking, it is vulnerable to Heaven. The weak spot, that is, where it is not too much confirmed, where it can give way, can still bend, is still fresh, green

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wood and has not yet become dry and knotty. Thus it may be understood why, in a given state of regeneration, the appearance is freely allowed as if it were man himself who thinks the true and does the good. There a concupiscence of evil is on the way to becoming a good affection. At the birth of the new human things, however, there has for a long time already been no question of the man himself from himself, for then the "you in Me and I in you" has becomc a glorious reality, then the Heaven within has been formed or found, whither the good affections flow and whence they flow out as the rivers of Paradise. In the new human things the Church has been placed in the possession of Heaven, a possession as if from itself. This is what I mean by the Gifts from the spiritual world. The sign of the Instauration of the Church is the respleridescence and reflection of that richness, of that eternally welling wealth within the man in the things outside man, made new: "Behold, I make all things new". Outside things that previously were evil things, desirable things, are now the ultimates of inmost things, affecting things, fruits or uses in lasts, so lovely and so holy that every upright ontsider, seeing those fruits, desires to know the Tree and then finds this to be the Tree of Life.

All Evangelization is an appeal to the good affection in the concupiscence of evil that it lies imprisoned in, sick, naked, hungry, and thirsty. Even colloquial language says: "to appeal to a man's good affections".

For this reason I, personally and practically, regard every society, every sermon, every address, every conversation, as an angelic convocation or the calling together of good affections, as a thing where something happens, that is, where something is born. Purely irrevocable, purely irresistible things. Concupiscences of evil most certainly allow themselves to be united with a belief of the things of God, but it is only the good affections that believe in the Lord and in the things that are added from Him. The concupiscences that believe of are merely superstitious, but the good affections believe in, and the Dutch saying for a man of such faith is "a man who has faith in and in". In essence the creed "I believe in the new angelic Heaven" signifies nothing more or less than "I believe standing, and living and being moved, in the new angelic Heaven"; and if not

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better to say in fnture "I believe it, indeed I believe it, I have a belief of it, I believed that long since". We cannot believe in things unless we are in those things, that is, unless we have received them and unless we have been received into those· things. To believe in is to abide in, "you in Me and I in you". To believe in is to be already within the shadow of the new human things, thus not far from the kingdom of God. To believe in is of the good affections, is of the converted concupiscences of evil, of that which is outside. To believe in is to have become interior, is to be busy becoming Order. Interior things are intimate things, and in the concupiscences of evil the appearance is created as if the intimacy lies outside. All sympathies in the world, all stirring tales and spectacles one poisons one's mind with, are exterior intimacies, carried outside into the street. Truly a heartrending spectacle with which the heart has nothing to do. That the dogs stand outside or shall not be received into the Lord's New Church, signifies that it shall not be possible to profane the interior thiugs of the mind of the Lord's New Church; to stand outside presupposes a Door, and indeed an inexorable Door. No more emergency exits and makeshift doors before and behind which so much rubbish of exterior intimacies was accumulated that finally those doors could neither open nor shut. That Door in each one is the Coming of John the Baptist, that hour in which man for the first time comes to realize that his concupiscences of evil have been playacting for good affections; that he has acquired good things in quantity but that not a single one among them has been withdrawn entirely inside in order to do there what is the part of truths: to become the good and, only then, to be the genuine true. To realize this is the beginning of coming to one's senses, of conversion, of desisting from evil, thus of penitence; the evil is recognized in the apparently good and the apparently true things, and, therefore detested, therefore removed; and the concupiscence, liberated from its convulsive grasp because the prey fell away, unrolls like a spirally twisted nerve fibre from its unnatural position and finds a new normal position as a good affection. Before that affection the Letter of the Word then appears in its true shape, a transfignration where the raiment becomes white as Snow and the face shining as the Sun; this is the Coming of the

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Lord perceived for the first time in lasts. The good affection, so to speak, rests on two bases: now it is the Word in the Literal Sense which is the foundation, and then again it is the good formed within; lasts become firsts, firsts become lasts, ever fuller, ever more powerful. The sense of "you in Me and I in you". This then is the genuine simplicity, for, as said, every true simplicity is a duality, the true and the good: one, so that the true is the good, and both together proceed as use.

By what do you think would it be observable that the true Church is being instaurated from the Lord?

Well, in the first place by this: that for the first time the things go in, find a spontaneous reception, or enter in. For to enter halfway and then to go out again is to enter and not enter, to know and not know, to acknowledge and not acknowledge, to believe of and not believe in. What truly entered, in the sense here unfolded, is a momentous event. The sign of the approaching Instauration is, therefore, that everything becomes a momentous event, purely unforgettable events. That sign is when the words that I speak to you and that you speak to me pass from vehement soul to vehement soul aud return enriched. Understand that word vehement [Dutch hevig]: "Unto Thee do I lift up my soul" [lift up opheffen which is from hevig J. The sign of the Instauration is in an interior vehenience, quietly moved; for also the concupiscence of evil knows zealous vehemence, but it is that of which David says: "Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah, or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul, unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully", PSALM XXIV: 3, 4. It is the converted concupiscences or the good affections that form a vehement soul, vehement in its shunning of evil, vehement in its longing for the Lord. The sign of the Instauration is in this that from the formed good in each one the common good of all together has arisen and has been fearfully approached as holy ground. By which the nature of everl' one's mind has been essentially changed, so changed that the interiorly born new human things throw their shadow, spread their wings, over all external things. The concupiscences of evil desired a church, and, just as the Jews, received only the representative of a church. It is only by the good affections that

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the External Church can come, which, as the representation of the Internal Church, is in itself already of inexpressible holiness. For this reason the sign of the Instauration is in this, that out of the common good we become aware of our imperishable nobility. It is said: "Ye are gods"; it is said: "Ye are the salt of the earth". Of those that are in the common good it may rightly be said: Ye are noblemen. Noblemen with Angels for ancestors, with the Lord for First Father, Coat of Arms, and Banner. Adel [nobility] comes from good and ground; gezelschap [society] comes from court and honour; genootschap [community, communion] comes from a common possession of ground. The good and true things of the Lord's New Church, taken concretely, are the angelic men that receive them, and these can be no others than the noblemen attached to their Prince. Noblesse oblige. Well then, the sign of the Instauration lies in the fulfilment of the noble obligations of all. Out of the good affections the genuine ceremonies are born. That word has been abused; every monstrous society carries as its password: "Make no ceremony, don't stand on ceremony", and in that it designates itself as unspiritual. With them the civil things have become plebeian, and, however much they may pass themselves off as finely cultured and highly developed, at bottom their conduct is commonplace, trivial, rude, in a word, vulgar. The Sacraments with such have sunk down to ceremonies, and what ought to have been ceremonies in the essential sense have been thrown out as useless freaks. Not thus, In the word ceremony the Latin word creare, to create, is hidden: ceremonies are created or made things. Originally this word meant the ecclesiastical things in the external, born from the internal. Sacred things. Well then, the new human things outwardly are clothed with ceremonies, ceremonies in the genuine sense [Dutch plichtplegingen]. Plicht [duty], plegen [to perform], and plechtig [solemn] are all interiorly conjoined. All genuine things that man truly dwells in are, for him, inhabited and as such are ordinary things; but these ordinary things at the same time are ceremonious_, holy, stately, because they are always qualified according to the manner the man accomplishes or fulfils his duties in. From that he derives his dignity, his high rank, his nobility from tIle Lord. So it should he understood that man must worthily

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approach the Holy Supper, worthily, that is, as a son of God docile and instructed, for to approach signifies to be obedient and to be instructed. When the moral is in the civil and the spiritual in the moral, the one shining through the other, then all customs and habits, all uses and modes, are ceremonies spiritually natural out of celestial origin. For this reason in The TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION and in the Book on CONJUGIAL LOVE the Society of tbe Eagle is described as to its ceremonies, in its hierarchic ordering, its formalities, etiquette, modes of dress, and heraldic particulars. No plain homey doing there with hail fellow well met, with gossip and quarreling, with plotting and vicious grumbling, in short it is no court clique but a Court from within, stately and worthy, noble and dignified, even unto lasts. What applies to Heaven, applies to the Church; what applies to the angelic society applies to every human society that is Society. For this reason it strikes the visitors to that Society of the Eagle that, however much they were prepared to spend only a short time in that social sphere, they, nevertheless, continually ring false. In them nothing of the order, the laws, the rules that reign there, has been instructed or inscrihed; and they must leave without fail when their time has come or else it would go ill with them. Each of the ceremonies described there covers and signifies interior things; they proceed thence as the Angels' garments proceed from their inmost things and surround them as a sphere; all this the Angels know but they, nevertheless, never feel it.

