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Charity makes ‘one out of many’
Arcana Coelestia 6628. In the preceding Explications it has been shown, as occasion offered, that the Doctrine of Charity was the doctrine in the Ancient Churches, and that this doctrine conjoined all the churches, and so made one out of many; for they acknowledged as men of the church all who lived in the good of charity, and called them brethren, however greatly they might be at variance in the truths which at this day are called the truths of faith. In these one instructed another, and this was among their works of charity; nor were they indignant if one did not accede to the opinion of another, knowing that everyone receives truth in proportion as he is in good.
6637…The church in general is constituted of those who are churches in particular, however far apart they may be.
A church is a church from ‘the fact that men live according to the Word’
6637 [2] Its being called the church is not from the fact that the Word is there, and that there are doctrinal things therefrom, nor from the fact that the Lord is known there, and that the sacraments are there; but it is the church from the fact that men live according to the Word, or according to doctrine from the Word, and so that the doctrine is the rule of life.
The increase of truths and the infestations of falsities…
6634. Exodus 1: 6-13. 6. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. 7. And the sons of Israel were fruitful, and were productive, and multiplied, and become very exceeding numerous; and the land was filled with them. 8. And there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. 9. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are many and numerous more than we. 10. Come, let us use prudence with it, peradventure it will be multiplied, and it will be that wars will happen, and it will also join itself to our enemies, and fight against us, and go up out of the land.11. And they set over it princes of tributes, in order to afflict it with burdens. And it built cities of storehouses for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. 12. And as they afflicted it, so it was multiplied, and so it was increased. And they were moved with loathing because of the sons of Israel. 13. And the Egyptians made the sons of Israel to serve with cruelty
THE CONTENTS. In the first chapter, in the internal sense, the subject treated of is the state of the renewed church, when good acts the first part, and is made fruitful by the multiplication of the truths of faith.6635. Afterward the infestation of these truths by falsities and evils in the natural is treated of, and that through this infestation the good would be made still more fruitful by means of truths.
6639.As in those chapters in Genesis which treat of the coming of the sons of Jacob, and of Jacob himself, into Egypt to Joseph, the subject treated of in the internal sense was the initiation of the truths of the church into memory-knowledges, and as the church has not been set up anew until this initiation has taken place, here therefore, according to the series of things in the internal sense, the renewed church is treated of, and how it is continually infested by memory-knowledges and falsities. For however well truths have been initiated and the church set up with a man, still such knowledges and falsities are continually rising up and assaulting what is of the church in him. It is this which is represented by Pharaoh and the Egyptians afflicting the sons of Israel, and being desirous to kill their infant boys.
[2] He who does not know how the case is with the assailing of the truth of the church by such knowledges and falsities with those who are of the church in the other life, can in no wise believe that it is so. The man of the church who comes into the other life must be purified from such things as infest truths and goods; otherwise he cannot be uplifted into heaven, and be there in a society which has been purified from such things. …In order therefore that a man of the church who has recently come from the world may be purified, he is kept in a state to be assailed by memory-knowledges which disagree with truths, and also by falsities, and this until these knowledges become of no account, and are removed.
Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.
