1. The Sacred Scripture, or Word, Is Divine Truth Itself

Everyone says that the Word comes from God, is Divinely inspired, and so is holy. But even so, no one has known before this wherein the Divinity in it lies. For in its letter the Word appears as though written in the ordinary way, in a foreign style, neither as sublime or nor as lucid as writings of the present age seem to be.

As a result, a person who worships nature as God, or in preference to God, and so thinks prompted by self and his own self-interest, and not prompted by heaven in response to the Lord, may easily fall into error regarding the Word, and into scorning it, and when reading it, saying to himself, “What is this? What is that? Is this Divine? Can God, whose wisdom is infinite, speak so? Where is the holiness in it, and what makes it holy, other than some teaching of religion and so conviction?”

83. Every person has in him two faculties of life, called intellect and will. The intellect is the recipient vessel of truth and so of wisdom, while the will is the recipient vessel of goodness and so of love. The two must be united for a person to be a person of the church, and they are united when a person forms his intellect out of genuine truths, and this to all appearance as though of himself, and when his will is filled with the goodness of love, this by the Lord. The person consequently has a life of truth and a life of goodness — a life of truth in the intellect impelled by the will, and a life of goodness in the will in consequence of the intellect. This union is the marriage of truth and goodness in the person, and also the marriage of the Lord and the church in him.

But regarding this reciprocal union, which we here call a marriage, more will be seen in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, and Regarding Life.