The New Church (Swedenborg)

First of all Swedenborg didn't start his own church or change the Word to fit his needs. His writings is to help people understand the Word.

The unity of God is inmostly inscribed on the mind of every man, since it lies at the center of all that flows from God into the soul of man,and yet it has not descended into the human understanding, for the reason that the knowledges by which man must ascend to meet God have been lacking.

For everyone must prepare the way for God, that is, must prepare himself for reception.This is done by means of knowledges. The knowledges that have been lacking, and that enable the understanding to penetrate far enough to see that God is one,not three,and that more than one Divine Esse is impossible,which means there were no trinity before creation. There is a Divine Trinity,but of one Person,not of three.

It is said that the man rises,but the truth is that he is raised up by God,not himself. For in acquiring knowledges for himself man exercises his freedom of choice.But as he acquires for himself knowledges from the Word by means of his understanding he prepares the way by which God comes down and raises him up.

God raise up the man's understanding.The knowledges by means of which the human understanding rises, God holding it in His hand and leading it.

May be likened to the steps of the ladder seen in a dream by Jacob, which was set upon the earth with the top of it reaching to heaven, by which the angels ascended while Jehovah God stood above it (Gen.28:12,13).

This ladder is our understanding of God.Our understanding of Him depends on what kind of knowledge we have of Him. I am sorry to post this,many Christian Churches have the wrong knowledge.

Repentance is the first stage in the development of the church in a person.

The communion known as a church is composed of as many people as have the church in them; and the church enters into a person when he is being regenerated.

Everyone is regenerated by abstaining from sinful evils, and shunning them as anyone would on seeing the hordes of hell seeking with torches in their hands to attack him and to throw him upon a pyre.

As a person advances into early manhood there are many ways in which he is prepared for the church and brought into it; but it is acts of repentance which really bring this about in him.

By acts of repentance are meant all that prevent him from willing and so from doing the evil actions which are sins against God. For until this happens, he stands outside the process of regeneration. If at that time any thought about everlasting salvation occurs to him, he may incline towards it, but very soon he turns his back on it.

It does not reach further into him than the ideas he is thinking about, though from these it may emerge as spoken words, possibly also as gestures in keeping with what he says.

On the other hand, when it enters the will, it becomes a part of the person, for the will is the real person, because it is where his love resides.

Thought lies outside him, unless it comes out of his will. If so, will and thought act as one and together make up the person. The consequence of this is that for repentance to be genuine and effective in a person, it must come from the will, and from thought coming from the will, not from thought alone. In other words, it must be expressed in action, not merely on the lips.

The Word establishes plainly that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church. John the Baptist, who was sent beforehand to prepare people for the church the Lord was to found, preached repentance at the same time as he was baptising.

His baptism was therefore called a baptism of repentance, because baptism means spiritual washing, or being cleansed from sins.

He did this in the Jordan, because the Jordan meant being brought into the church, since it was the first boundary of the land of Canaan, which was where the church was.

The Lord Himself too preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. By this He taught that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church, and that to the extent that a person repents, his sins are distanced from him; and to the extent they are distanced, they are forgiven. Moreover, the Lord laid upon the twelve Apostles,as well as the seventy He sent out, the duty of preaching repentance.

These facts clearly show that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church.

http://newearth.org/frontier/

Harry

 

Jehovah God is the Word made flesh.
Jehovah God descended as Divine Truth,which is the Word,although He did not separate from it the Divine Good in Himself.

There are two things that constitute the Divine Essence of God, the Divine love and the Divine wisdom,or what is the same, Divine Good and Divine Truth.

That these two are the essence of God has been shown above. Moreover these two are what are meant in the Word by the name "Jehovah God," "Jehovah" meaning the Divine love or Divine good, and "God" the Divine wisdom or Divine truth; and for this reason these two names are distinguished in the Word in various ways; sometimes the name "Jehovah" alone is used, and sometimes the name "God" alone-the name "Jehovah" when the Divine good is treated of, and the name "God" when the Divine truth is treated of, and the name "Jehovah God" when both are treated of.

