Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/154

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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

sake of gain, but for the sake of the truths themselves; for he who loves truths for the sake of truth, sees them from the Lord, because the Lord is the Way and the Truth."

For a better understanding of this love of truth for the sake of truth, and of its effects, let us here read a passage or two from Swedenborg's later Heavenly Arcana:—

"Doctrine is to be drawn from the Word, and while it is being drawn man must be in enlightenment from the Lord; and he is in enlightenment when in the love of truth for the sake of truth, not for the sake of self and the world. These are they who are enlightened in the Word when they read it, and see truth, and therefrom form for themselves doctrine. The reason is, that such men communicate with heaven, thus with the Lord, and so, being enlightened from the Lord, they are led to see the truths of the Word as they are in heaven; for the Lord flows in through heaven into their understandings, the interior understanding being what is enlightened. The Lord at the same time flows in with faith, by means of the coöperation of the new will, to which it belongs to be affected with truth for the sake of truth."

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