169. When the angelic spirits who were from that earth came into view, they accosted us, asking who we were, and what we wanted. We said that we came for the sake of journeying, that we were directed thither, and that they had nothing to fear from us; for they were afraid we were of those who disturb them in regard to God, to faith, and things of a like nature, on account of whom they had betaken themselves to that quarter of their earth, shunning them as much as possible. We asked them by what they were disturbed. They replied, by an idea of three, and by an idea of the Divine without the Human, in God, when yet they know and perceive that God is one, and that He is Man. It was then perceived that they who disturbed them, and whom they shunned, were from our earth. This was manifest also from this, that there are from our earth those who thus wander about in the other life in consequence of their fondness for and delight in travelling, which they have contracted in the world; for on other earths there is no such custom of travelling as on ours. It was then discovered that they were monks, who had traveled on our globe from the zeal of converting the Gentiles; wherefore we told them they did well to shun them, because their intention was not to teach, but to secure gain and dominion; and that they study by various arts first to captivate men's minds, but afterwards to subject them to themselves as slaves. Moreover, that they did well in not suffering their ideas concerning God to be disturbed by such. They said further, that the above spirits confuse them by asserting that they ought to have faith and to believe the things they say; but they replied to them, that they know not what faith is nor what is meant by believing, since they perceive in themselves whether a thing be true or not. They were of the Lord's celestial kingdom, where all know from an interior perception the truths which with us are called the truths of faith, for they are in enlightenment from the Lord; but it is otherwise with those who are in the spiritual kingdom. That the angelic spirits of that earth were of the Lord's celestial kingdom, it was granted me to see from the flaming light whence their ideas flowed; for the light in the celestial kingdom is flaming, and in the spiritual kingdom it is white. They who are of the celestial kingdom, when the discourse is about truths, say no more than yea, yea, or nay, nay, and never reason about truths whether they be so or not so. These are they of whom the Lord speaks:
Let your discourse be yea, yea, and nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than this is from evil. Hence it was that those spirits said that they did not know what is meant by having faith or believing. They consider this, like a person's saying to his companion who sees houses or trees with his own eyes, that he ought to have faith or to believe that they are houses and trees, when he sees clearly that they are so. Such are they who are of the Lord's celestial kingdom, and such were these angelic spirits.# We told them that there are few on our earth who have interior perception, because in their youth they learn truths and do not do them. For man has two faculties, which are called the understanding and the will; they who admit truths no further than into the memory, and thence in some small degree into the understanding, and not into the life, that is, into the will, these, inasmuch as they are not capable of any enlightenment or interior sight from the Lord, say that those truths are to be believed, or that they are objects of faith, and also reason concerning them whether they be truths or not; yea, they are not willing that they should be perceived by any interior sight, or by any enlightenment in the understanding. They say this, because truths with them are without light from heaven, and to those who see without light from heaven, falsities may appear like truths, and truths like falsities; hence so great blindness has seized many there, that although they do not do truths or live according to them, still they say that they can be saved by faith alone, as if it were the knowledge of the things of faith which constitutes man, and not the life according to that knowledge. We afterwards discoursed with them concerning the Lord, concerning love to Him, concerning love toward the neighbor, and concerning regeneration; saying that to love the Lord is to love the commandments which are from Him, which is to live according to them from love.## That love toward the neighbor is to will good and thence do good to a fellow-citizen, to one's country, to the church, and to the Lord's kingdom, not for the sake of self, to be seen, or to merit, but from the affection of good.### Concerning regeneration, we observed that they who are regenerated by the Lord, and commit truths immediately to life, come into an interior perception concerning them; but that they who receive truths first in the memory, and afterwards will them and do them, are they who are in faith; for they act from faith, which is then called conscience. They said that they perceived these things to be so, and thus perceived also what faith is. I discoursed with them by spiritual ideas, whereby such things may be exhibited and comprehended in light. # Heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial kingdom, the other the spiritual kingdom (n. 3887, 4138). The angels in the celestial kingdom know innumerable things and are immensely more wise than the angels in the spiritual kingdom (n. 2718). The celestial angels do not think and speak from faith, like the spiritual angels, but from an internal perception that a thing is so (n. 202, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1398, 1442, 1919, 7680, 7877, 8780). The celestial angels say only concerning the truths of faith, yea, yea, or nay, nay, but the spiritual angels reason whether it be so or not so (n. 202, 337, 2715, 3246, 4448, 9196). ## To love the Lord is to live according to His commandments (n. 10,143, 10,153, 10,310, 10,578, 10,648). ### To love the neighbor is to do what is good, just, and right, in every work and in every function, from the affection of what is good, just, and right (n. 8120-8122, 10,310, 10,336). A life of love towards the neighbor is a life according to the Lord's commandments (n. 3249).
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