To wish to get along without ceremonies is to wish to appear not in wedding garments but in one’s shirt sleeves and to demand the same from tbe other party. The sign of the Instauration is when all those signs cease, which point to one's feeling one's self equally homey and at one's ease in the Church as in one’s proprium, of which, anyway, one brings along all the raw, blunt, coarse, unmannerly, personal habits. A society that is Society is not a tete-a-tete, for the Lord is in the midst of them. The common good is the Forecourt of the Lord's Court, and of that forecourt David says: "My soul longeth.yea, even fainteth for the forecourts of Jehovah". Psalm LXXXIV : 2. The sign of the Instauration is this, that the doglike is seen and is no longer tolerated, a sign of the common good

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having been formed as the base into which the foundation of the Holy City can be let down. The sign of the Instauratiou is in this, that then the simple will be differently considered. Those simple ones the Word speaks of, in contrast with those learned ones that are cloven in their cleverness, are in the common good, are without the concupiscences of evil, are simple good affections. All other simple ones are apparent simple ones, stupid on the one side and of a peasant's wiliness on the other; sluggish and slimy on the one part, and of a very lively suspicion on the other. It is to such that the Lord said: "Is thine eye evil because I am good?"

It is a very great exception if, once in a lifetime, we are allowed to meet with a wise man. Well then, likewise it is at least as great an exception if, once in a lifetime, we are allowed to meet with a simple man, a man of simple faith. For this reason the sign of the Instauration of the Church lies also in this, that the Word, which has been written in appearances for the faith and the believing of the simple ones, is again read holily or simply, to such an extent that the spiritual sense shines through the letter for all, an Interior Sense for all, the Internal Sense for the wise in the midst. The truly simple do not murmur about everything that is beyond them, for they are like unto the wise in this respect, that they do not wish to understand more than they can live, and do not wish to live more than they can understand. All other so-called simple ones do not believe in, but they believe of. In this connection we note the Dutch expression er aan hebben [literally to have of it] not to be in the things through reception but to be coveting of the outside. All that appears to them of no use, they accuse as being too high for them, in order to be deliberately freed from it. Simple ones of that kind are merely discontented ones; their murmurings is rebellion, and rebelling in the things of the Church leads, inevitably, to profanation, see A. E. 324. Such are not to be reckoned among the righteous ones that are not yet in the true things out of the good but that, nevertheless, long for them; they are much rather to be reckoned among the dull witted and the fat to whom the freedom itself and the rationality itself cannot be given, see D. P. 98. Their evil simplicity, from which the duality is lacking, is desirous only of fatness of

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mind; in reality they envy the dogs and are like them and, for this reason, they shall not be received into the Lord's New Church.

The sign of the Instauration lies in this, that Principles begin to work personally, begin to attract in a firm and mighty way, or begin to ward off full of enmity. Anyone that sincerely and faithfully thinks in Principles and lives out of Principles is always more personal than he would care to be. Without ever aiming he always hits. This is the sense of the angry word of the Jews to the Lord: "Saying these things Thou reproachest us". All genuine Principles are, from outside, unbearably hard things, and from within an easy yoke and a light burden, because the good affection is meek and humble of heart.

The Instauration of the Church is there when all, in advance, love every judgment for the sake of the Righteousness however much it may cleave our heart asunder, "for a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise", upon which the Psalm immediately continues: "Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem"; and then again immediately as the conclusion: "Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar", PSALM LI : 17,18, 19. This Psalm contains the condition for the Instauration of the Church in which the worship shall be out of tbe good affection.

Unless a pure heart he created within us, unless in our inmost a firm spirit be renewed, the walls of Jerusalem cannot be built. All that lies outside is not good affection but concupiscence of evil; and this ends in a fanatic profanation, an end worse than the beginning.

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THE FREE CHOICE

By ANTON ZELLING, READ AT THE SOCIAL SUPPER.

APRIL 24TH, 1938.

All that are of the Lord's Church are either out of the celestial kingdom of Himself or out of the spiritual kingdom of Himself; except those that are in those two kingdoms there are none that are of the Church.

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 381.

To be of the Lord's Church is to be out of or in the Lord's celestial or spiritual Kingdom. This teaches us to differentiate between the Lord's Church and to be of the Church. In the proper essential genuine only sense nothing but the regenerated man is the True Church. Even as all Angels have been men so all regenerated men have been reformed men. Those are reformed that have suffered themselves to be led forth from the false things of evil. Without reformation there is no regeneration; without converted concupiscences of evil there are no good affections. That which applies to the man, applies also to the Church. As many states as there are with the man, so many states of the Church there are with him. The regenerated man is truly man, thus truly the Lord's Church, for he is out of or in the Lord's celestial or spiritual Kingdom. The reformed man is in the way or in the movement of regeneration; the Church with him is not yet the Lord's True Church, but it is so in Merciful preparation and may therefore be called the fore-Church. A distinction first begins to be made, and afterwards a separation; for the first time the Free Choice begins to be seen and thus begins to come into operation. Decisions are made for the Free Choice chooses, and the reception of the one thing means the rejection of the other. As all things so, too, has the Free Choice an exterior and an interior. The exterior or that which brings about the effect of the Free Choice is the decision, the interior or the causal part is the spiritual equilibrium. This equilibrium exteriorly is the equilibrium between Heaven and hell, a mechanical equilibrium as it were, as of a pair of scales or a lever; and interiorly this equilibrium is the equilibrium between all human faculties, an organic equilibrium as it were, of which it is written that all organs of the body are therein: "so that each organ is enabled to perform its fuuctions in the greatest quiet",

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T.C.R. 478. The truly Free Choice in essence is nothing but spiritual quietude, spiritual health. And because that health is the health of a sound spirit in sound body, therefore the first thing of Free Choice is to be really willing to accept the conversion of the concupiscences of evil into good affections in the natural man. Free Choice can only be spoken of when the entire man is drawn in, thus when with yea-yea, nay-nay, he decides out of his whole heart, soul, and understanding. This the word "free choice" fully says, for the free concerns the voluntary, and the choice the rational. In essence the Free Choice is the equilibrium between the free and the rational. For this reason the fore-Church is the Church of penitence, and the sign of penitence is that all arbitrariness has ceased. Arbitrariness is neither will nor choice, it is no equilibrium, no health, but the greatest unrest so that no organ can perform its function. All concupiscences of evil are arbitrary, all good affections are the free and the choice, or the will and the understanding: one. What makes a church Church is that it performs free choices because it lives in the Free Choice. In every apparent church the free choice remains pending over the heads and never falls except after death. All judgments are accepted, but meanwhile care is taken for a lifelong postponement of the execution. The free choice is sidetracked, and then it always happens somewhere on a side road, arbitrarily, thus wrongly, irreparably.

