Page:A Few Plain Answers to the Question, Why do you Receive the Testimony of Baron Swedenborg.pdf/21

21 For having established the necessity of regeneration, as grounded in the declaration of Jesus Christ, that, "Except a man be born of water, and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, Baron Swedenborg proceeds next to shew what this birth of water and of the spirit really is and means. And here he takes a previous view of the natural state of man, or of that natural life he receives hereditarily from his parents, proving that this natural life is a life of mere self-love and the love of the world, connected with all the natural persuasions and thoughts proper to those loves, and is therefore in direct contrariety to spiritual life, which is the life of love towards God, and of charity towards our neighbour. Hence, he proceeds to prove further, arises the necessity of which Jesus Christ speaks, that man must be born of water and of the spirit, before he can enter into the Kingdom of God, since to be born of water and of the Spirit implies the reception of spiritual life and without the reception of spiritual life, it is impossible that man can be any subject of the heavenly kingdom, which is also a spiritual kingdom. By being born of water it is further shewn is meant the reception of heavenly Truth from the Word of God in the understanding, since all such Truth is not only compared to, but is called water in the Sacred Scriptures, as in John iv. 13, 14; chap. vii. 37, 38. And by being born of the Spirit, is meant the reception of heavenly Good of love and charity in the will and life, since all such Good is in the Sacred Scriptures called Spirit. The first of these states therefore, viz. when man is influenced more by the knowledge of Truth in his understanding, is called reformation, but the second, viz. when he is brought to act more from the influence of heavenly Good of love and charity in his will, is called regeneration. Thus Reformation and Regeneration combined together imply, that the Truths of God's most Holy Word are formed and operative first in man's understanding, and next in his will and life, leading him to note and to reject all those defiled loves and false persuasions, which are opposite to the spiritual life of love and charity, and in so doing to admit the life of love and charity from Jesus Christ to be fully and compleatly incorporated and fixed in him.

Reformation therefore and regeneration, according to Baron Swedenborg, imply the formation of a real new spiritual man, produced, like the natural, from seed, but from Divine Seed, which is the Word of God, or Divine Truth, and also carried in the womb, brought forth, educated, and lastly fully grown and formed, agreeable to spiritual processes answering to those of the natural man. This formation therefore is not sudden, but gradual, not instantaneous, but successive, in proportion as man receives the