Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 6

104. As he grows older, every person has an external and an internal of thought, or an external and an internal of will and understanding or of his spirit, identical with external and internal man. This is evident to anyone who observes another's thoughts and intentions as they are revealed in speech or deed, or who observes his own when he is in company and when he is by himself. For from the external thought one can talk amicably with another and yet in internal thought be hostile. From external thought and from its affection, too, a man can talk about love for the neighbor and for G.o.d when in his internal thought he cares nothing for the neighbor and does not fear G.o.d. From external thought together with its affection he can talk about the justice of civil laws, the virtues of the moral life, and matters of doctrine and the spiritual life, and yet in private and from his internal thought and its affection speak against the civil laws, the moral virtues, and matters of doctrine and spiritual life. So those do who are in l.u.s.ts of evil but want to appear to the world not to be in them.

[2] Many also, as they listen to others, think to themselves, "Do those speaking think inwardly in themselves as they think in utterance? Are they to be believed or not? What do they intend?" Flatterers and hypocrites notoriously possess a twofold thought. They can be self-restrained and guard against the interior thought's being disclosed, and some can hide it more and more deeply and bar the door against its appearing. That a man possesses external and internal thought is also plain in that from his interior thought he can behold the exterior thought, can reflect on it, too, and judge whether or not it is evil. The human mind is such because of the two faculties, called liberty and rationality, which one has from the Lord. Unless he possessed internal and external of thought from these faculties, a man could not perceive and see an evil in himself and be reformed. In fact, he could not speak but only make sounds like a beast.

105. The internal of thought comes out of the life's love, its affections and the perceptions from them. The external of thought is from what is in the memory, serving the life's love for confirmation and as means to its end. From childhood to early manhood a person is in the external of thought from an affection for knowledge, which is then his internal; from the life's love born in one from parents something of l.u.s.t and hence of disposition issues, too. Later, however, his life's love is as he lives, and its affections and the perceptions from them make the internal of his thought. From his life's love comes a love of means; the enjoyments of these means and the information drawn thereby from the memory make his external of thought.

106. (ii) _Man's external of thought is in itself such as his internal is._ We showed earlier that from head to foot a man is what his life's love is. Something must be said about his life's love, for until this is done nothing can be said about the affections which together with perceptions make the internal of man, or about the enjoyments of the affections together with thoughts which make his external. Loves are many, but two--heavenly love and infernal love--are like lords or kings.

Heavenly love is love to the Lord and the neighbor; infernal love is love of self and the world. These are opposite to each other as heaven and h.e.l.l are. For a man in love of self and the world wishes well only to himself; a man in love to the Lord and the neighbor wishes well to all.

These two are the loves of man's life, though with much variety. Heavenly love is the life's love of those whom the Lord leads, and infernal love the life's love of those whom the devil leads.

[2] No one's life's love can be without derivatives, called affections.

The derivatives of infernal love are affections of evil and falsity --l.u.s.ts, properly speaking; and those of heavenly love are affections of good and truth--loves, strictly. Affections, or strictly l.u.s.ts, of infernal love are as numerous as evils are, and affections, or properly loves, of heavenly love are as many as there are goods. Love dwells in its affections like a lord in his domain and a king in his realm; its domain or realm is over the things of the mind, that is, of the will and understanding and thence of the body. By its affections and the perceptions from them and by its enjoyments and the thoughts therefrom, the life's love of man rules him completely, the internal of the mind by the affections and perceptions from them, and the external by the enjoyments of the affections and of the thoughts from them.

107. The manner of this rule may be seen to some extent from comparisons.

Heavenly love with its affections of good and truth and the perceptions from them, together with the enjoyments of such affections and the thoughts from these, may be compared to a tree, notable for its branches, leaves and fruit. The life's love is the tree; the branches with their leaves are the affections of good and truth with their perceptions; and the fruits are the enjoyments of the affections with their thoughts.

Infernal love, however, with its affections or l.u.s.ts of evil and falsity, together with the enjoyments of the l.u.s.ts and the thinking from those enjoyments, may be compared to a spider and the web spun about it. The love itself is the spider; the l.u.s.ts of evil and falsity together with their subtle cunning are the net of threads nearest the spider's post; and the enjoyments of the l.u.s.ts together with their crafty schemes are the more remote threads where flies are snared on the wing, enveloped and eaten.

108. These comparisons may help one to see the connection of all things of the will and understanding or of man's mind with his life's love, and yet not to see it rationally. Rationally it may be seen in this way.

Everywhere there are three which make one, called end, cause and effect.

Here the life's love is end; the affections with their perceptions are cause; and the enjoyments of the affections and consequent thoughts are effect. For as an end pa.s.ses into effect through a cause, love pa.s.ses by its affections to its enjoyments and by its perceptions to its thoughts.