The human race has been created to become Church. For this reason the Church is always latently present, and it arises with every upright nation. Even as the man is not regenerated unless he has first been reformed, so the Lord's True Church is not instaurated except after having been a fore-Church. The men of the fore-Church may be called “free choices”, or equilibria, or rests, or healths. They have, from free choice, been put in the enjoyment of the Free Choice. They are risen from the dead and for this reason everything that happens to man after his decease has happened to them: the celestial Angels as to the heart are united with them, and two Angels have kept watch near the head until both their faces have been received, see A.C. 1G8 to 181. In this state the eelestial Angels signify the good of innocence or the love into the Lord, that is, the love of doing His commandments; and the two Angels near the

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head signify the Free and the Choice, or the angelic voluntary and the angelic rational, thus the new will and the new understanding out of that good of innocence of the celestial kingdom and thence the good of charity of the spiritual kingdom.

Man from dead has become alive when he is in the Cognition of the Free Choice or has received it. For the Free Choice itself in spiritual things is enthroned in all perfection in the soul of man, and thence it flows down into the will and the understanding, which, being taught and reformed, make his spirit, being subject to the Divine Law, which he thinks, does, and obeys as if from himself. This as if from himself or this free is that in which the Lord with man dwells in his soul Free Choice is the Free Choice in spiritual things, and the spiritual things dwell in the highest province of the mind for they are the soul's own things; the soul is in the highest things and feeds on the spiritual things as on food. Where the soul is enthroned, there also is the love that makes man's blessedness after death; and where that love is enthroned, also the Free Choice is seated from which that free descends which man has in natural things. It is allowable in connection with the Dutch word for free "vrij" to think for a moment about the words "vrijage" and "vrijen" [courtship and to court], which words just as the Latin word liber, free, are related with to love and to list and the German word lieben, to love. The Lord flows from the higher or the interior, thus through the soul, through its love and through its desire, and through its Free Choice, in short through its living effort, into each man with the Divine Good and the Divine True and gives him the ability and the will to receive this. That Influx is a delight, a delectation, conjugial in its origin, conjugial or pure and chaste into lasts, but when man turns away from the Lord to himself, there is a twist: the conjugial delight of the influx remains but becomes a whorish lust, for if some enjoyment did not remain, which, as it were, is of the same kind, man would not be able to live, for the enlivening makes the life of his love; see T.C.R. 490. The free in the natural man, which free is out of the Free Choice in the soul itself, is purely the delight of love wbich is free to become the celestial free or the infernal slavish, by which man ranges himself either among the Angels of Michael or

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among the angels of the dragon. Now it is in this that the Church is like unto the spiritual world: that they who are therein may no longer waver between Heaven and hell; and it is the Recognition of the Free Choice which makes the true man and the True Church. The Recognition of the Free Choice-out of the soul is to feel the delight or the good pleasure of believing in God, of the conversion, of living the commandments, of fighting the concupiscences, of becoming a new creature; in short of shunning the evil or doing the good. The Recognition of the Free Choice consists in receiving into one's self the spiritual things of the Church, for thus the unfree free is bridled. All evils are cleared out of the way by the true employment of the Free Choice in spiritual things; the true employment teaches the true conjugial enjoyment. A mind in which there is no Cognition or Acknowledgment of the Free Choice, is an empty or evil mind, and a “church” of such argues about spiritual things from the separated natural man who sees everything reversed or upside down. The general fatness of mind has smothered the influx of the spiritual Free Choice into the natural free; a society of such is just that which is said to be "stewed in its own juice"; it is in permissions and not in the Stream of Providence. What the Free Choice is becomes clear to each as soon as he is able to secure himself that rest in order to allow the perfect Free Choice in the soul to flow out anew and mightily into his free, for then that Free Choice pervades that free with all the perfumes of the pleasure garden or the Paradise of the soul. So that the man then breathes from the Free Choice in natural things and at the same time in spiritual things. But for this, as has been said, rest is needed, that is, to come to one's senses, to settle down; and this is not achieved without desisting, without fasting.

The fore-Church of the Lord's True Church consists purely of those fasting; who do not show thcir own sad faces but, as it were, show a.pair of received angelic faces, from which the Love and the Faith of the Free Choice shines forth. Whether or not Church is in the man depends on whether or not from free choice he lives the Free Choice, thus whether a choice has been made, and has been made betimes. The choice not made or made too late is to begin to be locked out. Faith alone and love alone is nothing but

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deferred free choice, nothing but confirmed deferment of free choice. Thence, belatedly, the useless repentance or the infernal remorse that soon turns into hatred and hardness of heart.

The human begins in the inmost of the rational.. The inmost of the rational is the rational free or the intellectual voluntary. For this reason we might with good reason say that the Ecclesiastical begins in the Free Choice. The difference between the man-Church and every apparent church lies in the Free Choice exercised each time, thus lived, or else delayed and evaded, from a respite to a total omittance. This shows itself in the faces, or directly out of inmosts, for the face is the window of the mind, shining and transparent out of the celestial free of the choice, dull and black out of the infernal unfree of arbitrariness. Bccause the Free Choice in essence is spiritual equilibrium, it is therefore harmony, order, arrangement; it is the choice or the rational will to progress according to the order, from the engagement to the betrothal, from the betrothal to the wedding or the marriage. For this reason the true Free Choice begins with the promise of marriage, and it starts with saying "yes", but most "choose" a loose trafficking with the Church. For nothing in the world would they terminate this intimacy, but meanwhile for the sake of all the treasures of that same world they wish to remain "free men". Do not ask therefore whence come the evil and the false things in the Church: from those who defer the free choice by refusing or hesitating to show their colours, to acknowledge their choice. In essence the Free Choice is a floating equilibrium, but with them one may speak of an unbudgeable or unmovable dead weight. They are disturbed equilibria, breakdowns of the balance. Of the sense of balance it is said that it lies in the brains, nearest to the line between the ears. Seen thus the Free Choice is a single ear, obedience to the true and obedience to the good, to, gether one. Now all evil and false things in the Church come from those who refuse to make the free choice from the powers given them thus to enter into the Free Choice, and who nevertheless behave as if out of free choice they were in the Free Choice. But their free is an icebound or crippled free, and their choice consequently is always wrong, always away from the centre. The Free Choice by

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nature is of a willing disposition, because it is orderly equilibrium, but arbitrariness as a bastard free choice is always of a contrary disposition becanse it is in untenable disorder. Evil and false things are things of arbitrariness, the good and true things are things of Free Choice. This explains the many iniquities in the Churcn, which, on that account, cannot yet be the Lord's True Church except after the Harvest or after the Judgment when the wheat has been purified from the tares. Those iniquities cannot cease and the Church cannot become the Lord's True Church unless its Principles or its Genuine True is made into a Constitution to such an extent that they form the perfect determination of the Free Choice. So long as everybody can sign any declaration of principles whatsoever, there can be no question as yet of free choice. The Free Choice is not an indefinite something, for that would be an arbitrary nothing. The Free Choice poses a subject and an object. The subject is the man of the Church, the object is the Church which from free choice he wills to live. The Free Choice poses the Reception of the Lord in the Church. Thus it begins by placing one before the choice either to persevere in the concupiscences of the evil, or else to be converted to good affections. After this free choice has been set, made, and lived, another, and indeed the proper Free Choice arises, the floating, living, spiritual equilibrium, firm and mighty as a constellation, powerful to raise others from free choice to similar Free Choices; the harmony of the spheres between such mutually is then the Lord's True Church, one entire celebration and glorification of the Divine Human of the Lord. The Church as one entire Starry Host of Free Choices. Formerly the concupiscences of evil and the good affections could appear to be similar in the same Church with the same Doctrine out of the same Word, but once the Free Choice has been determined down to the ground of the common good so that, however paradoxical it may sound, it has become compelling, then an unbridgeable abyss begins to yawn. All that, so far, has gone along from unfree choice shrinks back from this Free Choice, for it is all Angel, all law and order. The Free Choice in the paramount sense is the celestial free, the celestial proprium. Very often the inclination to be left free is taken to be the free choice, but it is the good use

