Doctrine of Holy Scripture - Swedenborg Foundation

DOCTRINE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 147Doctrine of Holy ScriptureThe Holy Scripture or Word is Divine truth itself11. It is in everybody’s mouth that the Word is from God, isdivinely inspired, and is therefore holy; and yet hitherto no one hasknown wherein it is Divine. For in the letter the Word appears likea common writing, in a style that is strange, and neither so sublimenor so brilliant as apparently are the writings of the day. For thisreason a man who worships nature as God, or in preference toGod, and who consequently thinks from himself and what isproper to himself, and not from heaven from the Lord, may easilyfall into error in respect to the Word, and into contempt for it, andwhile reading it may say to himself, What is this? What is that? Canthis be Divine? Could God, whose wisdom is infinite, speak in thismanner? Wherein consists its holiness, and whence comes itsholiness, except from religious feeling and its consequentpersuasion?2. But he who thinks in this way does not consider that Jehovahhimself, the God of heaven and earth, spoke the Word throughMoses and the prophets, and that it must therefore be Divine truthitself, for what Jehovah himself speaks can be nothing else. Nordoes he consider that the Lord, who is the same as Jehovah, spokethe Word that is in the gospels, much of it with his own mouth,and the rest from the spirit of his mouth, which is the Holy Spirit.