Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/171

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD.
75

man. From these few considerations it may be known that conjunction with the Divine is effected by the acknowledgment of the Lord, and by the reception of Divine truth from Him. (A. E. n. 328.)

The Lord is said to be rejected when He is not approached and worshipped; and also when He is approached and worshipped only as to His Human, and not at the same time as to His Divine. He is therefore at this day rejected within the church by those who do not approach and worship Him, but pray to the Father that He will have compassion for the sake of the Son; while yet neither any man nor angel can ever approach the Father, and immediately worship Him; for He is the invisible Divine, with which no one can be conjoined in faith and love; for that which is invisible does not fall into the conception of thought, and therefore not into the affection of the will. (A. E. n. 114.)

In the whole heaven no other one is acknowledged as the God of heaven than the Lord alone. They say there, as He Himself taught, that He is one with the Father; that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; and he that seeth Him seeth the Father; and that everything holy proceedeth from Him (John x. 30, 38; xiv. 10, 11; xvi. 13-15). I have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have constantly said that in heaven they cannot distinguish the Divine into three, since they know and perceive that the Divine is one, and that it is one in the Lord. They said also that those who came from the world, out of the church, with whom there is an idea of three Divine [persons], cannot be admitted into heaven, since their thought wanders from one to another; and one may not there think three and say one, because in heaven every one speaks from the thought, for speech there is cogitative, or thought speaking. Wherefore those who in the world have distinguished the Divine into three, and have acquired a different conception of each, and have not concentrated and made it one in the Lord, cannot be received; for there is communication of all thoughts in heaven. If therefore any one should come thither who thinks three and says one he would immediately be discovered and rejected. But it should be known that all who have not separated truth from good, or faith from love, when instructed in the other life, receive the heavenly idea of the Lord, that He is God of the universe. It is otherwise however with those who have separated faith from life, that is who have not lived according to the precepts of true faith. (H. H. n. 2.)

The Divine under the Human form is the Lord's Divine Human. Because this is the chief [truth] of the church, therefore it continually flows into man from heaven. Hence it is