Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/492

396 side of the river, although this is meant. That all the goods of love and of charity exist and proceed from the Lord, because He is in the inmost, is plain from the Lord's own words in John: Jesus said, "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the Vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing" (xv. 4-6). (A. R. n. 933.)

"And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (ver. 2), signifies rational truths therefrom, by which they who are in evils and thence in falsities are led to think sanely and to live becomingly. By the leaves of the tree rational truths are signified; by the nations they are signified who are in goods and thence in truths,—and, in the opposite sense, they who are in evils and thence in falsities. Here those who are in evils and thence in falsities are signified, because it is said "for the healing of them;" and those who are in evils and in falsities thence cannot be healed by the Word, for they do not read it, but if they are strong in judgment they can be healed by rational truths. A similar signification to that of this verse is contained in the following from Ezekiel: "Behold waters went forth from under the threshold of the house . . . from which there was a river, upon whose bank on this side and on that were very many trees of meat, whose leaf doth not fall, neither shall be consumed; every month it springeth again; . . . and the fruit thereof is for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine (xlvii. 1, 7, 12). Here also the New Church is referred to. Leaves signify rational truths, because by a tree man is signified, and therefore all things pertaining to a tree, as the branches, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds, signify corresponding things in man. By the branches are signified the sensual and natural truths in man; by the leaves, his rational truths; by the flowers, the earliest spiritual truths in the rational [mind]; by fruits, the goods of love and charity; and by seeds, the last and first [principles] of man. That leaves signify rational truths is very evident from those seen in the spiritual world; for there too trees appear, with leaves and fruits, and there are gardens and paradises of them. Among those who are in the goods of love and at the same time in the truths of wisdom, there appear luxuriant fruit trees, with beautiful leaves; and among those who are in truths of some wisdom, and speak from reason, but are not in the goods of love, trees full of leaves appear but without fruits; and among those who are neither in