as a ‘New Church mind.’ I have used this expression throughout the book’s
three volumes to refer to men who have chosen to regenerate on the basis of
the principles found in the Heavenly Doctrines exclusively and acknowledged
as the Word.”
We hope to have a review of this volume at some point. Meanwhile from
the back cover:
“Volume 3 of A Man of the Field discusses the details of regeneration
based on the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). We are born with
a natural mind that develops all concepts and principles from a materialistic
environment, culture and education.
“Guiding these naturalistic ideas are unregenerate natural loves and
interests that cause all our daily willing, thinking and enjoying to be motivated
by self-interest. If we do not become spiritual as well as natural we are unable
to break the inherited traits that favor self over others.
“Swedenborg’s eyewitness accounts of the afterlife prove that the
unregenerate character is bound to the hells in the mind and develops into
eternal insanity and misery. Therefore regeneration is critical if we desire to
be bound instead to the heavens in our mind and to enjoy its eternal felicities.
“Regeneration is the spiritual discipline of monitoring our affections,
intentions, thoughts and enjoyments in our daily tasks and roles, and holding
up each to the light of the spiritual principles given in the Writings by which
we judge whether these favor self over others, binding us deeper to hell, or
whether they favor others as well as self, thus binding us to heaven.”
The Lord (Swedenborg Foundation)
The Rev. Dr. George Dole, translator
From the Swedenborg Foundation: “In his short work, The Lord, Emanuel
Swedenborg presents an answer to the time-honored question of how Jesus
Christ and God are related: he argues that they became in every way one and
the same. He emphasizes that the trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
not three separate Divine Persons that have always co-existed
but are three aspects now present within one Divine Person –
Jesus in His resurrection. This single entity is both omnipotent
and omnipresent. Throughout his works Swedenborg used
the term ‘Lord’ to refer to Jesus as the embodiment of God.
The Lord also includes key themes in Swedenborg’s
theology such as the spiritual reasons why the Lord came
to earth; the significance of the death and resurrection of
His human form; and how the Old Testament foretold His
coming. Swedenborg provides extensive biblical references to
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