That Jehovah God descended from eternity as the Divine truth under the name Jesus Christ, which is the Word, is shown in John as follows:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among, us (John 1:1,3,14).

And the Word was with God. With God,means,in God. It does not mean a person with another person.With God means, truth is in good,and good is in truth. God is both truth and good.

By "the Word" here the Divine truth is meant; because the Word, which is in the church, is Divine truth itself, for it was dictated by Jehovah Himself; and what is dictated by Jehovah is nothing but Divine truth, and can be nothing else.

But inasmuch as the Divine truth passed down through the heavens even to the world, it became adapted to angels in heaven and also to men in the world. For this reason there is in the Word a spiritual sense in which the Divine truth is seen in clear light, and a natural sense in which it is seen obscurely.

Thus it is the Divine truth in our Word that is here meant in John. This is made still clearer by the fact that the Lord came into the world to fulfill all things of the Word.

This is why it is so often said that this or that was done to Him "that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Nor is anything but the Divine truth meant by "the Messiah" or "the Christ," or "the Son of man," or "the Holy Spirit the Comforter," which the Lord sent after His departure. In the chapter on the Sacred Scripture it will be shown that in His transfiguration before the three disciples on the mount (Matt. 17; Mark 9; Luke 9), and also before John in the Apocalypse (1:12-16), the Lord represented Himself as that Word.

That the Lord in the world was the Divine truth is evident from His own words:
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
also from these words:
We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know the True; and we are in the True, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20);
and still further by His being called "the Light," as in the following passages: There was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:4,9).

Jesus said, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not. While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light (John 12:35, 36, 46).
I am the light of the world (John 9:5).

Simeon said, For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, a light for revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:30-32).

And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world; he that doeth the truth cometh to the light (John 3:19, 21).
besides other places. "Light" means the Divine truth.

Harry

 

The Creed of the New Church (Swedenborg)
There is One God in Whom is the Divine Trinity,and He is Our Lord Jesus Christ. Saving Faith is to believe in Him. Evils ought to be shunned, because they are of the devil, and from the devil. Goods ought to be done, because they are of God, and from God.They ought to be done by man as of himself, but it is to be believed that they are from the Lord, with him and through him.

Harry

 

That a trinity of three persons is contrary to the Sacred Scripture, is known, for we read:
Am not I Jehovah, and there is no God else beside Me, a just God and a Saviour, there is none beside Me (Isa.45:21, 22).

I Jehovah am thy God, and thou shalt acknowledge no God beside Me, and there is no Saviour beside Me (Hos. 13:4). Thus said Jehovah the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts, I am the First and the Last, and beside Me there is no God (Isa. 46:6).

Jehovah of Hosts is His name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called (Isa. 54:5).

In that day Jehovah shall be King over the whole earth; in that day there shall be one Jehovah, and His name One (Zech. 14:9).

Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. I JEHOVAH have called Thee in righteousness, and I will give Thee for a covenant to the people, for a light to the nations, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the bound from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am JEHOVAH, this is My name, and My glory will I not give to another (Isa. 42:1, 6-8).

Where does the second person of the man invented trinity before creation fit in? Jehovah God said, His glory will not be share with another.

Harry

 

Before the world was created the Divine Trinity was not.

The Sacred Scripture teaches that God is one, and reason enlightened by the Lord sees it there and thence. But that God was triune before the world was created, the Sacred Scripture does not teach, and reason enlightened therefrom does not see. What is said in David concerning the Son, "This day have I begotten thee," is not from eternity, but in the fulness of time; for the future in God is present, thus to-day.

In Isaiah:-
Unto us A Boy is born, unto us a Son is given, whose name is God, Hero, the Father of eternity.

What rational mind, when it hears that before the creation of the world there were three Divine Persons,called the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, does not say within itself while thinking of them, "What is meant by a Son born from God the Father from eternity?

