Doctrine of Holy Scripture - Swedenborg Foundation

DOCTRINE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 171nothing but correspondences. The reason was that at heart theywere idolaters, and of such a character that they were not evenwilling to know that anything of their worship signified what iscelestial and spiritual; for they desired that all those things shouldbe holy in themselves and in connection with them; so that ifcelestial and spiritual things had been disclosed to them, theywould not only have rejected but would have profaned them.Therefore heaven was so closed toward them that they scarcelyknew that there is a life eternal. That this was the case is clearlyevident from the fact that they did not acknowledge the Lord,although universal holy Scripture prophesied concerning him, andforetold his advent; and they rejected him for this sole reason—thathe taught of a heavenly and not an earthly kingdom; for theywanted a messiah who would exalt them above every other nationin the world, and not a messiah who cared for their eternalsalvation. For the rest, they affirm that the Word contains within itmany arcana that are called mystical; but are unwilling to learn thatthese refer to the Lord; they however are quite willing to learnwhen it is said that the reference is to gold.24. The reason why the knowledge of correspondences, whichgives the spiritual sense of the Word, was not disclosed in timesafter those, is that the Christians of the primitive church were sovery simple that it could not be disclosed to them; for it wouldhave been of no use to them, nor would it have been understood.After their day, in consequence of the papal dominion, darknesscame over all the Christian world; and they who are of thatdominion, and have confirmed themselves in its falsities, neithercan nor will apprehend anything spiritual, nor consequently what isthe correspondence in the Word of natural things with spiritual.For thereby they would be convinced that by “Peter” is not meantPeter, but the Lord as a rock; and they would also be convincedthat the Word is Divine even to its inmosts, and that a decree ofthe pope is relatively of no account. On the other hand, after theReformation, as men began to effect a separation between faith andcharity, and to worship God in three persons—thus three gods,whom they conceived to be one—heavenly truths were hiddenfrom them; and if they had been disclosed they would have falsified