Page:Arcana Coelestia - Volume I.djvu/28

14 love and faith towards the Lord, and it was on this account ordained in the Jewish church, that a perpetual luminary should be kept burning from evening till morning, inasmuch as every ordinance in that church was representative of the Lord. Of this luminary it is written: "Thou shalt command the children of Israel that they bring thee pure oil for the luminary, to cause the lamp to ascend continually in the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony. Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before Jehovah," (Exod. xxvii. 20, 21.) That these things signify love and faith, which the Lord kindles and causes to give light in the internal man, and by the internal man in the external, will be shown, of the divine mercy of the Lord, when we come to treat of the above passage. 32. Love and faith are called, first, great luminaries, and afterwards love is called a greater luminary, and faith a less; and it is said of love that it shall rule by day, and of faith that it shall rule by night: now these being arcana, which are hidden, especially in these latter days, it is permitted of the divine mercy of the Lord, to explain them. The reason why these arcana are more especially concealed in these latter days, is because we are now arrived at the consummation of the age, when there is scarcely any love remaining, and consequently scarcely any faith; according to what the Lord himself foretold in these words of the evangelist: "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken," (Matt. xxiv. 29.) By the sun is here meant love, which is darkened; by the moon faith, which does not give light; and by the stars, the knowledges of faith, which fall from heaven, which are the virtues and powers of the heavens. The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no faith distinct from love itself: the celestial angels also do not know what faith is except it be of love; and the universal heaven is of love, no other life being existent in heaven but the life of love. From love is derived all heavenly happiness, which is so great that no degree of it admits of description, or can ever be conceived by any human idea. Those who are under the influence of love, love the Lord from the heart, but yet know, declare, and perceive, that all love, and consequently all life, which is of love alone, and thereby all happiness, come only from the Lord, and that they have not the least of love, of life, or of happiness, from themselves. That it is the Lord from whom all love comes, was also represented by the great luminary or sun, at his transfiguration, for it is written, "His face did shine as the sun, and liis raiment was white as the light," (Matt, xvii. 2.) By face is signified what is inmost, and by raiment that which proceeds from the inmost; consequently, his Divinity was represented by the sun or love, and his Humanity by the light or wisdom proceeding from love.