How could He be born? And what is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God the Father through the Son from eternity?How could He proceed and become God by Himself?How could a person beget a person from eternity,and both produce a person? Is not a person a person?

How can three Persons, of which each is God, be conjoined into one God, otherwise than into one person?This is contrary to theology, and this to that.

How can the Divinity be divided into three Persons, and yet not into three Gods, when yet each Person is God by himself? How can the Divine essence, which is one, the same, and indivisible, fall into number, hence be either divided or multiplied?

How can three Divine Persons be together and take counsel together in a non-extense of space, such as was before the world was created? How, from Jehovah God, who is One, and thence Sole, Infinite, Immense, Eternal, and Omnipotent, could there be produced three equals to Himself?

How can a Trinity of Persons be conceived of in the Unity of God, and the Unity of God in a Trinity of Persons? Besides the idea of plurality destroys the idea of unity, and vice versa. Perhaps it would have been possible for the Greeks and Romans also to unite all their gods into one, which were many, by identity only of essence."

The rational mind, in revolving and reflecting upon a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity, might also consider of what use was it that a Son was born, and that the Holy Spirit went forth from the Father through the Son before the world was created?

Was there a use for the three to consult how the universe should be created? And that three should create it? When yet the universe was created by the one God?

Neither was there occasion that the Son should redeem, when yet redemption was effected after the world was created, in the fulness of time, nor that the Holy Spirit should sanctify, because as yet there was no man to be sanctified.

Therefore if there were those uses in God's idea, still they were not [realized] before the creation of the world, but after it actually existed.

From which it follows, that the Trinity from eternity before creation was not a real Trinity, but ideal, and still more so is a Trinity of Persons.

Who in the church, while reading the Athanasian Creed, is able to understand this? That it is of the Christian verity, that each Person by Himself is God, and yet that it is not lawful by the Catholic religion to account them three Gods? Is not religion thus to him something other than truth? and that in truth three Persons are three Gods, but that from religion they are one God?

A trinity of persons in the Divinity before the world was created, did not come into the mind of any one from the time of Adam down to the advent of the Lord, as is clear from the Word of the Old Testament, and from histories concerning the religion of the ancients. Neither did it come into the mind of the Apostles, as is evident from their writings in the Word. Neither did it come into the mind of any one in the Apostolic Church, which was before the Council of Nice, as appears from the Apostles' Creed, in which no Son from eternity is mentioned, but a Son born from the Virgin Mary.

A Trinity of Persons from eternity is not only above reason, but opposed to it. It is against reason that three Persons created the universe.That there were three Persons, and each one God, and not three Gods but one, and then three Persons and not one Person.

A Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity was first taught by the Nicene Council, as appears from the two Creeds, the Nicene and the Athanasian.

And afterwards it was received by the churches as the principal dogma, and as the head of the doctrines, after that time even to the present day.

There were two reasons why that Trinity was given forth by the Council of Nice.The first was, that they knew not how otherwise to dissipate the scandals of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Lord,the other, because they did not understand what is written by the evangelist John (Chap. 1. 1, 2, 10, 14; xvi. 28; xvii. 5). How these things are to be understood may be seen above.

The Divinity before the world was created as believed according to the Nicene Council and the churches after that, to consist of three Persons each of which was God, and that from the first Person was born a second, and from these two went forth a third, is not only above the understanding, but contrary to it, and the faith of a paradox, which is opposed to the rational understanding. Like parrots that can talk,but not understand what the're talking about.

It is a faith in which there is not anything of the church, but a persuasion of the false, such as obtains with those who are insane in religious matters.

But still it is not here said of those who do not see [these things to be] contradictory and contrary to the Sacred Scripture and yet believe them, that they are insane in religious matters.

Harry

 

God is Infinite because He is Being and Existence in Himself, and because all things in the universe have their being and existence from Him. It has been already shown that God is One, that He is the Itself, that He is the primal Esse of all things, and that all things in the universe that have being, existence, and subsistence, are from Him, and consequently that He is infinite.

