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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 .