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or the abuse of the free choice that determines it. All the true thiugs that lead to the good are in essence all the true things that teach the good use of the Free Choice. To give true things that cannot lead to good, is not to give true things but "burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers". What causes the Church to be a Body is that all therein, as organs, are in the spiritual equilibrium of their Free Choice so that they are enabled to perform their functions in the greatest quiet. He who has not willed to learn the good use of the Free Choice, because he takes the good use for compulsion and the abuse for freedom, cannot be of the Lord's True Church. Such a one cannot believe in the Free Choice, and hence such as they believe in election or predestination, a faith alone in an unprovidential arbitrariness which is expected to balance their abuse of the free and the rational. It is such who raise the point of controversy whether the free choice is man's or the Lord's, with the evident intention of being able to neglect penitence behind endless arguments; for the first thing of the free choice is to perform penitence or to shun evil. As soon as man has done this as from himself, he enters into a spiritual equilibrium, an order, a quietude of Free Choice, in which he surely never asks to whom it belongs. Unless the angelic with man makes the free choice and man follows, the man from himself makes and follows his unfree choice or the infernal slavish. The Free Choice is man's first cooperation as from himself; and even as man's cooperation is continually being ordered or renewed from the Lord, just so is the Free Choice. It is very often fancied that the free choice is made in one single instance, but in essence the Free Choice returns anew with each change of state with new calls for new engagements. How otherwise is that well-known word to be understood: "Not all that are being regenerated reach this [celestial] state; but some, and at this day the greatest part, only the first state; others but the second; again others the third, fourth, fifth, rarely the sixth; and hardly anyone the seventh", A. C. 13. Each of those states is entered into from the Free Choice; in each succeeding state the Free Choice of the previous state is renewed; every state is an engagement sealed and confirmed by Free Choice, not entered into until

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one has first sat down and reckoned the costs; the quantity and quality of the free and rational in the Free Choice determines the fulness of the state, which always is a state of reception and conjunction thence. It is thus in the Lord's True Church or with the regenerated; but everywhere else slates are enlered into without free choice, and states determined by no free choice are.states without subject and without object, or states abstracted from person, therefore monsters. The merely natural man enters into such states with an "I, Lord", and does not go, for they are apparent states only.*) This is having no root in one's self, this is walking with the Lord from apparent free choice, but unexpectedly to be offended by a word; and, as it is written “From that time many of His disciples went back, and

*) Here a few etymologies of the very greatest importance: the Latin for choice arbitrium, is composed of ar or ad to, and bito or eo to go, thus literally to go to, or to enter into. From this it appears that the golden word NUNC LICET is the word of the Free Choice itself. And in Old Dutch kiezen, to choose, meant: to experience, to undergo, to suffer, to investigate, to taste, to test, to prove, to assay, to possess or to acquire, to adopt as a son, to will, of free-will to succeed to, to conduct one's self according to, to try, to: fix, to determine, to desire. Thus kiezen, to choose. and keuren, to assay, appear to be related, witness the word kieskeurig, fastidious, particular, choosy; related are also the words kiesch, delicate, particular, bekoren, to charm, bekeuren, to draw up a summons, to inflict a penalty, and kust in te kust en te keur, an abundance, fulness of choice, with the meaning of choice, will, the best, a law detennined upon by mutual consent, good quality, way, condition or state. Is it not of overwhelming glory how the languages vie with one another in counting up the virtues of the Free Choice? Pure jewels on Aharon's Ephod that, each time man reads or approaches the Word holily in the Letter, 'begin to shine forth their answer. For all that multiplicity of significations is from the spiritual world, one there, many in unity here; and in so far as man is in the Free Choice in the spiritual things, those significations begin to glitter forth, whether he knows them or not. They shine in accordance with his going, his change of state, his nature. Truly, the word Free Choice already sings in all languages a song of praise, a psalm to its Giver. With the extinguished common perception also the languages have been petrified. But at each Coming of the Lord the same might be said with regard to those perceptions and the languages as the Lord said when He entered into Jerusalem: "I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out", LUKE XIX: 40.

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walked no more with Him", JOHN VI : 66. If the walking with the Lord had been out of the spiritual free, the disciples or those who were being taught and who were learning, could not have murmured or rebelled against the hard word that the Lord calls Himself the Bread that has come down from Heaven. The truly Free Choice has already chosen the Lord before it chooses, for in an unspoilt mind the highest province, where the spiritual things are, is not closed off from the lower provinces where the moral, the civil, and the natural things are, so that the life from the Lord can flow in freely from the highest things and can flow through, and give him the perception of the good and the true. He receives the influx according to his nature, and this "according to his nature" is in essence the same as "according to free choice", for the choice is according to one's nature_, virtuous or perverted. For this reason the Lord there said to His disciples: "But there are some of you that believe not ... Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me except it were given unto him of My Father". It is the Good of Innocence, immediately from the Divine itself, which gives the truly Free Choice to be able to come to the Lord, and he that, by wilfully and knowingly not obeying the commandments for the sake of the enlivening things of the concupiscences of evil, has extinguished this Innocence with himself, he has perverted the Free Choice into an unfree own preference. We sometimes say by way of reproach “it was of your own choosing” and we then mean a choosing from the proprium; a choosing against all the free rational and all the rational free, which therefore worked out so badly.

Therefore now this straightforward question: Are we sitting here merely from our own choosing, or are we here from Free Choice? You feel it already: with the own choosing, the evil and false things have the upper hand, but with the Free Choice the good and true things carry the victory. Free Choice can only be spoken of when man has come down to the ground of his nature, and can therefore choose according to his nature all that is useful to him and thence all that he requires. In essence the acknowledgment of self or the knowledge of self is narrowly related to the Free Choice. To choose outside of one's nature or against one's nature is not to choose but to lust, is not free choice

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but one's own choosing. Thus the Jews from their own choosing lusted after a church, not for the sake of the Church but for the sake of self-election; and so they got what they asked for; the representative of the Church, directed towards the Lord's True Church but at tbe same time against themselves, not for a blessing but for a curse. All one's own choosing is such a Jewish lust, for the sake of honour, reputation, gain. One can from one's own choosing walk with the Lord as a disciple, but the moment the Free Choice is put withdraw precipitately. For the Free Choice presupposes a nature in its order that kuows what it wills and what the true nature in its free choice wills, that is: to perform one's functions in a state of the greatest quiet. Only when far removed from all appearance we have returned to our true nature, can we, by the use of the Free Choice, which the Word teaches us, truly begin to realize what the Free Choice is, and as the rational animals we are, begin to live therein. Rational animals, each according to his nature, each after his kind, entirely as is written in GENESIS: the tree after its kind, the fish, the bird, the beast, the wild animal after his kind. After his kind or according to his nature means in his free choice. The Dutch in the spiritual world means the Dutch according to their nature or in their free choice, in their specifically Dutch use of the Free Choice.

As strange as it will sound to you, one might imagine to be a church, yea to be THE church, and not even yet have arrived at the Free Choice in spiritual things. Which is equal to walking after the Lord as a disciple, and meanwhile not or not yet believing. Therefore do not confuse the own choosing with the Free Choice, for this would lead to the self-satisfaction of having already made a free choice a long while since, and at that time once and for all chosen the good part; nevertheless: "No man can come unto Me except it be given unto him of My Father". This word introduces a new fear of the Free Choice, for it teaches that the Lord's True Church does not begin except out of the good employment of the Free Choice taught from the Lord, and that Free Choice is continually renewed in each state. And unless the Free Choice is renewed, it is perverted in man to his own choosing with all the self-elation connected therewith; the spiritual equilibrium is gone, for the "after

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his kind" is gone. The free choice that is truly Free Choice is, according to its origin and essence, the Celestial Free in which the Angel-man is kept from the Lord, and so withheld from the evil. An Angel, who from his infancy had been in Heaven, fancied himself to be without hereditary evil and he was shown the contrary. With as much injustice he might have fancied that he had once and for all eternity chosen freely and well from himself. But even the angelic choice, or the taste during the decorating of the Candlestick, is dead without the continuous Influx from the Lord.

