< Back to menu

Since all churches depend on the knowledge and acknowledgment of one God, with whom a member of the church can be conjoined, and since all four churches lacked that truth, it follows that a church will take the place of those four, which will know and acknowledge one God. God's Divine love had no other end in view, when He created the world, than to conjoin people to Himself and Himself to people that He might in this way dwell with people. . . . The Most Ancient Church, which preceded the flood, worshiped an invisible God with whom no conjunction is possible. The Ancient Church . . . did likewise. The Israelite Church worshiped Jehovah, who is in Himself an invisible God. . . . The fourth, which is called the Christian Church, did indeed with the lips acknowledge one God, but in three persons, each . . . of them invisible . . . yet, as said above, conjunction is not possible with an invisible God. (True Christian Religion 786)

This New Church is the crown of all the churches which have existed upon earth, because it will worship one visible God, in whom is the invisible, as the soul is in the body. In this way and no other is a conjunction of God with humanity possible. (True Christian Religion 787)

The reason why those who have the Word are more than others a peculiar treasure [to the Lord] and especially His own is that they are acquainted with the truths and the goods of faith. This being so, they are able more than others to lead the life of heaven and so be joined to the Lord. For the good that constitutes heaven with a person receives its specific quality from the truths of faith. Thus good becomes more heavenly or more Divine among those who possess genuine truths, which are truths drawn from the Word, though only if they keep them, that is, lead a life in accordance with them. (Arcana Coelestia 8768:2)

I afterward spoke again with the angels, saying that something else had been revealed in the world by the Lord. When they asked what it was, I said, "Respecting true married love and its heavenly delights."

"Who does not know," the angels said, "that the delights of married love surpass the delights of all other loves? And who cannot see that there is some love into which have been gathered all the blessings, felicities and delights that could ever be conferred by the Lord, and that their receptacle is true married love, which is able to receive and perceive them to a full sensation of them?"

I replied that they did not know this, because they did not go to the Lord and live according to His commandments, refraining from evils as sins and doing good. For true married love with its delights comes solely from the Lord and is given to those who live according to His commandments. Thus it is given to those who are received into the Lord's New Church, I said, the church that is meant in the book of Revelation by the New Jerusalem. (Married Love 534)

It should be known, that a person who has been in wisdom in the world, is in wisdom in the other life - wisdom which is made his own. Those who have not been in wisdom in the world, but yet have lived a good life, are able to receive wisdom through the former, but, still, it is not made their own. When they draw away from those who have made wisdom their own, they are simple, as before.

The science of correspondences and representatives is the outmost plane of angelic wisdom. Since this science has, at the present day, been lost so that it is not even known that there is such a thing, therefore it is now revealed anew. I was allowed to see a certain one of the ancients, who was in a great angelic society, withdraw himself from that society. Then an appearance of darkness immediately overshadowed the society and its wisdom was taken away. He, also, who was of the ancients, and who withdrew, was in the knowledge of wisdom. So the rest of the society had wisdom by communication [with him]. (Spiritual Experiences 5188-5189)

Each person's capacity to receive [Divine good] is determined by the nature and amount of good he acquired in the world. (Arcana Coelestia 8472)

Everyone is dull-hearted without knowledge. (Jeremiah 10:14)

According to the quality and amount of the truth, such is charity with a person. (Arcana Coelestia 2189, cf. Arcana Coelestia 2180, 2190)

A person, for example, who does not know that the Lord is the Savior of the human race cannot possess faith in Him, worship Him, love Him, or thus do good for His sake. A person who does not know that all good comes from Him is incapable of thinking that his righteousness and his salvation come from Him, let alone of desiring that they should do so, and so is incapable of living from Him. A person who does not know that there is a hell and a heaven, or that there is a life lasting forever, is not even capable of thinking about the life of heaven or of applying himself to receive it. (Arcana Coelestia 8639)