Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3954believed to be truths by others; for if the internal man looksdownward to earthly things, and vests everything in them, it isimpossible for him to look upward, and to vest anything inheavenly things, because the earthly things completely absorb andstifle the heavenly things. The reason is that the angels of heavencannot be with man in earthly things, and therefore they drawback, and the infernal spirits then come near, who cannot be withman in heavenly things. The result is that heavenly things arenaught to him, and earthly things are everything; and when earthlythings are everything to him, he believes himself to be more learnedand wise than anyone else, in that to himself he denies the truths ofthe church, saying at heart that they are for the simple. Man musttherefore be either in earthly affection or in heavenly affection, forhe cannot be at the same time with the angels of heaven and withthe infernals; because he would then hang between heaven and hell.But when he is in the affection of truth for the sake of truth, that is,for the sake of the Lord’s kingdom, where the Divine truth is, thusfor the sake of the Lord himself, he is then among angels, nor doeshe then despise gainsofar as it is useful for his life in the world; buthe has as the end, not gain, but uses therefrom, which he looksupon as mediate ends to the final heavenly end; thus by no meansdoes he set his heart upon gain.[3] That “nakedness” signifies to be without truths may be seenfrom other passages in the Word, as in the Revelation:To the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, Because thousayest I am rich, and have been enriched, so that I have need of nothing;and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and needy andblind and naked (Rev. 3:17);where “naked” denotes penury of truth. In the same:I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified in the fire, that thoumayest be rich, and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, andthe shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest (Rev. 3:18);“to buy gold” denotes to procure and appropriate good to one’sself; “that thou mayest be rich” denotes being in celestial and