With the reformation and the regeneration, thus with the beginning of the Lord's True Church, the Free Choice acquires a new dreadful sense. As there is the difficult conversion of the concupiscences of evil into good affections, so there is the difficult conversion of the own choosing into the Free Choice. There is no Principle except it be received from Free Choice in order, in turn, to put Free Choices anew; there is no Principle except it be at once taken up in Free Choice, and just as immediately rejected from own choosing. By the own choosing, which precociously received Principles as if from free choice, the good and true things have been perverted into evil and false things. In the Word a passage in EZEKIEL is unfolded and then it is said: "Here Jerusalem is treated of whereby is indicated the Church according to the Doctrine; here first concerning the false things of the evil wherein it was before it was reformed; and subsequently concerning its reformation" A.E. 329. A church that is in false things of the evil or is unreformed cannot be the Lord's True Church, but a church that is being reformed will become the Lord's True Church. A church is being reformed when the good use of the Free Choice begins to make the common good, or when its true things have led to the good. It is probably for this reason that the chapter on the Free Choice in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION ends with a writing from Heaven: “Enter hereafter into the mysteries of the Word, which thus far has been closed; for the singular truths thereof are so many mirrors of the Lord”. It is only out of the Free Choice that mysteries of the Word may be entered into; so the Free Choice proves to be the entire soul, the entire heart, the entire understanding, the entire NUNC LICET of the Church. Before the church is reformed, the own choosing magnifies itself, but

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when the reformation dawns the liberated affections begin to perceive what the Free Choice is, for then for the first time they are in the spiritual things. The singular true things of the Word begin to become what is indicated by the sanscrit root of the word true; they begin to become desired, longed for, chosen. The true is truly the true only then when it is desired, longed for, chosen from free choice. The affection of the true is the longing for the quality, that is, for the how to do. The True does not allow itself to be longed for except in order to be done. Listen therefore to such a word as this: "All reception of the Divine Good takes place by means of the true things that have been made to be of the life, and the conjunction therefrom is by means of the good in those true things", and then further on:

"Blood signifies the Divine True and with the recipients the true out of the good" A.E.329. Here the arcanum of the Reception flows together with the arcanum of the Free Choice, for man can never from his own choosing make the true things to be of the life and with these receive the Divine Good; all that he does from his own choosing is arbitrary and made to be only of the apparent life; only what man does from truly Free Choice or does according to his truly founded nature has been made of the life, receives, and conjoins. The true out of the good is the received true, or the free true. When the natural free has come to lie under the influence of the spiritual Free Choice, then man is no longer under the laws of permission but in the blessed Stream of Providence. The living effort that is the Free Choice - for it is enthroned in the will and the understanding as a tremulation between love and wisdom, as a sweet rivalry between the east and the south - feels that Providential current as the conjunction itself with the Lord. Only when the natural free lies under the brooding shadow of the Free Choice does life's artery truly open, through which the Remains out of the Soul can descend and return. Then there is the celebration for the Prodigal Son.

For that reason it behooves all of us to submit ourselves to a continual self-examination in each state and degree, with regard to the Free Choice according to our nature, in order that the natural free may not become old and cold. Remember in this connection the awe inspiring warning the Lord gave to Peter: "Amen, Amen, I say unto thee:

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When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not", JOHN XXI: 18.

For what is left of the Free Choice in that miserable state?

IN MEMORIAM ALBERT BJORCK

After a life of devoted lahour in manifold varying relations to the existing organizations of the New Church, Reverend Albert Bjorck passed away on Sunday, April lath, in Jonkoping, at the age of 82. The manifold vicissitudes of his life were determined by his desire and his search for an ever more interior and more essential vision of the new Word, which, having come from the old church, he had found in his youth. Circumstances brought him first into contact with the American CONVENTION, and afterwards with the Swedish organization of the Church in Stockholm, which stood under the influence of the English CONFERENCE; only at a more advanced age, did he come into touch with the GENERAL CHURCH of the New Jerusalem. In his longing for the True for the sake of the True he soon felt drawn towards the principle that the Writings of Emannel Swedenborg are the Word, and he therefore joined the GENERAL CHURCH. And when of late years the new interior light about the proper spiritual essence of the Third Testament of the Word was looking for reception among the priests and the members of the GENERAL CHURCH also outside Holland, Albert Bjorck was one of the very few who were found prepared to examine this great question without prejudice as to its indwelling essential merit. After a strenuous struggle for this light he soon accepted this new basis for the thought of the man of the Church. He regarded it as the crowning of his life to be able to defend the new truths against the many attacks, and to be able to bring them to the unprejudiced members of the Church in England and Sweden that stood under his influence and looked to him as a trustworthy teacher. Among his friends and among

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his opponents he gained the reputation of an intrepid combatant. in favour of truth.

Albert Bjorck was born in Valdemarsvik in Sweden on May 18th, 1856. In 1880 he came to the United States where by means of a fellow countryman he soon became acqnainted with the Works of Swedenborg, which he accepted as a Divine Revelation. He felt drawn towards a priestly career, went through the theological school in Boston-Cambridge and was ordained in 1890. In tills connection he snbsequently ministered to the societies or small circles at Stockholm, Seattle, Riverside, and San Francisco. While connected with the GENERAL CHURCH, which he joined after his return from America in 1919 or 1920, he ministered to various isolated groups in England, at Bath, Bristol, Woodgreen, and also regularly visited the larger societies in London and Colchester. In the last year of his life he had returned to his own country. He was called to Jonkoping by a circle of about fourteen convinced receivers of the new principles. Although in the last years he had repeatedly been threatened by serious illnesses he still seemed to see years before him in which to pursue his work. The communication of his decease came to us as a surprise, and to our human feelings it almost seemed as if he had been called away from this life all too soon.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE ISSUE FOR JULY 1938

THE NINETEENTH OF JUNE 1938

There was a gathering of 57 people on Satnrday evening, June 18th, to celebrate the Nineteenth of June.

There were addresses by Rev. E. Pfeiffer, ex tempore, and Messrs. A. Zelling and H. D. G. Groeneveld.

Address by Anton Zelling

TO TEACH AND TO LEAD

“Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me”.

PSALM XXV : 5

The same language within the Church is different from that without the Church, a difference as between life and death; for within the Church the interior sense that is inherent in each word gradually buds forth, and that sense shines through all particular significations of that word; outside the Church, however, every word indeed has whatever meaning you wish, but there is not the interior sense, which is just that which ought to give soul to those significations. For this reason the same language within the Church is in a continuous state of increasing conjunction, and outside the Church in a continuous state of increasing disintegration. A difference therefore as between a healthy body out of a sound spirit, and a rotting corpse. The simplified spelling question therefore is a clearly unspiritual or cadaverous phenomenon: even the letters in this world no longer are able to hold together and are beginning to rot off. A note-worthy sign of the times for those who are in the Church.

The same words to teach and to lead have an entirely different signification within the Church and without. Superficially considered to teach is to teach and to lead is to lead, and that is all. Superficially considered there is, therefore,

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no different signification of the words when the Roman Catholics say they submit to the teaching and leading authority of their church, when the Reformed call their minister the teacher and leader of their congregation, and when the Word states that the Lord teaches and leads. Superficially considered in those three cases to teach is simply to teach, and to lead is simply to lead; it is only the matter that is to be learned and the end that is to be led to which differ, and that is all there is to it.

Nothing of the kind.

Without the Church the same language is absolutely without essence and without sense, and nothing but a disastrous confusion arises when a different language is spoken with the same words. Within the Church also the language is raised from the proprium and into the light of Heaven. The words have the Kingdom of God within them for they draw their all from the spiritual world; and let that Kingdom of God first be sought before the Lord can open the lips for the man to show forth His praise.

