Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 3820

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3820. But it is the prerogative of man over the beasts to be able to think and to have respect to the things which are superior or interior, namely, spiritual and celestial things, which beasts cannot do, and thus have for an end the societies of the other life. If the ends of man did not regard the things which are of a spiritual and celestial life, that is, spiritual and celestial things, or spiritual and celestial good and truth, he would then be unable to have any other life than that which beasts have; for ends show what and of what quality the life is. Thus spiritual and celestial things are the appropriate things of human life, so that [men] may be recipient of them. Wherefore those who come into the other life wholly uninstructed concerning spiritual and celestial things, are like sticks of wood, and scarce anything of life appears in them, prior to their being instructed or initiated in the knowledges of faith. Hence now it appears what is the quality of the life of those who regard no other than corporeal, worldly, and terrestrial things. Wherefore unless the Lord should have compassion, and grant them the faculty of understanding, they would be dissipated like the brutes. - 1748, November 2.


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