Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 5033

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5033. Saying, According to these words did thy servant to me. That this signifies confirmation, is evident from the belief in which he was that his wife had spoken the truth, and from its being thus confirmed to him; for the wife who persuaded him is truth natural not spiritual, but here falsity. That good natural not spiritual suffers itself to be easily persuaded by falsity, may be seen just above (n. 5032). It is well known that falsities can be confirmed so as to appear altogether as truths. This is plain from every heresy, and all its particulars, which, though they are falsities, yet by confirmations appear as truths to those who are in the heresy. It is plain too from those who have no religion, who confirm themselves so thoroughly against the things of the church, that they see as a truth the notion that the church is only for the sake of the common people, to keep them in some restraint; also that nature is all in all, and the Divine so remote as to be scarcely anything, and that man dies like a beast. Regarding these and the like opinions, they who are in good natural not spiritual suffer themselves to be more easily persuaded and confirmed than others, since they have as it were no mirror within, but only outside of them, before which falsities appear as realities.


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