To Teach and To Lead. In these two words, conjugially conjoined, lies the all of the Church. For the Church, that is, the Lord in the Church, or the Lord by the Word understood, teaches and leads, as Priest-King. And for this reason, too, the priests in that celestial Kingdom, which is the Church in the lands, shall "teach and lead the people", see N.J.H.D. 318. The word "volk" [people] as to its origin signifies "volte" [something that is full], and the word "leek" [layman] as to its origin signifies "volk" [people]. The word "leek" [layman] is a generic name; the layman is not an individual, but that which should fill the Church in order to be taught and led, the crowd, the multitude, the people; in a universal sense the entire human race. Before the priest in his teaching and leading the laymen sit as one man, all whose teachable and leadable human faculties he is to teach and to lead from the Lord, to the final end: the salvation by complete regeneration. It is only the essence of regeneration and the blessedness according thereto that reveals what essentially it is to teach and to lead, thus only the synthetic or angelic way; it is only from the inmost or from the Lord that we can grow to love the words to teach and to lead, and be filled entirely with them or truly become laymen before

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them. For also the Angels, whose function is purely to teach and to lead from the Lord - and even the meaning of the word Angel is messenger, he who is sent, ambassador, and the internal sense of Angel is the Divine True things, abstracted from person, that is, in the person from the Lord - the Angels in their turn are laymen or people when they sit in their temples before their priests, and in the highest Heavens before their preachers; that there they are called preachers and not priests is because the Priesthood is the Celestial Kingdom, for the Priesthood signifies the good of the love into the Lord. The volte [fulness, being filled], which the words volk [people] and leek llayman] signify as to their origin, signifies abstracted from person, that is in the person from the Lord, or on the part of the Lord, the fulness of the good and true things that are being consummated or brought into fulfilment, whereby the people is His people. To teach and to lead is to bring into fulfilment, to bring to consummation, to a This Day, of which it may be said: This Day is the Scripture fulfilled in all your heart, in all your soul, and in all your mind. Now in this it is that to teach and to lead is the all of the Church: fulfilling and perfecting. For this reason it stands written: "That also in the Heavens are doctrines, preachings, and temples, is because the Angels are continnously being perfected in wisdom and love", HH. n. 221; and in n. 225: "Although the Angels that are in the celestial Kingdom perceive and see, the true things, nevertheless preachings take place there, since by those they are enlightened in the true things that they knew, and are perfected from several that they did not knnw previously; as soon as they hear these they also acknowledge them, and so perceive; the true things that they perceive they also love, and by living according to those they make them of their life; to live according to the true things, they say, is to love the Lord". Also the Angels have need of the Church in order to be edified or built. For this reason it stands written that those preachings are solely of service as means, that the Angels may be instructed in the things of life, H.H. n. 222, and that the Doctrines according to which these sermons are preached all regard the life as the end; and that the essential of all Doctrines in the three Heavens is to acknowledge the Lord's Divine Human, H.H. 227.

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The internal man is regenerated by thinking those things that are of faith and of charity; the external man, however, by the life according thereto. This is being born again from Water and Spirit; water, the true of faith, spirit, the life according thereto. The teaching in its essence has reference to the internal man; the leading in its essence has reference to the external man. The word to teach, as to its origin in the Latin, signifies both to give and to know, which two words in Dutch again are joined in the word "kennisgeving" [notification, communication, a giving to know]. Teaching essentially is nothing else than, nothing more or less than, the giving of cognitions, the word cognition to be well understood as acknowledgment. That to teach is the giving of cognitions appears in JEREMIAH: "I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know Jehovah", XXXI: 33, 34. Teach, saying: Know Jehovah. The internal sense of to say is to perceive. Thus to teach is: to make cognitions to be perceived, or to give to be known. The Latin for priest is sacerdos, literally a giver of consecrated things; there again you have knowledge and giving, or to teach; for the cognitions are Divine things, thus consecrated, and true things of faith, or the sacred things; to give those is to make the internal man think those things or to teach him. To teach those things out of the good is to lead the good; now the internal sense of Priest is: he that teaches the good, with relation to the Prophet being he that teaches the true. With this expression "to teach the good" we think of the Lord's words: "Take my yoke upon you and LEARN of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light", MATTHEW XI : 29, 30. That word learn [in Dutch leeren, the same as to teach] shows itself in qnite a different light from anything we were accustomed to: as if the earth trembled and a grave were opened. Notice how the word "learn of Me" is preceded by "take My yoke upon you", so that to learn proves to be dependent on following, on following the Lord. To resist the evils springing forth out of the love of self and of the world is to take up the yoke and follow; and to follow is being taught and led. Well now, if you will believe it, the Dutch word leeren [to teach and to learn] as to its origin

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contains in itself the significations to follow, to carry out according to promise, to concede, to complete, to fulfil, to perfect, to pay, to be given as hostage, to follow the footprints. Is this not remarkable enough to render us silent before that ordinary little word leeren?

To teach as well as to lead are universal words. In the three Testaments, thus in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, there are a number of words for to teach and to lead, thus with untold particular significations. Each particular signification, if opened from within, will indicate a separate function. In Dutch, too, there are a number of words for to teach as for example onderwijzen and onderrichten, [to instruct]; but the root of all those synonyms, from which they are begotten and to which they are directed is the word leeren. Certainly a priest may and should also instruct, but the heart and the soul of his function, and also in all instruction and training, is and remains to teach, or to awaken cognitions and acknowledgments. Water is the true of faith. To teach the true of faith is to keep that water alive, to touch it with the angel's wing of the spiritual true, in order that it remain clean and pure, that it heal and strengthen all that seek it. To teach is to set into motion, to awaken cognitions into acknowledgments; it is to give man to think, to feed him with cognitions of the good and the true, or of faith and of charity; the natural or the external man receives the cognitions, the spiritual or the internal man in him from those cognitions takes up the true and good things of Heaven, and so from the teaching both are provided with food and with drink. For this reason Shepherd, being the Lord and being the priest from the Lord, in the Latin pastor signifies Feeder. To teach on the part of tbe priest is to give cognitions; and to teach on the part of the laymen is to perceive within themselves that it is thus, being to understand, and so to receive and to acknowledge, to learn, therefore. To teach and to learn otherwise is to teach' and not to teach, mere book learning.

So far to teach. Now to lead.

The internal man is regenerated by thinking those things that are of faith and of charity; the external man, however, by the life according to those things. If the internal man is

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taught, the external man is led to follow the internal man after he has been tanght. Thus to teach is full of leading, and to lead is full of teaching. For this reason in CONCERNING THE NEW JERUSALEM AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE it is stated: "Priests shall teach those men the way to Heaven and also lead them; they shall teach those according to the Doctrine of their Chnrch out of the Word, and lead that they live according to it. Priests that teach the true things and by those lead to the good of the life, and thus to the Lord, are the good Shepherds of the sheep; they that teach, however, and do not lead to the good of the life, and thus to the Lord, are the evil shepherds", n. 315. To lead is to lead to the good of the life, and the good of the life is to do the Commandments that have been taught. To teach is to feed the desire for cognitions of the good and the true, thus the affection of the spiritual true; that affection, however, is with those only who are in the good of life, that is, who do the Commandments. To teach but not to lead in no sense is to teach; and to lead but not to teach in no sense is to lead. The internal man cannot truly be taught unless at the same time the external man be led. To learn is of Water, to lead is of the Spirit; in this relation the teacher is an Image of God or Wisdom, and the leader is a Similitude of God or Love. The teaching is directed to the internal man, the leading to the external man. The teaching therefore flows immediately into those things that are of perception and of thinking; the leading, however, does not inflow immediately into those things but into the affections of the love and of the good of the life and through the latter into the former.

