Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3952believe scarcely anything, for the most part denying at heart, andregarding these doctrinal things as a merchant does hismerchandise; and they appear to themselves learned and wise whenfrom themselves they see that truths are not truths, and yet canpersuade the common people that they are truths. That many ofthe church dignitaries are of this character is very manifest fromthem in the other life; for wherever they go there, they are in thesphere of their affections and derivative thoughts, which sphere isplainly perceived by others, and it causes the quality of theiraffection of truth, and the quality of their faith, to be known to thevery senses. In the world this is not made manifest, for there is notthere any spiritual perception of such things; and this being so theydo not expose themselves, for they would lose their gain.[4] That they are spies may be evident enough from the fact thatsuch persons seek nothing but faults in those who are in truthsfrom good, in order that they may accuse and condemn them. Aresuch persons anything but spies, whether they belong to the socalled Papists, or the Reformed, Quakers, Socinians, or Jews, whenthey have once confirmed in themselves the doctrinals of theirchurch? They ridicule and condemn the veriest truths, if any suchare to be found; for they do not comprehend that truths are true.The reason of this is that they have no affection of truth for its ownsake, still less for the sake of life, but only for the sake of gain.Moreover, when such men read the Word they search it with thesole end of confirming doctrinal memory-knowledges for the sakeof gain; and many of them search the Word that they may see thenakedness of the land, that is, may see that the truths of the churchare not truths, but only serviceable for persuading others that theyare truths, for the sake of gain.[5] But they who are in the affection of truth for the sake of truthand of life, consequently for the sake of the Lord’s kingdom, haveindeed faith in the doctrinal things of the church; but still theysearch the Word for no other end than the truth, from which theirfaith and their conscience are formed. If anyone tells them that theyought to stay in the doctrinal things of the church in which theywere born, they reflect that if they had been born in Judaism,