That human reason is able from very many things in the created universe to recognize this will be made clear hereafter. But although the human mind is able from all this to acknowledge that the primal Being or primal Esse is infinite, it is nevertheless unable to comprehend what that Being is, and therefore can only define it as the infinite All and the Self-subsistent, and hence as the very and the only substance; and since nothing can be predicated of substance unless it has form, it is the very and only Form. But what does this mean?

It does not make clear what the infinite is; for the human mind itself, even when in the highest degree analytical and exalted, is finite; and its finiteness is inseparable from it.

For this reason the human mind is wholly incapable of seeing the infinity of God as it is in Itself thus of seeing God; although it can from behind see God obscurely.

As was said to Moses when he prayed to see God:
That he should be placed in a cleft of the rock, and should see His back parts (Exod. 33:20-23).
"the back parts of God" meaning what is visible in the world, and especially what is perceptible in the Word. All this shows how vain it is to wish to comprehend what God is in His Esse, or in His substance; and that it is sufficient to acknowledge Him from finite things, that is, from things created, in which He is infinitely.

The man who is not content with this may be likened to a fish out of water, or to a bird under an air pump, which, as the air is withdrawn, gasps and finally dies.He may be likened to a vessel which, overcome by a storm and failing to obey its helm, is carried upon rocks and quicksands.

So it is with those who wish to comprehend from within the infinity of God, and are not content with being able to acknowledge it in its manifest indications from without.

It is related of a certain philosopher among the ancients that not being able to see or comprehend the eternity of the world in the light of his own mind he threw himself into the sea. What if he had wished to see or comprehend the infinity of God!

Harry

 

Jehovah God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, and these two constitute His Divine Essence. In the earliest ages it was seen that love and wisdom are the two essentials to which all the infinite things that are in God and proceed from God have reference.

In succeeding ages, as they withdrew their minds from heaven and immersed them in things worldly and corporeal, gradually became unable to see this, for they gradually ceased to know what love is in its essence, and what wisdom is in its essence,not knowing that love abstracted from a form is impossible, and that love operates in a form and through a form,a Human Form.

Since, then, God is the Itself and the Only, and the first substance and form, the essence of which is love and wisdom, and since from Him were made all things that were made, it follows that He created the universe with each thing and all things of it from love by means of wisdom,and not out of nothing.

Consequently the Divine love, together with the Divine wisdom, is in each and all created subjects.

Love, moreover, is not merely the essence that forms all things, it is also that which unites and conjoins them, and thus, when they are formed, holds them in connection.

All this may be illustrated by innumerable things in the world; as by the heat and light from the sun, which are the two essentials and universals by means of which each thing and all things on the earth have their existence and subsistence.

Heat and light are there because they correspond to the Divine love and Divine wisdom; for the heat that goes forth from the sun of the spiritual world is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom.

This, again, may be illustrated by the two essentials and universals, namely, the will and the understanding, by means of which human minds have their existence and subsistence.

For of these two everyone's mind consists, and they are in, and operate in, each thing and all things of the mind.

This is because the will is the receptacle and habitation of love, as the understanding is of wisdom; and for this reason these two correspond to the Divine love and the Divine wisdom in which they originated.

The same truth may be illustrated further by the two essentials and universals by means of which the human body has its existence and subsistence, namely, the heart and lungs, or the contraction and dilatation of the heart and the respiration of the lungs.

It is known that these two are operative in each and all things in the body; and for the reason that the heart corresponds to love, and the lungs to wisdom.

That love as a bridegroom and husband produces or begets all forms, yet only by wisdom as a bride and wife, can be proved by things innumerable in both the spiritual world and in the natural world, provided only it is kept in mind that the entire angelic heaven is arranged in its form, and kept in it, from the Divine love through the Divine wisdom.

