“All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth... And behold, I am with you always, even to the consummation of the age.” - Matthew 28:18, 20
Kempton New Church

December
4

Doubt is Part of the Process.

And Zacharias said to the angel, Whereby shall I know this? For I am elderly, and my wife is far advanced in her days. And the angel answering said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the sight of God, and am sent to speak to thee, and to announce to thee these good tidings. And behold, thou shalt be silent, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall come to pass, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time. And after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived …. (Luke 1:18-20, 24)

As regards this doubt, the case is this. Within the affection of truth, there is an affection for good within this affection, but so obscurely that they do not perceive, thus do not know, what the affection of good is, and what genuine charity is …. Nevertheless they do the goods of charity, not in order to merit anything thereby, but from obedience …. In their affection of apparent truth there lies in obscurity the affection of good, by which the Lord leads them to such action, they are at the same time in good as to their interiors, and in this good the angels are present with them. (Arcana Coelestia 2425.2)

In the Word it is here and there said of angels and of the men of the church that "they stand before God," also that "they walk before Him," and in the spiritual sense "to stand before God" signifies being from Him, and "to walk before God" signifies to live according to being [esse] from Him. for all the being [esse] of heaven and the world proceeds from the Lord; for it is the Divine proceeding that has created and formed all things of heaven and the world. (Apocalypse Explained 639.2)

In the Grand Man the womb corresponds to this love; and as conjugial love has its origin from the love of good and truth which belongs to the heavenly marriage, and as this marriage is heaven itself, or the Lord's kingdom, and as the Lord's kingdom on earth is the church, therefore the church also is signified by the "womb;" for the church is where the marriage of good and truth is. For this reason it is that "opening the womb" denotes the derivative doctrines of churches, and also the capacity to receive the truths and goods of the church; and that "coming forth from the womb" denotes to be reborn or regenerated. (Arcana Coelestia 4918)

In the spiritual sense conceptions and births are receptions of truth from good, and the consequent acknowledgments. The signification of "opening the womb," or of conceiving and bringing forth, is being to become a church; and because this is effected by means of doctrinal things, therefore by "opening the womb" are signified the doctrines of churches. Spiritual conceptions and births, such as occur when man is born anew. (Arcana Coelestia 3919, 3856)

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