The Gist of Swedenborg | Page 9

therefore

surpass the delights of all other loves, and it also gives delight to other
loves, in the measure of its presence and union with them. Into it all
delights from first to last are collected, on account of the superior
excellence of its use, which is the propagation of the human race, and
from it of an angelic heaven. As this service was the supreme end of
creation, all the beatitudes, satisfaction, delights, pleasantnesses and
pleasures, which the Lord the Creator could possibly confer upon man,
are gathered into this love.
--_Conjugial Love, n._ 68
ITS WHOLE ESTATE
The states of conjugial love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity, Inmost
Friendship, full Confidence, and mutual desire of mind and heart to do
each other every good. From all of these come blessedness, satisfaction,
agreeableness and pleasure; and as the eternal fruition of them,
heavenly happiness. These states can be realized only in the marriage
of one man with one wife.
--_Conjugial Love, nn._ 180, 181

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES
"They testify of Me."
--_John_, V, 39
GOD'S WORD
In its inmosts the Sacred Scripture is no other than God, that is, the
Divine which proceeds from God.... In its derivatives it is
accommodated to the perception of angels and men. In these it is
Divine likewise, but in another form, in which this Divine is called
"Celestial," "Spiritual," and "Natural." These are no other than
coverings of God. Still the Divine, which is inmost, and is covered with
such things as are accommodated to the perceptions of angels and men,
shines forth like light through crystalline forms, but variously,
according to the state of mind which a man has formed for himself,
either from God or from self. In the sight of the man who has formed
the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror in
which he sees God, each in his own way. The truths which he learns
from the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to
them, compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is the fulness of God.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 6

IN ITS BOSOM SPIRITUAL
The Word in its bosom is spiritual. Descending from Jehovah the Lord,
and passing through the angelic heavens, the Divine (in itself ineffable
and imperceptible) became level with the perception of angels and
finally the perception of man. Hence the Word has a spiritual sense,
which is within the natural, just as the soul is in the body, or as thought
is in speech, or volition in action.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 193
THE LETTER OF THE WORD
The truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part appearances
of truth, and are taken from things in nature, and thus accommodated
and adapted to the grasp of the simple and also of little children. But
being correspondences, they are receptacles and abodes of genuine
truth; and are like enclosing and containing vessels. The naked truths
themselves, which are enclosed and contained, are in the Word's
spiritual sense; and the naked goods in its celestial sense.
The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn in full from the literal
sense of the Word; for the Word in this sense is like a man clothed,
whose face and hands are bare. All that concerns man's life, and so his
salvation, is bare; the rest is clothed.
--_Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture, nn._ 40, 55
ITS LANGUAGE
The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world; not only
generally, but in detail. Whatever comes forth in the natural world from
the spiritual, is therefore called correspondent. The world of nature
comes forth and subsists from the spiritual world, just as an effect does
from its efficient cause.
--_Heaven and Hell, n._ 89
What is Divine presents itself in the world in what corresponds. The
Word is therefore written wholly in correspondence. Therefore the
Lord, too, speaking as He did from the Divine, spoke in
correspondence.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 201
"And behold a ladder set on the earth, and its head reaching to heaven:
and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And
behold Jehovah standing above it." The ladder set between earth and
heaven, or between the lowest and the highest, signifies communication.

In the original tongue the term ladder is derived from an expression
which signifies a path or way, and a path or way is predicated of truth.
By a ladder, therefore, one extremity of which is set on the earth, while
the other reaches to heaven, is signified the communication of truth
which is in the lowest place with truth which is in the highest, indeed
with inmost good and truth, such as are in heaven, and from which
heaven itself is an