Harry

 

First of all Swedenborg didn't start his own church or change the Word to fit his needs. His writings is to help people understand the Word.

The unity of God is inmostly inscribed on the mind of every man, since it lies at the center of all that flows from God into the soul of man,and yet it has not descended into the human understanding, for the reason that the knowledges by which man must ascend to meet God have been lacking.

For everyone must prepare the way for God, that is, must prepare himself for reception.This is done by means of knowledges. The knowledges that have been lacking, and that enable the understanding to penetrate far enough to see that God is one,not three,and that more than one Divine Esse is impossible,which means there were no trinity before creation. There is a Divine Trinity,but of one Person,not of three.

It is said that the man rises,but the truth is that he is raised up by God,not himself. For in acquiring knowledges for himself man exercises his freedom of choice.But as he acquires for himself knowledges from the Word by means of his understanding he prepares the way by which God comes down and raises him up.

God raise up the man's understanding.The knowledges by means of which the human understanding rises, God holding it in His hand and leading it.

May be likened to the steps of the ladder seen in a dream by Jacob, which was set upon the earth with the top of it reaching to heaven, by which the angels ascended while Jehovah God stood above it (Gen.28:12,13).

This ladder is our understanding of God.Our understanding of Him depends on what kind of knowledge we have of Him. I am sorry to post this,many Christian Churches have the wrong knowledge.

Repentance is the first stage in the development of the church in a person.

The communion known as a church is composed of as many people as have the church in them; and the church enters into a person when he is being regenerated.

Everyone is regenerated by abstaining from sinful evils, and shunning them as anyone would on seeing the hordes of hell seeking with torches in their hands to attack him and to throw him upon a pyre.

As a person advances into early manhood there are many ways in which he is prepared for the church and brought into it; but it is acts of repentance which really bring this about in him.

By acts of repentance are meant all that prevent him from willing and so from doing the evil actions which are sins against God. For until this happens, he stands outside the process of regeneration. If at that time any thought about everlasting salvation occurs to him, he may incline towards it, but very soon he turns his back on it.

It does not reach further into him than the ideas he is thinking about, though from these it may emerge as spoken words, possibly also as gestures in keeping with what he says.

On the other hand, when it enters the will, it becomes a part of the person, for the will is the real person, because it is where his love resides.

Thought lies outside him, unless it comes out of his will. If so, will and thought act as one and together make up the person. The consequence of this is that for repentance to be genuine and effective in a person, it must come from the will, and from thought coming from the will, not from thought alone. In other words, it must be expressed in action, not merely on the lips.

The Word establishes plainly that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church. John the Baptist, who was sent beforehand to prepare people for the church the Lord was to found, preached repentance at the same time as he was baptising.

His baptism was therefore called a baptism of repentance, because baptism means spiritual washing, or being cleansed from sins.

He did this in the Jordan, because the Jordan meant being brought into the church, since it was the first boundary of the land of Canaan, which was where the church was.

The Lord Himself too preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. By this He taught that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church, and that to the extent that a person repents, his sins are distanced from him; and to the extent they are distanced, they are forgiven. Moreover, the Lord laid upon the twelve Apostles,as well as the seventy He sent out, the duty of preaching repentance.

These facts clearly show that repentance is the first stage in the development of the church.

http://newearth.org/frontier/

Harry

 

Jehovah God is the Word made flesh.
Jehovah God descended as Divine Truth,which is the Word,although He did not separate from it the Divine Good in Himself.

There are two things that constitute the Divine Essence of God, the Divine love and the Divine wisdom,or what is the same, Divine Good and Divine Truth.

That these two are the essence of God has been shown above. Moreover these two are what are meant in the Word by the name "Jehovah God," "Jehovah" meaning the Divine love or Divine good, and "God" the Divine wisdom or Divine truth; and for this reason these two names are distinguished in the Word in various ways; sometimes the name "Jehovah" alone is used, and sometimes the name "God" alone-the name "Jehovah" when the Divine good is treated of, and the name "God" when the Divine truth is treated of, and the name "Jehovah God" when both are treated of.

