new church life: september/october 2016
indignant that they should speak thus,
not knowing that it was for such a
purpose or that they spoke what I was to
note down as coming from them. There
was then given also a perception of what
was to be observed, and yet evil spirits,
as they have now said, know not whence
it came, and are disposed to abstain from
uttering certain things for the reason
that they dislike that anything should be
divulged concerning them, from which
it appeared, that even those things
which I have learned by means of evil
spirits, I have learned from the Lord alone, though the spirits spoke. It was
different when good spirits spoke; they declared openly how the truth was.”
(1748, November 22) [Emphasis mine]
For the sake of comparison let us remind ourselves again of the similar
testimony that Swedenborg was given to record in True Christian Religion 779:
“That the Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to
this office, that He afterward opened the eyes of my spirit and thus introduced
me into the spiritual world and granted me to see the heavens and the hells,
and to talk with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for several years,
I affirm in truth; as also from the first day of that call I have not received
anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church [The New
Church] from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the
Word.” [Emphasis mine]
Reflecting on these and other passages all taken together I believe there
is good reason to conclude that in the text of The Spiritual Diary/Spiritual
Experiences we are dealing with Divine revelation.
However, I believe there is much more internal evidence, very much more,
in the text of this work than what has been noted above that has convinced me
of the Divine presence in and Divine authority of the work.
What follows is my own experience. It is a general assertion, and I can
at least imagine that others have had and will have a different experience. I
have spent some 53 years reading, studying, underlining in, making notes
fro m, and comparing teachings in The Spiritual Diary/ Spiritual Experiences
with teachings provided elsewhere in the Heavenly Doctrine, and especially
in what are spoken of as the published works of the Theological Writings. So
many, many times I have been led to the conclusion that what is advanced in
The Spiritual Diary/Spiritual Experiences is always in essential agreement with
what is taught elsewhere in the Heavenly Doctrine. I think that I hear the same
I believe there is good
reason to conclude
that in the text of
The Spiritual Diary/
Spiritual Experiences
we are dealing with
Divine revelation.
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