第25章
"His doctrine of Marriage can be reduced to the following words: 'The Lord has taken the beauty and the grace of the life of man and bestowed them upon woman.When man is not reunited to this beauty and this grace of his life, he is harsh, sad, and sullen; when he is reunited to them he is joyful and complete.' The Angels are ever at the perfect point of beauty.Marriages are celebrated by wondrous ceremonies.In these unions, which produce no children, man contributes the UNDERSTANDING, woman the WILL; they become one being, one Flesh here below, and pass to heaven clothed in the celestial form.On this earth, the natural attraction of the sexes towards enjoyment is an Effect which allures, fatigues and disgusts; but in the form celestial the pair, now ONE in Spirit find within theirself a ceaseless source of joy.Swedenborg was led to see these nuptials of the Spirits, which in the words of Saint Luke (xx.35) are neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and which inspire none but spiritual pleasures.An Angel offered to make him witness of such a marriage and bore him thither on his wings (the wings are a symbol and not a reality).The Angel clothed him in a wedding garment and when Swedenborg, finding himself thus robed in light, asked why, the answer was: 'For these events, our garments are illuminated; they shine; they are made nuptial.' ('Conjugial Love,' 19, 20, 21.) Then he saw the two Angels, one coming from the South, the other from the East; the Angel of the South was in a chariot drawn by two white horses, with reins of the color and brilliance of the dawn; but lo, when they were near him in the sky, chariot and horses vanished.The Angel of the East, clothed in crimson, and the Angel of the South, in purple, drew together, like breaths, and mingled: one was the Angel of Love, the other the Angel of Wisdom.Swedenborg's guide told him that the two Angels had been linked together on earth by an inward friendship and ever united though separated in life by great distances.Consent, the essence of all good marriage upon earth, is the habitual state of Angels in Heaven.Love is the light of their world.The eternal rapture of Angels comes from the faculty that God communicates to them to render back to Him the joy they feel through Him.This reciprocity of infinitude forms their life.They become infinite by participating of the essence of God, who generates Himself by Himself.
"The immensity of the Heavens where the Angels dwell is such that if man were endowed with sight as rapid as the darting of light from the sun to the earth, and if he gazed throughout eternity, his eyes could not reach the horizon, nor find an end.Light alone can give an idea of the joys of heaven.'It is,' says Swedenborg ('Angelic Wisdom,' 7, 25, 26, 27), 'a vapor of the virtue of God, a pure emanation of His splendor, beside which our greatest brilliance is obscurity.It can compass all; it can renew all, and is never absorbed: it environs the Angel and unites him to God by infinite joys which multiply infinitely of themselves.This Light destroys whosoever is not prepared to receive it.No one here below, nor yet in Heaven can see God and live.
This is the meaning of the saying (Exodus xix.12, 13, 21-23) "Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount--lest ye break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many perish." And again (Exodus xxxiv.29-35), "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two Tables of testimony in his hand, his face shone, so that he put a veil upon it when he spake with the people, lest any of them die." The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ likewise revealed the light surrounding the Messengers from on high and the ineffable joys of the Angels who are forever imbued with it."His face," says Saint Matthew (xvii.1-5), "did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as the light--and a bright cloud overshadowed them."'
"When a planet contains only those beings who reject the Lord, when his word is ignored, then the Angelic Spirits are gathered together by the four winds, and God sends forth an Exterminating Angel to change the face of the refractory earth, which in the immensity of this universe is to Him what an unfruitful seed is to Nature.Approaching the globe, this Exterminating Angel, borne by a comet, causes the planet to turn upon its axis, and the lands lately covered by the seas reappear, adorned in freshness and obedient to the laws proclaimed in Genesis; the Word of God is once more powerful on this new earth, which everywhere exhibits the effects of terrestrial waters and celestial flames.The light brought by the Angel from On High, causes the sun to pale.'Then,' says Isaiah, (xix.20) 'men will hide in the clefts of the rock and roll themselves in the dust of the earth.'
'They will cry to the mountains' (Revelation), 'Fall on us! and to the seas, Swallow us up! Hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb!' The Lamb is the great figure and hope of the Angels misjudged and persecuted here below.Christ himself has said, 'Blessed are those who mourn! Blessed are the simple-hearted! Blessed are they that love!'--All Swedenborg is there!
Suffer, Believe, Love.To love truly must we not suffer? must we not believe? Love begets Strength, Strength bestows Wisdom, thence Intelligence; for Strength and Wisdom demand Will.To be intelligent, is not that to Know, to Wish, and to Will,--the three attributes of the Angelic Spirit? 'If the universe has a meaning,' Monsieur Saint-Martin said to me when I met him during a journey which he made in Sweden, 'surely this is the one most worthy of God.'
"But, Monsieur," continued the pastor after a thoughtful pause, "of what avail to you are these shreds of thoughts taken here and there from the vast extent of a work of which no true idea can be given except by comparing it to a river of light, to billows of flame? When a man plunges into it he is carried away as by an awful current.