The effects are in the enjoyments of the mind and the thoughts thence when the enjoyments are from the will and the thoughts from the attendant understanding, that is, when all fully agree. The effects are then part of man's spirit and although they do not come into bodily act are still a deed there when there is this agreement. At the same time they are in the body, dwelling there with man's life's love and longing for the deed, which occurs when nothing hinders. The same is true of l.u.s.ts of evil and evil deeds with those who make evils allowable in spirit.

[2] As an end unites itself with a cause and by the cause with an effect, the life's love unites itself with the internal of thought and by this with its external. It is plain then that man's external of thought is in itself what his internal is, for an end imparts all of itself to the cause and through the cause to the effect. Nothing essential is present in an effect which is not in the cause and through the cause in the end, and as the end is what essentially enters cause and effect, these are called "mediate end" and "final end" respectively.

109. Sometimes the external of thought seems to be different in itself from the internal. This is because the life's love with its internals about it sets a vicar under it called the love of means, and directs it to watch and guard against anything of its l.u.s.ts appearing. This vicar, with the cunning of its chief, the life's love, therefore speaks and acts in accordance with the laws of a kingdom, the ethical demands of reason, and the spiritual requirements of the church, so cunningly, too, and cleverly that no one sees that persons are other than they say and act, and finally the persons themselves, so disguised, scarcely know otherwise. Such are all hypocrites. Such are priests, also, who at heart care nothing for the neighbor and do not fear G.o.d, yet preach about love of the neighbor and of G.o.d. Such are judges who judge by gifts and friends.h.i.+ps while affecting zeal for justice and speaking with reason about judgment. Such are traders who at heart are insincere and fraudulent while dealing honestly for the sake of profit. Such are adulterers when, from the rationality every man possesses, they talk about the chast.i.ty of marriage; and so on.

[2] The same persons, when they strip the love of means, the vicar of their life's love, of the purple and linen which they have thrown around it and put its house dress on it, then think exactly the contrary, and exchanging thought with their best friends who are in a similar life's love, they speak so. It may be believed that when they have spoken so justly, honestly and piously from the love of means, the character of the internal of thought was not in the external of their thought; yet it was; hypocrisy is in them, and love of self and the world is in them, the cunning of which aims to capture a reputation for the sake of standing or gain through just the outward appearance. This, the nature of the internal, is in the external of their thought when they speak and act so.

110. With those in a heavenly love, however, internal and external of thought or internal and external man make one when they speak, and they are aware of no difference. Their life's love, with its affections of good and the perceptions of truth from these, is like a soul in what they think and then say and do. If they are priests, they preach out of love to the neighbor and to the Lord; if judges, they judge from justice itself; if tradesmen, they deal with honesty; if they are husbands, they love the partner with true chast.i.ty; and so on. Their life's love also has a love of the means for vicar, which it teaches and leads to act with prudence and clothes with garments of a zeal for both truths of doctrine and goods of life.

111. ( iii) _The internal cannot be purified from the l.u.s.ts of evil as long as evils in the external man are not removed, for these impede._ This follows from what has been said above, that the external of man's thought is in itself what the internal of his thought is and that they cohere as what is not only in the other but also from the other; one cannot be removed, therefore, unless the other is at the same time. This is true of any external which is from an internal, and of anything subsequent from what is prior, and of every effect from a cause.

[2] As l.u.s.ts together with slynesses make the internal of thought with evil persons, and the enjoyments of the l.u.s.ts together with scheming make the external of thought in them, and the two are joined into one, it follows that the internal cannot be purified from the l.u.s.ts as long as the evils in the external man are not removed. It should be known that man's internal will is in the l.u.s.ts; his internal understanding in the slynesses; his external will in the enjoyments of the l.u.s.ts; and his external understanding in the sly scheming. Anyone can see that l.u.s.ts and their enjoyments make one, that slynesses and scheming also do, and that the four are one series and as it were make a single bundle. From this again it is evident that the internal, consisting of l.u.s.ts, cannot be cast out except on the removal of the external, consisting of evils.

l.u.s.ts produce evils by their enjoyments, and when evils are deemed allowable, as they are when will and understanding agree on it, the enjoyments and the evils make one. It is well known that a.s.sent is deed; this is also what the Lord said:

If anyone looks on the woman of another to l.u.s.t after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt 5:28).*

The same is true of all other evils.

* The Greek is simply "on a woman" and does not have the word here rendered "of another." Though Swedenborg quotes the verse several times in his works he seems not to have checked as he usually did beyond the rendering of the Schmidius Latin Bible which he used.

