Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/56

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III.

REASON IN RELIGION VINDICATED.

EVERY man has exterior and interior thought. Interior thought is in the light of heaven, and is called perception; and exterior thought is in the light of the world. And the understanding of every man is such that it can be elevated even into the light of heaven, and also is elevated, if from any delight he desires to see the truth. That this is the case has been given me to know by much experience; for the delight of love and wisdom elevates the thought, enabling it to see as in the light that a thing is so, although it had never been heard of before. This light, which illumines the mind, flows from no other source than out of heaven from the Lord. And as they who will be of the New Jerusalem, will directly approach the Lord, that light will flow-in in the way of order, which is through the love of the will into the perception of the understanding.

They who have confirmed themselves in the belief that the understanding in matters of a theological nature is to see nothing, but that people are blindly to believe what the church teaches, cannot see any truth in the light; for they have obstructed the passage of

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