1104. And the merchants of the earth have become rich from the abundance of her luxuries, signifies instruction in the things of heaven and the church, which draw their delightfulness and desirableness from the love of having dominion by the holy things of the church as means, and also from the love of possessing the world by the same means. This is evident from the signification of "merchants," as being those who acquire the knowledges of good and truth from the Word, that is, who either teach or learn them; for in the proper or natural sense he is called a merchant who buys and sells merchandise, and to buy and to sell signify to acquire and communicate, thus in the spiritual sense to learn and to teach; and "merchandise" signifies the knowledges of good and truth from the Word. (That this is the signification of "trading," see above, n. 840.) "The merchants of the earth" signify instruction in the things of the church, because to teach is to instruct, and to be taught or to learn is to be instructed, and the term instruction is applicable to both; and as the spiritual sense of the Word is abstracted from persons, "merchant" signifies instruction, and the natural sense from the spiritual signifies those who instruct and who are instructed; for the spiritual sense has respect to goods and truths abstracted from persons, while the natural sense from the spiritual has respect to the persons in whom are these goods and truths. That "the earth" signifies the church has often been confirmed above from the Word. The above is evident also from the signification of "the abundance of her luxuries," as being the things of the church that are called knowledges, and that are said to be holy, and yet derive all that they are from the love of having dominion both over heaven and over the world. Such knowledges, which they call the holy things of the church, are what are meant by "the abundance of her luxuries" which are enumerated below (verses 11-15), and by which such things are signified. They are called "the abundance of luxuries" because they are delightful, for all things that flow forth from the love of self and from the love of the world are delightful, for from his natural man or from his body everyone feels no other delight. When, therefore, these loves are ends, such means as favor them are devised; and these means are delightful because they belong to the ends. And because these loves are ends with those who are the heads and the primates in that religious persuasion that is meant by "Babylon," they devise the means that favor them, all of which are delightful (as will be shown below). From all this it can be seen that "the merchants of the earth have become rich from the abundance of her luxuries" signifies instruction in those things of the church that draw their delightfulness and desirableness from the love of having dominion by the holy things of the church as means, and from the love of possessing the world by the same means.
(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith)
[2] Another thing that the Athanasian doctrine teaches is that there are two essences in the Lord, the Divine and the Human essence; and in this there is a clear idea that the Lord has the Divine and the Human, that is, that the Lord is God and Man, but an obscure idea that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human as the soul is in the body. The clear idea that the Lord has the Divine and the Human is drawn from these words, "The true faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the world, and Man of the substance of the mother, born in the world; Perfect God and perfect Man, consisting of a reasonable soul and a human body; equal to the Father as to the Divine, and inferior to the Father as to the Human." Here the clear idea stops and goes no farther, because it becomes from what follows an obscure idea, and what pertains to an obscure idea, since it does not enter the memory from thought from light, gains no other place there than among things not of light; and as these do not appear before the understanding they are hidden, and cannot be called forth from the memory in connection with things that belong to the light. In that doctrine the point that is in an obscure idea is that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body; for on this it is said, "Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; One altogether by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and the body is one man, so God and Man is one Christ." The idea in this is indeed in itself clear, and yet it becomes obscure by what follows, "one, not by conversion of the Divine essence into the Human, but by a taking of the Human essence into the Divine; one altogether, not by confusion of essence but by unity of Person." [3] As a clear idea prevails over an obscure idea, so most people, both simple and learned, think of the Lord as they do of an ordinary man like themselves, and not at the same time of His Divine; or if they think of the Divine they separate it in their idea from the Human, and thereby weaken the unity of Person. And if they are asked where His Divine is, they answer according to their idea, In heaven with the Father. They thus say and think because they have an aversion to thinking that the Human is Divine, and is in heaven united with its Divine, not knowing that when they thus separate in thought the Lord's Divine from His Human they not only think contrary to their doctrine, which teaches that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul in the body, and that there is a unity of Person, that is, that they constitute one Person, but they also charge that doctrine undeservedly with the contradiction or fallacy that the Lord's Human with its rational soul was from the mother alone, when in fact every man is rational from the soul, which is from the father. But that there is such a thought and such a separation is a result of the idea of three gods, according to which His Divine in the Human is from the Divine of the Father, who is the first Person, although it is His own Divine which descended from heaven and took on the Human. If man does not rightly perceive this it might perhaps be supposed that the Father, who is the source, is not one Divine but threefold; and yet this cannot be accepted with any faith. In a word, those who separate the Divine from His Human, and do not think that the Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body, and that the two are one Person, may fall into strange ideas about the Lord, even into an idea like that of a man separated from his soul. Take heed, therefore, not to think of the Lord as a man like yourself, but think of the Lord as Man who is God. [4] Listen, my reader: You may think when you read all this that you have never separated in thought the Lord's Divine from His Human, nor in consequence His Human from His Divine; but give attention, I pray you, to your thought when you have directed it to the Lord, and see whether you have ever thought that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body; and whether you have not thought instead, and even, if you please, are not now thinking, of His Human separately and of His Divine separately? And when you are thinking of His Human is it not in your thought like the human of any other man; and when you are thinking of His Divine, is it not, in your thought, with the Father? I have questioned very many about this, even primates of the church, and they have all answered that it is so; and when I have said that it is according to the doctrine in the Athanasian Faith, which is the very doctrine of their church respecting God and respecting the Lord, that the Lord's Divine is in his Human as the soul is in the body, they have replied that they did not know it; and when I recited these words of the doctrine: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two but one Christ; one altogether by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and body is one man, so God and Man is one Christ," they were silent, but afterwards confessed that they had not observed these words, and were indignant that they had passed over their own doctrine with eyes so closed; and some of them abandoned their mystical union of the Divine of the Father with the Lord's Human. [5] That the Divine is in the Lord's Human as the soul is in the body the Word teaches and testifies in Matthew and in Luke. In Matthew:
When Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. And an angel said to Joseph in a dream, Fear not to take Mary thy bride, for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus (Matt. 1:18, 20, 25). And in Luke:
The angel said to Mary, Behold thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man? The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore that Holy One that is born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:31-32, 34-35). All this makes clear that the Divine was in the Lord from conception, and that the Divine was His life from the Father, which life is the soul. This will suffice for the time. More will be said on this subject in what follows, where it will be shown that even the things in the Athanasian doctrine that produce an obscure idea of the Lord are in harmony with the truth when the Trinity, that is, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is thought and believed to be in the Lord as in one Person. Without this thought and belief it may be said, and in fact it is said, that Christians, differently from all other peoples and nations in the whole globe that have rationality, worship three Gods; and yet the Christian world might surpass and ought to surpass all others in the clearness of the doctrine and belief that God is one both in essence and in Person.
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