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1048 APPENDIX. [Doc. 314.
nos. 1871-1876, in the Arcana Calestia, taken in their connexion
with what I have said above, and what I have further to
remark. In the other life, where man is a spirit, the natural
and material ideas, which derived their origin from the literal
sense, which has a terrestrial and worldly sound, perish, and
do not appear again, forasmuch as the internal, spiritual, and
celestial senses succeed them, which are accommodated to
the nature of spirits ; and even in this life, while man fixes
his attention upon the light of heaven, he does not so much
observe the literal words and forms of expression of the
Scriptures. This circumstance also takes place in private and
general conversation, when ignorant and simple people count
words, but the wise insist chiefly upon the purport and mean
ing of the speaker: some will recount verbatim the fine and
ornamented expressions, while others despise, and even forget,
the phraseology, but retain and weigh the importance of the
subject. The wiser a man is, the less solicitous he is about
words ; it becomes a prudent man, carefully to weigh the
things themselves, and not to adhere solely to the external,
that is, the literal form of the discourse ;-how much more,
then, does it behove that man so to do who looks above
nature ? ... On this occasion, it may not be useless to consider
and weigh with proper attention, the Doctrine of the New Jeru
salem concerning the Sacred Scriptures, nos. 65, 66 ; also Arcana
Calestia, no. 2395, and The Intercourse between the Soul and the
Body, no. 12. The chief obstacle which prevents most of the
learned from thinking and speaking adequately of the letter
of the Scripture, is undoubtedly this, that they dispute with
too much insipidity, and disparage the Divine Word and Truth,
which chiefly originates in their ignorance of the spiritual
nature of things, because they are misled through the mate
riality of their ideas ; but if we give a thorough consideration
to the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture above mentioned, and
withal consult the Arcana Cœlestia, nos. 2763, 7055, 9094, with
Heaven and Hell, no. 254, and the Apocalypse Revealed, no. 945,
we shall be struck with such an astonishment at the Sacred
Scripture, as to acknowledge how very wrong it is to be startled
so much by writings similar in their nature.
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