That Jehovah God descended from eternity as the Divine truth under the name Jesus Christ, which is the Word, is shown in John as follows:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among, us (John 1:1,3,14).

And the Word was with God. With God,means,in God. It does not mean a person with another person.With God means, truth is in good,and good is in truth. God is both truth and good.

By "the Word" here the Divine truth is meant; because the Word, which is in the church, is Divine truth itself, for it was dictated by Jehovah Himself; and what is dictated by Jehovah is nothing but Divine truth, and can be nothing else.

But inasmuch as the Divine truth passed down through the heavens even to the world, it became adapted to angels in heaven and also to men in the world. For this reason there is in the Word a spiritual sense in which the Divine truth is seen in clear light, and a natural sense in which it is seen obscurely.

Thus it is the Divine truth in our Word that is here meant in John. This is made still clearer by the fact that the Lord came into the world to fulfill all things of the Word.

This is why it is so often said that this or that was done to Him "that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Nor is anything but the Divine truth meant by "the Messiah" or "the Christ," or "the Son of man," or "the Holy Spirit the Comforter," which the Lord sent after His departure. In the chapter on the Sacred Scripture it will be shown that in His transfiguration before the three disciples on the mount (Matt. 17; Mark 9; Luke 9), and also before John in the Apocalypse (1:12-16), the Lord represented Himself as that Word.

That the Lord in the world was the Divine truth is evident from His own words:
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
also from these words:
We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know the True; and we are in the True, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20);
and still further by His being called "the Light," as in the following passages: There was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:4,9).

Jesus said, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not. While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light (John 12:35, 36, 46).
I am the light of the world (John 9:5).

Simeon said, For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, a light for revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:30-32).

And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world; he that doeth the truth cometh to the light (John 3:19, 21).
besides other places. "Light" means the Divine truth.

Harry

 

The Creed of the New Church (Swedenborg)
There is One God in Whom is the Divine Trinity,and He is Our Lord Jesus Christ. Saving Faith is to believe in Him. Evils ought to be shunned, because they are of the devil, and from the devil. Goods ought to be done, because they are of God, and from God.They ought to be done by man as of himself, but it is to be believed that they are from the Lord, with him and through him.

Harry

 

That a trinity of three persons is contrary to the Sacred Scripture, is known, for we read:
Am not I Jehovah, and there is no God else beside Me, a just God and a Saviour, there is none beside Me (Isa.45:21, 22).

I Jehovah am thy God, and thou shalt acknowledge no God beside Me, and there is no Saviour beside Me (Hos. 13:4). Thus said Jehovah the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts, I am the First and the Last, and beside Me there is no God (Isa. 46:6).

Jehovah of Hosts is His name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called (Isa. 54:5).

In that day Jehovah shall be King over the whole earth; in that day there shall be one Jehovah, and His name One (Zech. 14:9).

Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. I JEHOVAH have called Thee in righteousness, and I will give Thee for a covenant to the people, for a light to the nations, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the bound from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am JEHOVAH, this is My name, and My glory will I not give to another (Isa. 42:1, 6-8).

Where does the second person of the man invented trinity before creation fit in? Jehovah God said, His glory will not be share with another.

Harry

 

Before the world was created the Divine Trinity was not.

The Sacred Scripture teaches that God is one, and reason enlightened by the Lord sees it there and thence. But that God was triune before the world was created, the Sacred Scripture does not teach, and reason enlightened therefrom does not see. What is said in David concerning the Son, "This day have I begotten thee," is not from eternity, but in the fulness of time; for the future in God is present, thus to-day.

In Isaiah:-
Unto us A Boy is born, unto us a Son is given, whose name is God, Hero, the Father of eternity.

What rational mind, when it hears that before the creation of the world there were three Divine Persons,called the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, does not say within itself while thinking of them, "What is meant by a Son born from God the Father from eternity?