Man has Heaven out of life according to the Commandments. For this reason the external man is regenerated by living according to the things of faith and of charity that have been learned. And because the Priests are to lead in order that the laymen may live according to those things, it thus appears that all leading in essence is from Heaven to Heaven. The teaching provokes thinking, the leading draws one to follow. Here an ancient proverb comes to our mind: "Precepts may lead, but examples draw", [the Dutch says: Leeringen wekken, voorbeelden trekken, precepts awaken, examples draw]. And indeed: to teach appertains to awakening, to regeneration [Dutch: wekken and verwekken]; to lead appertains to drawing; and the examples that

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draw or lead one to follow, are the life of the external man altogether united with, and thus corresponding to, the internal man; such a life is exemplary or full of images and similitudes of Heaven.

To lead as well as to teach are universal words. In the three Testaments, thus in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, there are a number of words for to lead and to teach, thus with untold particular significations. Each particular signification, if opened from within, will indicate a separate function. In Dutch too there are a number of words for to lead, as, for example, besturen, beschikken, regelen [to govern, to dispose, to regulate]; but the root of all those synonyms, from which they are begotten and to which they are directed is the word leiden, [to lead]. Certainly a priest may and should govern, dispose, regulate, but the heart and the soul of his function is and remains to lead or to draw. For there are other relations between priest and layman: the priest as minister, and the elder as layman; there is the relation of Heaven and Church, there is the relation of Kingdom and Priesthood. By a good understanding of the words to teach and to lead light will be thrown on all these relations, of what quality the teaching and leading in the one and the other kingdom is, and in what it consists. This much is certain that the inmost of leading is a drawing, a merciful drawing. The word leiden even as to its derivation signifies to draw; hence the Latin educatio in German became Erziehung, literally a drawing; and the Latin dux [duke] became hertog, literally he who draws forward the army. And it is the same whether you say that the affections draw their origin or lead from love, of which they are the continuation or the derivation, as the arteries are of the heart. The essence of leading is the influx of love, and the essence of the influx is the drawing, the sense of this word: "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day", JOHN VI : 44. Superficially considered to lead is the same as to command, and leading the same as management. However, the real essence of to lead, and leadership [Dutch leiding] clearly shows itself in the word indicating wrong or evil leading, namely the word verleiding [temptation, seduction]. Just as this reverses the affections into concupiscences, so the leadership converts the concupis-

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cences into good affections. This is the essence of leading; it draws, but it does not push. For this reason it is so expressly stated in the Word: The Priests shall lead, but nevertheless they shall compel no one. Superficially considered leading without compulsion is inconceivable; one degree worse and leading becomes mere despotism. The tragicomedy of these times is that we see entire nations clamour for leaders, and they receive mere despots. This is because men have not truly learned what true leading is, and because men have forgotten to look up to the Lord, who, He alone, teaches and leads. A noteworthy sign of the times for those that are in the Church.

In order to see more clearly the relation between to teach and to lead, this comparison: the word that the pastor speaks, teaches and the voice that the pastor speaks with, leads. This calls to mind what is written in JOHN: "The sheep follow the shepherd for they know his voice", X : 4.

To long for teaching is to long for leading ; to be led in the highest sense, or for the Angels, is to perceive the Lord's influx in the affection out of which they have wisdom, then all they think out of wisdom appears as if from them; thus as if theirs, see D.P. 44. For the teaching and leading of the Church has inherent in it this final end: to arrive at the angelic free or the free itself. Man is truly free when he no longer wills and no longer can think and will evil. The Ten Commandments stand in the negative future: "Thou shalt not...” Well then, when man is truly free, that is when he is conjoined with the Lord, he will no longer will, nor be able, to kill, to steal, to commit adultery; he will no longer be able to think and will the sin. In its teaching and leading the Church regards the purification of sin as its all. In its teaching it regenerates the internal man, in its leading it regenerates the external man, and when this has been regenerated, then the entire man has been made truly free, and is saved. The infernal proprium is seated in the natural man; now the essence of leading consists in raising or drawing the man from that proprium. Compulsion would merely push him more deeply down. Such leading is to lead and not to lead, or a machiavellian policy.

The true understanding of the word to lead teaches to love the leading, and consequently to understand anew the word discipline. In essence discipline is not compulsion, but a being

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drawn, retired into one's self; the Dutch word tucht [discipline] comes from tijgen [to go forth]; in itself tucht [discipline] is discretion, modesty, chastity, in short, virtue, and in this the opposite of licentiousness [ontucht]. It is only by an iron self-compulsion that man arrives at that self-discipline which is not compulsion but a golden rule. And it is only by hard temptations that man is steeled to that iron self-compulsion. The temptations lead from bitter self-compulsion to sweet discipline. To chastise in Latin signifies literally to drive to chastity or to discipline. For this reason it is written in JOB, this being a Book of the Ancient Church: "Happy the man whom God correcteth [chastiseth]: therefore despise not thou the chastening [the discipline] of Schaddai”, V : 17; Schaddai signifies the temptations, the liberation therefrom, and the consolation thereafter. The word discipline, as well as disciple, contains, in contracted form, the words discere, to teach, and pupillus, a lad under age, or an orphan, in which connection think of the disciple whose father had died and who was not to bury him but to follow the Lord. In the words tucht and discipline the Lord is the Guardian who teaches and leads. If teaching and leading are well understood, discipline becomes an easy yoke and a light burden.

The essence of to lead is not seen and realized, unless the final end thereof be seen and realized. To lead is to lead to the Kingdom of God, thus within the Lord's Government. For this reason what is said in the Word of to govern must apply for to lead, and I beseach you to consider the following statement word by word:

"To govern Heaven and the land is to receive from Himself all the good that is of love, and all the true that is of faith, thus all intelligence and wisdom, and so all blessedness; in short, eternal life", RH. 5.

The cognition that God governs the universe, is the acknowledgment of the essence and final end of Government, which is the reception of all intelligence and wisdom, and so all blessedness, in short, eternal life, from the Lord alone. The essence inherent in all true leading is the Reception. To allow one's self to be led is to receive. The man that is led

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from the Lord, or with whom the Lord governs Heaven and the land, is truly man, or Church, or Angel, for he is a receiver of His Love and Wisdom, perfect even as thy Father who is in the Heavens, is perfect. All this is inherent in the word to lead, a word so great and mighty that we must kneel down before it: "The Lord is in the temple of His Holiness; let all the earth be silent before His face".

Leading and Teaching are the Church in flesh and blood, realities that are, because God is. This is required of Cognition, to be Acknowledgment, man in flesh and blood, from top to toe, now and here; Cognition, and not merely an idea of the idea that leading and teaching are; for such an idea, the shadow of a shadow, is an apparent cognition, visionary or idealistic, enthusiast, unstable, undefined, fugitive, everywhere and nowhere, like glowworms. Only realities can be grasped by realities; there must be something to be taught and to be led. With regard to the Lord's Leading and Teaching there exists a dead faith, which passes itself off as living, because it takes ideas alone or separated ideas for conjoining acknowledgments. Such a faith, the product of spongy consciences is a shadow play of abstractions, an apparent play, by which, by silent agreement, all things are considered possible with God, and nevertheless nothing can take place except in fantasy only. Mere mirages in the desert. The art of conjuring something into nothing. The order inverted: the external man is taught delusions of faith and charity; and the internal man is left to the sale leading of a sale lord, or to his lot, resulting in disastrous arbitrariness. Thus life, which should be a believing in Divine Providence, finally becomes a faith in predestination. The dead old churches prove this. With the Roman Catholics there is no longer any Teaching, the Word having been locked ant, and therefore the mere leading is no Leading. With the Protestants, on the contrary, there is no longer any Leading, the dogma of the crucifixion as active salvation having made a life following the Commandments practically superfluous, and therefore the mere teaching is no Teaching. How far these things do stand removed from the Lord's True Church! For every mind in which that Church is, is a lord of the house in the celestial fulness of whom there is written in HEAVEN AND HELL "that he teaches how to live and says

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what to do", n. 219. All Teaching and Leading of the Church as its final end regards the layman as lord of the house; his house is his mind in the blessed usufruct of some Divine use, and this use lies in his faithfully followed function. Every layman must be such a lord of the house. Of such is the Kingdom of God, such form the Kingdom of Uses. The Church is there to make the Kmgdom of Uses great before the Lord: as in Heaven so in the lands. To live following the Doctrine is to enter into the Kingdom of Uses or becoming Use.

