Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 1

1. CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS

One evil contains within itself an infinite number of lusts, interior and exterior, about which man knows nothing.
All of these lusts are removed by the Lord so long as man looks to the Lord and shuns evil as if of himself.
Illustration by various examples from human anatomy, such as matters concerning the stomach, kidneys, and genital organs.
Man does not need to know about them.
Evil appears to man as if it were a single thing, yet contained in it are all lusts, interior as well as exterior, thus in sequence, though they are present in that evil in simultaneous order. This too is to be illustrated.
Man is not purified by his shunning evil merely for civil and moral reasons, for he is then purified only as to his externals and not as to his internals.
Thus no one is purified by the faith of today which lays down only civil, moral, and social actions.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 2

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 2

2. Those who as a result of confirming it to themselves make the Lord's Human like that of any other man divide the Lord in two.
In heart they are Socinians or Arians with whom there is no Church.
Faith alone does this.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 3

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 3

3. He who is in faith alone cannot help making God three, and conversely, those who make God three love faith alone.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 4

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 4

4. The Lord and man are at the same time in love towards the neighbour.
By means of that love conjunction takes place.
They who are in that love love the Lord.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 5

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 5

5. The man who in his own mind reckons that some evil or other is permissible is continually doing it.
Then the attempt to do that evil, as long as it is possible, lodges itself not only in his mind but also in his body. That attempt is an act of will which is restrained only by external causes.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 6

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 6

6. The internal man does not consist merely of understanding, thinking, and knowing, it is also willing what he understands, thinks, and knows.
From this it can be seen what the internal man separated from the external is, and what when not separated.
Everything spiritual is contained in thinking from willing, and thinking without willing is something external, like a forecourt.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 7

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 7

7. There are three things which follow in order and make one: charity, faith, and works, like will, understanding, and deeds.
If one is lacking the other two decline or fade away.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 8

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 8

8. Man is to act and to think in spiritual matters as though he were doing so all by himself.
Man would not otherwise be man.
This is the image of God in man.
This is being conferred continually by the Lord.
It is conferred so that there may be reciprocity of love, and consequently conjunction.
Otherwise the Word would contribute towards nothing at all.
Otherwise there would be no religion.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 9

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 9

9. Everything flows in with man in such a way that man is only an organ that receives.
He is an organ receiving everything of heaven as to his mind, and he is a recipient of the world as to his body.
Just as the eye is a recipient of light, the ears recipients of sound, and [so too] the remaining parts of the body, so the understanding is a recipient of the light of heaven, that is, of wisdom, and the will a recipient of the heat of heaven, and so of love.
There is nothing else in man but the ability to receive; take the organs of the body to illustrate what that ability is like.
Natural objects are perceived in the organs of the body as though they were present within them; and so too spiritual objects as if they were present within the mind, although they are not there.
Fallacies arise from that sensation.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 10

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 10

10. Fallacies originate in the inversion of ideas, as [in thinking] about God from persons and not from essence, about the neighbour from the person, that is, from the form of his behaviour as a man and not from his real character, about heaven as a place and not from love and wisdom, about the Church from external worship and not from charity and from faith that is derived from charity, even about various things, from joys and pleasures and not from the loves out of which they arise.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 11

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 11

11. A man's state as regards his will or love does not change after death, for the reason that it is his life, and so too as regards charity.
A man's state as regards his understanding does change, and it changes as regards the love in his will.
In the world a man may think that he is in heaven on account of his understanding, when really he is not.
Therefore all that is true and good in the understanding is taken away, since it does not harmonise with the love in his will.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 12

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 12

12. Absurdities about faith coming in a moment of time, and thus instantaneous salvation.
So too concerning immediate mercy, for this makes one with faith that comes in a moment of time.
If in fact a man is reformed and regenerated step by step right to life's end and after that for ever.
And he can never be perfectly regenerated, only as regards the most general things, and some of the general things below these.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 13

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 13

13. Understanding in spiritual matters is lost among those of the clergy who have confirmed within themselves the falsehoods of the faith of today.
It is not lost among the laity because they have not confirmed them.
How the clergy shut up their own understanding in spiritual matters, and also the understanding among the laity.
Confirmation shuts it up; the reason why.
More kinds of confirmations.
Confirmation by one's way of life is the worst.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 14

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 14

14. How the sense of the letter is destroyed as it passes into heaven and becomes spiritual.
It is a stripping off and a revealing of the interiors of truth.
Experiments showing that while truth lies hidden within man the sense of the letter is indeed opened in heaven, and conversely it is scattered, in some cases with a loud noise.
And if the confirmation of the love of what is evil lies hidden within it, there appear as it were sparks of fire, and there is an explosion.
Everything in the sense of the letter communicates with all the heavens.
Thus the Word is the conjunction of heaven and the Church.
These matters cannot be grasped without the knowledge of correspondences.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 15

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 15

15. A false beginning in spiritual matters leads to the falsification of everything else.
Thus it falsifies everything in the Word.
It does so even though man is unaware of it while he is reading the Word.
Falsehoods actually wriggle into every detail of the Word, from the side or in the middle.
Such falsehood is not evident except so long as it is placed in the centre of one's mental attention.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 16

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 16

16. Truths do not falsify the Word whenever it is read because they are always present in connexion [one with another].
Goodness of life does not falsify the Word, because this lies within every single detail of the Word.
Thus the sense of the letter can be twisted this way and that by a man who is in the truths that constitute doctrine and in goodness of life.

Conv Ang (Chadwick) n. 17

Conversations with Angels (Chadwick) n. 17

17. With those who are in faith alone, all good works, even repentance, come to be meritorious.
Those who have confirmed falsehoods within themselves falsify the whole of the Word, and they are ignorant of this. Luther.
God is the source of all things. This is illustrated by all that corresponds with man, [and] from the spheres surrounding angels.
Charity and faith make one like affection and thought, so that [works] are impossible which belong more to one than to the other. Affection alone is devoid of feeling and against it; so too charity alone.
A description of what faith is like before it is made alive by charity; it is historical...