Page:Swedenborg's Writings and Catholic Teaching.pdf/79

Rh "In general there are intellectual things of faith, there are rational things of faith, and there are scientific things of faith; they thus succeed each other, and proceed in order from interiors to exteriors. The things of faith, which are inmost, are called intellectual; the things thence proceeding are called rational; the things, again, proceeding thence are the scientifics of faith. These things are comparatively, to use the language of the learned, as what is prior to what is posterior, or what is the same thing, as what is superior to what is inferior, that is, as what is interior to what is exterior."

"In respect to the Lord, his internal was Jehovah Himself; inasmuch as He was conceived of Jehovah, who cannot be divided and become another's, as the internal of man is, in the case of son who is conceived of a human father; for what is Divine is not capable of division, like what is human, but is one and the same, and is permanent. With this internal the Lord united the human essence; and as the internal of the Lord was Jehovah, it was not a form recipient of life, as the internal of man, but was life itself. His human essence, also, by union, was in like manner made life; wherefore the Lord so often saith that He is life, as in John:—'As the Father hath life in Himself so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself' (chap. v. 26, not to mention other passages in the same Evangelist. as chap. i. 4, 21; vi. 33, 35, 48; xi. 25). In proportion, therefore, as the Lord was in the humanity which he received hereditarily from the mother, he appeared distinct from Jehovah, and adored Jehovah as Being different from himself; but in proportion as he put off this humanity, the Lord was not distinct from Jehovah, but one with Him. The former state was the Lord's