How could He be born? And what is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God the Father through the Son from eternity?How could He proceed and become God by Himself?How could a person beget a person from eternity,and both produce a person? Is not a person a person?

How can three Persons, of which each is God, be conjoined into one God, otherwise than into one person?This is contrary to theology, and this to that.

How can the Divinity be divided into three Persons, and yet not into three Gods, when yet each Person is God by himself? How can the Divine essence, which is one, the same, and indivisible, fall into number, hence be either divided or multiplied?

How can three Divine Persons be together and take counsel together in a non-extense of space, such as was before the world was created? How, from Jehovah God, who is One, and thence Sole, Infinite, Immense, Eternal, and Omnipotent, could there be produced three equals to Himself?

How can a Trinity of Persons be conceived of in the Unity of God, and the Unity of God in a Trinity of Persons? Besides the idea of plurality destroys the idea of unity, and vice versa. Perhaps it would have been possible for the Greeks and Romans also to unite all their gods into one, which were many, by identity only of essence."

The rational mind, in revolving and reflecting upon a Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity, might also consider of what use was it that a Son was born, and that the Holy Spirit went forth from the Father through the Son before the world was created?

Was there a use for the three to consult how the universe should be created? And that three should create it? When yet the universe was created by the one God?

Neither was there occasion that the Son should redeem, when yet redemption was effected after the world was created, in the fulness of time, nor that the Holy Spirit should sanctify, because as yet there was no man to be sanctified.

Therefore if there were those uses in God's idea, still they were not [realized] before the creation of the world, but after it actually existed.

From which it follows, that the Trinity from eternity before creation was not a real Trinity, but ideal, and still more so is a Trinity of Persons.

Who in the church, while reading the Athanasian Creed, is able to understand this? That it is of the Christian verity, that each Person by Himself is God, and yet that it is not lawful by the Catholic religion to account them three Gods? Is not religion thus to him something other than truth? and that in truth three Persons are three Gods, but that from religion they are one God?

A trinity of persons in the Divinity before the world was created, did not come into the mind of any one from the time of Adam down to the advent of the Lord, as is clear from the Word of the Old Testament, and from histories concerning the religion of the ancients. Neither did it come into the mind of the Apostles, as is evident from their writings in the Word. Neither did it come into the mind of any one in the Apostolic Church, which was before the Council of Nice, as appears from the Apostles' Creed, in which no Son from eternity is mentioned, but a Son born from the Virgin Mary.

A Trinity of Persons from eternity is not only above reason, but opposed to it. It is against reason that three Persons created the universe.That there were three Persons, and each one God, and not three Gods but one, and then three Persons and not one Person.

A Trinity of Persons in the Divinity from eternity was first taught by the Nicene Council, as appears from the two Creeds, the Nicene and the Athanasian.

And afterwards it was received by the churches as the principal dogma, and as the head of the doctrines, after that time even to the present day.

There were two reasons why that Trinity was given forth by the Council of Nice.The first was, that they knew not how otherwise to dissipate the scandals of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Lord,the other, because they did not understand what is written by the evangelist John (Chap. 1. 1, 2, 10, 14; xvi. 28; xvii. 5). How these things are to be understood may be seen above.

The Divinity before the world was created as believed according to the Nicene Council and the churches after that, to consist of three Persons each of which was God, and that from the first Person was born a second, and from these two went forth a third, is not only above the understanding, but contrary to it, and the faith of a paradox, which is opposed to the rational understanding. Like parrots that can talk,but not understand what the're talking about.

It is a faith in which there is not anything of the church, but a persuasion of the false, such as obtains with those who are insane in religious matters.

But still it is not here said of those who do not see [these things to be] contradictory and contrary to the Sacred Scripture and yet believe them, that they are insane in religious matters.

