Spiritual Life and the Word of God by Emanuel Swedenborg
page 99 of 136 (72%)
page 99 of 136 (72%)
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hell, for in hell everyone wills to be the greatest, while in heaven
everyone wills to be the least; and to rule over holy things from an infernal delight is to profane them. But this second kind of profanation of the holy things of the church is not like the former kind of the profanation of them. Those fall into the former kind in whom a communication with heaven has been effected by the opening of their spiritual mind; while this second kind of profanation those fall into in whom the spiritual mind has not been opened, or communication with heaven effected through it. For so long as the delight of the love of ruling resides in man, that mind cannot be opened, and communication with heaven is not possible to him. Moreover, the lot of these profaners after death differs from the lot of the former. The former, as has been said, are in an unceasing delirium of fantasy; but these hate the Lord, hate heaven, hate the Word, hate the church, and hate all its holy things; and they come into such hatred because their dominion is taken away from them, and thus their state is changed into its opposite. They appear like something fiery, and their hell appears like a conflagration; for infernal fire is nothing else than a lust for ruling from love of self. These are among the worst, and are called devils, while the others are called satans. (A.E., n. 1055.) The love of ruling by the holy things of the church as means wholly shuts up the interiors of the human mind from the inmosts toward the outmosts, according to the kind and strength of that love. But to make clear that they are shut up, something shall first be said about the interiors belonging to the human mind. Man has a spiritual mind, a rational mind, a natural mind, and a sensual mind. By means of the |
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