The Gist of Swedenborg | Page 6

far they are
remitted.
--_Heavenly Doctrine, nn._ 159-165
TEMPTATION AND PRAYER
When a man shuns evils as sins, he flees them because they are
contrary to the Lord and to His Divine laws; and then he prays to the
Lord for help and for power to resist them--a power which is never

denied when it is asked. By these two means a man is cleansed of evils.
He cannot be cleansed of evils if he only looks to the Lord and prays;
for then, after he has prayed, he believes that he is quite without sins, or
that they have been forgiven, by which he understands that they are
taken away. But then he still remains in them; and to remain in them is
to increase them. Nor are evils removed only by shunning them; for
then the man looks to himself, and thereby strengthens the origin of
evil, which was that he turned himself back from the Lord and turned to
himself.
--_The Doctrine Concerning Charity, n._ 146
THE GREAT ARENA
In temptations the hells fight against man, and the Lord for him. To
every falsity which the hells inject, there is an answer from the Divine.
The falsities inflow into the outward man, the answer into the inward
man, coming to perception scarcely otherwise than as hope, and the
resulting consolation, in which, however, there is a multitude of things
of which the man is unaware.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 8159
In temptations a man is left, to all appearance, to himself alone; yet he
has not been left alone, for God is then most present in his inmost being,
and upholds him. When anyone overcomes in temptation, therefore, he
enters into closer union with God.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 126
"BY LITTLE AND LITTLE"
When man is being regenerated, he is not regenerated speedily but
slowly. The reason is that all things which he has thought, purposed
and done since infancy, have added themselves to his life and have
come to constitute it. They have also formed such a connection among
themselves that no one thing can be removed unless all are at the same
time. Regeneration, or the implantation of the life of heaven in man,
begins in his infancy, and continues to the last of his life in the world,
and is perfected to eternity.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 9334
A NEW MAN
When a man is regenerated, he becomes altogether another, and a new,
man. While his appearance and his speech are the same, yet his mind is
not; for his mind is then open toward heaven, and there dwell in it love

for the Lord, and charity toward the neighbor, together with faith. It is
the mind which makes another and a new man. The change of state
cannot be perceived in man's body, but in his spirit. When it [the body]
is put off then his spirit appears, and in altogether another form, too,
when he has been regenerated; for it has then a form of love and charity
with inexpressible beauty, in the place of the earlier form, which was
one of hatred and cruelty with a deformity also inexpressible.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 3212
CHILDHOOD
"It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little
ones should perish."
--_Matthew_, XVIII, 14
Never could a man live,--certainly not as a human being,--unless he had
in himself something vital, that is, some innocence, neighborly love,
and mercy. This a man receives from the Lord in infancy and childhood.
What he receives then is treasured up in him, and is called in the Word
the remnant or _remains_, which are of the Lord alone with him, and
they make it possible for him truly to be a man on reaching adult age.
These states are the elements of his regeneration, and he is led into
them; for the Lord works by means of them. These remains are also
called "the living soul" in all flesh.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 1050
All states of innocence from infancy on, of love toward parents,
brothers, teachers and friends; of charity to the neighbor, and also of
mercy to the poor and needy; all states of goodness and truth, with their
goods and truths, impressed on; the memory, are preserved in man by
the Lord, and are stored up unconsciously to himself in his internal man,
and are carefully kept from evils and falsities. They are all so preserved
by the Lord that not the smallest of them is lost. Every state from
infancy even to extreme old age not only remains in another life, but
also returns. Returning, these states are such as they were during a
man's abode in the world. Not only the goods and truths, stored up in
the memory, remain and