Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3988among falsities, in some among jests and even scandals, in someamong fallacies of the senses, in some among apparent truths, andso on. If the man has been in good, that is, if he has lived a life ofcharity, then from that good, as from flame out of heaven, truthsare illumined, and the fallacies of the senses which they are in arebeautifully irradiated; and when innocence is instilled by the Lord,these fallacies appear like truths.5511. Hard things with us. That this signifies nonconjunctiontherewith on account of noncorrespondence, is evident from thesignification of “speaking hard things,” when predicated of theinternal relatively to the external separate from it, as beingnonconjunction on account of noncorrespondence (of whichabove, n. 5422, 5423); for if there is no correspondence of theexternal with the internal, then all that which is internal and comesfrom the internal appears hard to the external, because there is noconjunction. As for example—if it is said by the internal, or by onewho is in what is internal, that man thinks nothing from himself,but either from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord, orfrom hell—if he thinks good, that it is through heaven from theLord, if evil, that it is from hell—this appears altogether hard tohim who desires to think from himself, and who believes that if thiswere as stated he would be nothing at all; when yet it is most true,and all who are in heaven are in the perception that it is so.[2] In like manner if it is said by the internal, or by those who arein what is internal, that the joy the angels have is from love to theLord and from charity toward the neighbor—that is, when they arein the use of performing the things of love and charity—and that inthese there is so great a joy and happiness as to be quiteinexpressible, this will be hard to those who are in joy only fromthe love of self and the world, and in no joy from the love of theneighbor except for the sake of self; when yet heaven and the joy ofheaven first begin in man when his regard to self in the uses whichhe performs dies out.[3] Take this also as an example. If it is said by the internal thatthe soul of man is nothing else than the internal man, and that the