112. From this it may now be evident that for a person to be purified from the l.u.s.ts of evil, evils must by all means be removed from the external man, for the l.u.s.ts have no way out before. If no outlet exists, they remain within and breathe out enjoyments and so incite man to consent, thus to deed. l.u.s.ts enter the body by the external of thought; when there is consent, therefore, in the external of thought they are instantly in the body; the enjoyment felt is bodily. See in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom_ (nn. 362-370) that the body, thus the whole man, is what the mind is. This can be ill.u.s.trated by comparisons, and by examples.

[2] By _comparisons:_ l.u.s.ts with their enjoyments can be compared to a fire which blazes the more, the more it is nursed; the freer its way the more widely it spreads until in a city it consumes houses and in a woods the trees. In the Word, moreover, l.u.s.ts are compared to fire, and the evils from them to a conflagration. The l.u.s.ts of evil with their enjoyments also appear as fires in the spiritual world; h.e.l.lfire is nothing else. l.u.s.ts may also be compared to floods and inundations as dikes or dams give way. They may also be likened to gangrene and abscesses which bring death to the body as they run their course or are not healed.

[3] By _examples:_ it is obvious that when evils are not removed in the external man, the l.u.s.ts with their enjoyments grow and flourish. The more he steals the more a thief l.u.s.ts to steal until he cannot stop; so with a defrauder, the more he defrauds; it is the same with hatred and vengeance, luxury and intemperance, wh.o.r.edom and blasphemy. It is notorious that the love of ruling from the love of self increases when left unbridled; so also the love of possessing things from love of the world; they seem to have no limit or end. Plain it is then that so far as evils are not removed in the external man, l.u.s.ts for them intensify; also that in the degree that evils are given free rein, the l.u.s.ts increase.

113. A person does not see the l.u.s.ts of his evil; he sees their enjoyments, to be sure, but still he reflects little on them, for they divert thought and drive off reflection. Unless he learned from elsewhere that they are evils he would call them goods and give them expression freely according to his thought's reasoning; doing so, he appropriates them to himself. So far as he confirms them as allowable he enlarges the court of his ruling love, which is his life's love. l.u.s.ts const.i.tute its court, being its ministers and retinue, as it were, by which it governs the exteriors of its realm. But such as is the king, such are the ministers and retinue, and such is the kingdom. If the king is diabolic, his ministers and the retinue are insanities, and the people of his realm are falsities of every kind. The ministers (who are called wise although they are insane) cause these falsities to appear as truths by reasonings from fallacies and by fantasies and cause them to be acknowledged as truths. Can such a state in a man be changed except by the evils being removed in the external man? Then the l.u.s.ts which cling to the evils are also removed. Otherwise no outlet offers for the l.u.s.ts; they are shut in like a besieged city or like an indurated ulcer.

114. (iv) _Only with man's partic.i.p.ation can evils in the external man be removed by the Lord._ In all Christian churches it is an accepted point of doctrine that before coming to the Holy Communion a person should examine himself, see and confess his sins, and do penitence, desisting from his sins and rejecting them because they are from the devil; and that otherwise the sins are not forgiven him and he is d.a.m.ned. The English, despite the fact that they are in the doctrine of faith alone, nevertheless in the exhortation to the Holy Communion openly teach self-examination, acknowledgment, confession of sins, penitence and renewal of life, and warn those who do not do these things with the words that otherwise the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas, fill them with all iniquity, and destroy both body and soul. Germans, Swedes and Danes, who are also in the doctrine of faith alone, teach the same in the exhortation to the Holy Communion, also warning that otherwise the communicants will make themselves liable to infernal punishments and eternal d.a.m.nation for mixing sacred and profane together. These words are read out by the priest in a deep voice to all who are about to observe the Holy Supper, and are listened to by them in full acknowledgment that they are true.

[2] Nevertheless, after hearing a sermon on the same day about faith alone and to the effect that the law does not condemn them because the Lord has fulfilled it for them, and that of themselves they cannot do any good which is not self-righteous and thus that one's works have nothing saving in them, only faith alone has, these same persons return home completely forgetting their earlier confession and rejecting it so far as they think along the lines of the sermon. But which is true, the latter or the former? Contrary to each other, both cannot be true. Which is?

That there can be no forgiveness of sins, thus no salvation but only eternal d.a.m.nation, apart from self-examination, the knowledge and acknowledgment, confession and breaking off of sins, that is, apart from repentance? Or that such things effect nothing towards salvation inasmuch as full satisfaction for all the sins of men has been made by the Lord through the pa.s.sion of the cross for those who have faith, and that those in faith alone with trust that it is so and with confidence in the imputation of the Lord's merit, are sinless and appear before G.o.d like men with s.h.i.+ning faces for having washed?

[3] It is plain from this that the religion common to all churches in Christendom is that one shall examine himself, see and acknowledge his sins and then desist from them, and that otherwise there is no salvation, but d.a.m.nation. This, moreover, is divine truth itself, as is plain from pa.s.sages in the Word in which man is bidden to do penitence, as from the following:

John said, Do . . . fruits worthy of repentance . . . this moment the axe is at the root of the tree; every tree not giving good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire (Lu 3:8, 9).