Harry

 

God is Infinite because He is Being and Existence in Himself, and because all things in the universe have their being and existence from Him. It has been already shown that God is One, that He is the Itself, that He is the primal Esse of all things, and that all things in the universe that have being, existence, and subsistence, are from Him, and consequently that He is infinite.

That human reason is able from very many things in the created universe to recognize this will be made clear hereafter. But although the human mind is able from all this to acknowledge that the primal Being or primal Esse is infinite, it is nevertheless unable to comprehend what that Being is, and therefore can only define it as the infinite All and the Self-subsistent, and hence as the very and the only substance; and since nothing can be predicated of substance unless it has form, it is the very and only Form. But what does this mean?

It does not make clear what the infinite is; for the human mind itself, even when in the highest degree analytical and exalted, is finite; and its finiteness is inseparable from it.

For this reason the human mind is wholly incapable of seeing the infinity of God as it is in Itself thus of seeing God; although it can from behind see God obscurely.

As was said to Moses when he prayed to see God:
That he should be placed in a cleft of the rock, and should see His back parts (Exod. 33:20-23).
"the back parts of God" meaning what is visible in the world, and especially what is perceptible in the Word. All this shows how vain it is to wish to comprehend what God is in His Esse, or in His substance; and that it is sufficient to acknowledge Him from finite things, that is, from things created, in which He is infinitely.

The man who is not content with this may be likened to a fish out of water, or to a bird under an air pump, which, as the air is withdrawn, gasps and finally dies.He may be likened to a vessel which, overcome by a storm and failing to obey its helm, is carried upon rocks and quicksands.

So it is with those who wish to comprehend from within the infinity of God, and are not content with being able to acknowledge it in its manifest indications from without.

It is related of a certain philosopher among the ancients that not being able to see or comprehend the eternity of the world in the light of his own mind he threw himself into the sea. What if he had wished to see or comprehend the infinity of God!

Harry

 

Jehovah God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, and these two constitute His Divine Essence. In the earliest ages it was seen that love and wisdom are the two essentials to which all the infinite things that are in God and proceed from God have reference.

In succeeding ages, as they withdrew their minds from heaven and immersed them in things worldly and corporeal, gradually became unable to see this, for they gradually ceased to know what love is in its essence, and what wisdom is in its essence,not knowing that love abstracted from a form is impossible, and that love operates in a form and through a form,a Human Form.

Since, then, God is the Itself and the Only, and the first substance and form, the essence of which is love and wisdom, and since from Him were made all things that were made, it follows that He created the universe with each thing and all things of it from love by means of wisdom,and not out of nothing.

Consequently the Divine love, together with the Divine wisdom, is in each and all created subjects.

Love, moreover, is not merely the essence that forms all things, it is also that which unites and conjoins them, and thus, when they are formed, holds them in connection.

All this may be illustrated by innumerable things in the world; as by the heat and light from the sun, which are the two essentials and universals by means of which each thing and all things on the earth have their existence and subsistence.

Heat and light are there because they correspond to the Divine love and Divine wisdom; for the heat that goes forth from the sun of the spiritual world is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom.

This, again, may be illustrated by the two essentials and universals, namely, the will and the understanding, by means of which human minds have their existence and subsistence.

For of these two everyone's mind consists, and they are in, and operate in, each thing and all things of the mind.

This is because the will is the receptacle and habitation of love, as the understanding is of wisdom; and for this reason these two correspond to the Divine love and the Divine wisdom in which they originated.

The same truth may be illustrated further by the two essentials and universals by means of which the human body has its existence and subsistence, namely, the heart and lungs, or the contraction and dilatation of the heart and the respiration of the lungs.

It is known that these two are operative in each and all things in the body; and for the reason that the heart corresponds to love, and the lungs to wisdom.

That love as a bridegroom and husband produces or begets all forms, yet only by wisdom as a bride and wife, can be proved by things innumerable in both the spiritual world and in the natural world, provided only it is kept in mind that the entire angelic heaven is arranged in its form, and kept in it, from the Divine love through the Divine wisdom.

Harry

 

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