Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3931THE INTERNAL SENSE5398. In this chapter and in those which follow about Joseph andthe sons of Jacob, in the internal sense is described the regenerationof the natural as to the truths and goods of the church—that this isnot effected by means of memory-knowledges, but by influx fromthe Divine. At the present day they who are of the church know solittle about regeneration that it is scarcely anything. They do noteven know that regeneration goes on through the whole course oflife of one who is being regenerated, and that it is continued in theother life; or that the arcana of regeneration are so innumerablethat scarcely a ten thousandth part of them can be known by theangels, and that those they do know are what effect theirintelligence and wisdom. The reason why they who are of thechurch at this day know so little about regeneration is that they talkso much about remission of sins and about justification, and believethat sins are remitted in a moment, and some that they are wipedaway like filth from the body by water, and that man is justified byfaith alone or by the confidence of a single moment. The reasonwhy the men of the church so believe is that they do not knowwhat sin or evil is. If they knew this, they would know that sins canby no means be wiped away from anyone, but that when the man iskept in good by the Lord they are separated or rejected to the sidesso as not to rise up, and that this cannot be effected unless evil iscontinually cast out, and this by means which are unlimited innumber, and for the most part unutterable.[2] Those in the other life who have brought with them theopinion that man is justified in a moment by faith, and whollycleansed from sins, are astounded when they see that regeneration iseffected by means unlimited in number and unutterable, and theythen laugh at and call insane the ignorance in which they had beenin the world in regard to the instantaneous remission of sins andjustification. They are sometimes told that the Lord remits the sinsof those who desire it from the heart; yet still they are not therebyseparated from the diabolical crew, to whom they are held fast bythe evils that attend their life, which they have with them complete.They then learn by experience that to be separated from the hells is