Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/221

Rh which is found in the books of Moses from the time of Abram, and onwards to Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings; in which the historical events are precisely as they appear in the sense of the letter, and yet they all and each contain quite other things in the internal sense; of which, by the Divine mercy of the Lord, in their order in the following pages. The third style is prophetical, and was born of the style of the Most Ancient Church, which was greatly revered. But it is not connected and quasi historical, like the most ancient, but broken and even scarcely intelligible except in the internal sense; wherein are the profoundest mysteries, which follow each other in beautiful connected order, and relate to the internal and external man; to the many states of the church; to heaven itself; and in the inmost sense to the Lord. The fourth is that of the Psalms of David; which is intermediate between the prophetical style and that of common speech. The Lord is there treated of in the internal sense under the person of David as a king. (A. C. n. 66.)

No mortal conceives from the letter that the Word of the Old Testament contains the mysteries of heaven; and that all and everything therein relates to the Lord, His heaven, the Church, faith, and things that belong to faith. For from the letter, or the sense of the letter, no one perceives anything but that in general they relate to the externals of the Jewish church; and yet there are everywhere internal things which do not appear at all in the external, save a very few which the Lord revealed and explained to the Apostles; as that the sacrifices are significative of the Lord; and that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem—likewise Paradise—signify heaven; and therefore they are called the heavenly Canaan and Jerusalem.

But that each and all things, yea, the very least, even to the smallest iota, signify and involve spiritual and celestial things, is to this day profoundly unknown to the Christian world, and therefore it pays little attention to the Old Testament. Yet they might know this from a single consideration; that since the Word is the Lord's and from the Lord, it could not but be that it inwardly contains such things as relate to heaven, to the church, and to faith. Otherwise it could not be called the Word of the Lord, nor be said to have any life within it. For whence is its life, but from those things which are of life? that is, but from the fact that each and all things therein have relation to the Lord, who is the veriest Life? Whatever therefore has not regard interiorly to Him has not life. Nay, whatever