The Nineteenth of June is the Memorial Day of the Church, for on that day in the year 1770 the Lord, after the completion of THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, called together His twelve disciples who followed Him in the world; and the next day He sent them forth into the whole SPIRITUAL WORLD to preach the GOSPEL that the LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST reigns, whose Kingdom shall be for ever and ever. This commemoration therefore is the ever renewed commemoration that all teaching and leading in THE LORD'S NEW CHURCH THE NEW JERUSALEM is spiritual from Divine origin. The calling together of the disciples and the sending them forth how very evidently this pertains to Leading, concerning which we read in JOHN: "The sheep hear his voice; and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out", X: 3. And preaching the Gospel, how very evidently this pertains to Teaching. And that this takes place in the whole spiritual world how plainly this says that we are to understand and to will the teaching and the leading of the Church in a purely spiritual manner. The Lord teaches the internal man and He leads the external man to be one with tlie internal man in the free itself. For this reason this celebration, besides being the Commemoration of the past or of the origin, is also the Commemoration of the future or of the final end: the eternal blessedness of never more willing, nor being able, to think and will evil. No longer to think evil pertains to teaching; no longer to will evil pertains to leading.

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ADDRESS BY H.D.G. GROENEVELD.

We have met today for the celebration of the day of the Lord's Second Coming and of the establishment of His New Church. On this day our feeling and thinking is drawn to the essence and the form of the Church and to the foundations upon which she must rest upon the earth. As is known, it has been revealed to us that it is not the Word that makes the Church but the understanding thereof, and that the Church is such as is the understanding of the Word with those that are in the Church (S.S. 76). The Doctrine of the Church, through an opening of that understanding, brought a new ordering of the Church, and especially in the internal thereof. It allowed us to see this new ordering in the internal as the holy city with its wall, gates, and foundations. Upon its descent from the internal it was not accepted in its essence by the General Church, therefore its foundation could not be laid upon the earth, that is, in the external of that Church. The holy city can only be there where the new wall can have its place and the foundations are accepted and set up on earth as principles in the external of the Church, that is, such as she appears before us. This wall and these foundations, however, can only then be there if the earth is such that it gives firmness to their place.

There where the essence of the Doctrine of the Church was accepted the earth was not of such substance that the wall and foundations could descend, because in the external of the Church the things of the love of self and of the world that were hidden in the previous state emerged. It was in this that the great struggle lay into which we were brought in the Church of recent years. These things are now gradually being removed from this earth, as a result of which a descent of the holy city may be possible.

We read in the ApOCALYPSE, Chapter XXI, Verse 22: “And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it”, which signifies “that in this Church there will be no external separate from the internal, because the Lord Himself in His Divine Human, from which is everything of the Church, is alone approached, worshipped, and adored”, A.R. 918. In the internal of the Church the appearance of priests and laymen disappears, for there the only Lord is Priest and King. In the internal of

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the Church there is conjunction of the external with the internal and of the internal with the external; there it is where conjugial love is the soul of all things. This internal is the realm of the kingly of the spirit, and it is in the inmost hereof that the Doctrine of the Church, which is spiritual out of celestial origin, has its awakening. It is in this internal of the Church that the Angels are present alid that the Lord dwells in what is His. In this internal the Lord leads with His Holy Spirit and thus only through this internal does the operation of the Divine Providence take place.

We read in the APOCALYPSE, Chapter XXI, Verse 12: “And it had a wall great and high and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve Angels, and names written thereon which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel”. “And it had a wall great and high signifies the Word in the sense of the letter, out of which is the Doctrine of the New Church .... It is said a wall great and high, hecause by this the Word is meant as to Its Divine Good and Divine . True, for great is predicated of the good and high of the true”, A.R. 898. The entire internal of the Church is based on the literal sense of the Word. This is its foundation, and thence the Doctrine of the Church may be drawn. Only in that is the substance present in which the Doctrine in the internal of the Church can be awakened. In that is the Divine Good and the Divine True through which an awakening can take place into eternity. It is said that the wall is great and high. Greater and higher will be the wall for the intarnal of the Church and stronger, therefore, the protection against the world of the external where the loves of self and of the world rule in the measure the acknowledgings to Heaven and to the Lord are more from the heart, whieh acknowledgings in the form they appear in are the cognitions. For we read in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 899: “And it had twelve gates, signifies all the cognitions of the true and the good there, through which a man is introduced into the Church”, and in n. 900: “And above the gates twelve Angels, and names written thereon, which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel, signifies the Divine true and good things of Heaven, which also are the Divine true and good things of the Church, in those cognitions, and also guards lest anyone should enter, unless he is in

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those out of the Lord”. From this it is evident that only through the cognitions, which in essence are acknowledgings to Heaven and to the Lord, entrance to the holy city or to the internal of the Church is possible. It is therefore through the acknowledgings that one enters for the first time within the borders of the internal of the Church, for this internal of the Church in turn has its internal and its external. How can one feel that one is entering the holy city if one seeks the essential of the Church in the external of the Church, that is, the Church such as she appears before us? How would it be possible to enter the holy city unless one considers conjugial love, namely the conjunction of the external with the internal, the sale essential? What can one's thoughts be concerning the internal of the Church if one does not make a reality of the struggle for essential conjunction in the conjugial love between man and wife from a longing for Heaven? This conjunction only becomes possible if the man and the wife independently enter into the struggle, each after his kind, but both animated with the striving for conjunction with the sole essential, and with a longing to will to be led solely by the light of the internal of the Church. Why does one look for life outside the gates and the wall of the holy city? Why does one batter on the wall and does one twaddle and argne at the gates of the city? Only by the aclonowledgings to Heaven and to the Lord does one enter into the city.

We read in the APOCALYPSE, Chapter XXI, Verse 14: “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb". "And the wall of the city had twelve foundations signifies that the Word in the sense of the letter contains all things of the doctrine of the New Church", A.R. 902; "and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, signifies all things of the doctrine out of the Word concerning the Lord and concerning a life according to His precepts", A.R. 903.

The Doctrine of the Church is drawn out of the literal sense of the Word and also finds its foundation in that sense. Through the Doctrine of the Church therefore the doctrinal things in the literal sense of the Word come into the light. These doctrinal things therefore are the principles from which the external Church, that is, the Church such as she appears before us, has its origin. In the setting up of

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these principles in the internal of the external of the Church the priesthood has its inception whereas the laymen have their government in the civil things of the Church in the external of the external of the Church. That the priesthood has its inception here clearly appears from this that it is said that these doctrinal things concern the Lord and a life according to His commandments, thus the things concerning the salvation of the human race. The essence of the priesthood is in the internal of the Church and animated from this source it has its function in bringing the human race through the doctrinal things thus opened to the gates of the holy city, thus unto the acknowledgings to Heaven and to the Lord. Thus the priests lead by the true to the good of life.

The setting up of the principles from the internal of the Church would deprive the priesthood of all form. It is just because the priesthood in the setting up of these principles has its inception that the freedom of its kingdom comes into existence. If, however, the priesthood does not have its essence in the internal of the Church, if, therefore, the realm of the kingly of the spirit is not accepted as the life of the Church, a selfish and ambitious priesthood will come into existence, which will lose its function for the salvation of the human race. From this it also follows that the comiug into existence of the priests will have to take place not only out of the external of the Church, but also out of the internal of the Church.

Then the circle is completed and there is conjunction between the priestly realm and the kingly realm and between the kingly realm and the priestly realm. Then there will be rejoicing and gladness in the dwellings of the holy city and exulting in the streets, for the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns.