Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 3105

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3105. THAT MAN KNOWS MANY TRUTHS; BUT HE DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THEM, AS SOON AS HE REASONS. It happened on several occasions that, to those who have preached heavenly truths in life and zealously inculcated them, it was demonstrated, in the other life, that they denied them, because they have been in a state of reasoning concerning them: for instance, that the Lord directs them by his Holy Spirit; this is zealously urged by preachers, and they pray that the Lord may direct [them] by his Holy Spirit, may dictate words to them, put in their mouth what to say; that he may be present and lead everyone; that nothing [comes] but from him; that men have no power, and are like stocks in the act of regeneration: and the like. When the same things were demonstrated to the sight [ad oculum] of the same [preachers] to be so, because [they have been] in a state of reasoning, concerning them, and because their faith has been a scientific [faith], they as well as others, have been astonished, and denied [it] in heart: but when it was recalled into their memory, that till they have urged and preached these things during their life, yea during [their] preaching, seemed to themselves to believe: then they at once acknowledged and affirmed [it]: from which it could be evident, that it was not a faith of the heart but of the memory: even when I thought concerning this that man was so created by the Lord as, while in the world to be also in heaven with the angels, and thus heaven be conjoined with the world, it happened that one of the preachers of his time said, that he could have so enlarged on these things by preaching,


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