Jesus said, Unless you do repentance, you shall all . . . perish (Lu 13:3,5).

Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of G.o.d; . . . do repentance, and believe the gospel (Mk 1:14, 15).

Jesus sent out the disciples who on going out were to preach that men should repent (Mk 6:12).

Jesus told the apostles that they were to preach repentance and the remission of sins to all peoples (Lu 24:27).

John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Mk 1:4; Lu 3:3).

Think about this also with some degree of understanding; if you have religion, you will see that repentance of one's sins is the way to heaven, that faith apart from repentance is not faith, and that those in no faith for lack of repenting are in the way to h.e.l.l.

115. Those in faith severed from charity who have confirmed themselves in it by Paul's saying to the Romans that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law (3:28) wors.h.i.+p that saying quite like men who wors.h.i.+p the sun. They become like those who fix their gaze steadily on the sun with the result that the blurred vision sees nothing in normal light. For they fail to see what is meant in the pa.s.sage by "works of the law," namely, the rituals described by Moses in his books, called "law"

in them everywhere, and not the precepts of the Decalog. Lest it be thought these are meant, Paul explains, saying at that point,

Do we not then make the law void through faith? Far from it, rather we establish the law (verse 31 of the same chapter).

Those who have confirmed themselves by that saying in faith severed from charity, looking on it as on the sun, do not see the pa.s.sages in which Paul lists the laws of faith and that these are the very works of charity. What indeed is faith without its laws? Nor do they see the pa.s.sages in which he lists evil works, declaring that those who do them cannot enter heaven. What blindness has been brought about by this one pa.s.sage badly understood!

116. Evils in the external man cannot be removed without man's cooperation for the reason that it is by divine providence that whatever a man hears, sees, thinks, wills, speaks and does shall seem to him to be his own doing. Apart from that appearance (as was shown above, nn. 71-95 ff.) there would be no reception of divine truth on man's part, nor determination to do what is good, nor any appropriation of love and wisdom or of charity and faith, hence no conjunction with the Lord, no reformation therefore or regeneration, and thus no salvation. Without that appearance, repentance for sins would clearly be impossible and in fact faith would; without that appearance, likewise, man is not man but is devoid of rational life like the beasts. Let him who will, consult his reason whether it appears otherwise than that man thinks from himself about good and truth, spiritual as well as moral and civil; then accept the doctrine that all good and truth are from the Lord and none from man.

Must he not then acknowledge as a consequence that man is to do good and think truth of himself, yet always acknowledge that these are from the Lord? And acknowledge further that man is to remove evils of himself, but still acknowledge that he does so from the Lord?

117. Many are unaware that they are in evils since they do not do them outwardly, fearing the civil law and the loss of reputation. Thus by custom and habit they practice to avoid evils as detrimental to their standing and interests. But if they do not shun evils on religious principle, because they are sins and against G.o.d, the l.u.s.ts of evil with their enjoyments remain in them like impure waters stopped up or stagnant. Let them probe their thoughts and intentions and they will come on the l.u.s.ts provided they know what sins are.

[2] Many such, who have confirmed themselves in faith separated from charity and who believe that the law does not condemn, pay no attention to sins. Some doubt there are sins, or if so, that they exist in G.o.d's sight, having been pardoned. Such also are natural moralists, who believe that civil and moral life with its prudence accomplishes all things and divine providence nothing. Such are those, also, who strive with great care after a reputation and a name for honesty and sincerity for the sake of standing and preferment. But those who are such and who at the same time have spurned religion become l.u.s.tful spirits after death, appearing to themselves like men indeed, but to others at a distance like _priapi;_ and they see in the dark and not at all in the light, like night-owls.

118. Proposition v, that _a man ought to remove evils from the external man of himself,_ is substantiated then. Further explanation may be seen in _Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem_ under three propositions: 1.

No one can flee evils as sins so as to be averse to them inwardly except by combats against them (nn. 92-100); 2. A man ought to shun evils as sins and fight against them as of himself (nn. 101-107); and 3. If he shuns evils for any other reason than that they are sins, he does not shun them, but only keeps them from appearing to the world.

119. (vi) _The Lord then purifies man from the l.u.s.ts of evil in the internal man and from the evils themselves in the external._ The Lord purifies man from the l.u.s.ts of evil only when man as of himself removes the evils because He cannot do so before. For the evils are in the external man and the l.u.s.ts in the internal man, and they cling together like roots and a trunk. Unless the evils are removed, therefore, no outlet offers; they block the way and shut the door, which the Lord can open only with a man's partic.i.p.ation, as was shown just above. When the man as of himself opens the door, the Lord then roots out the l.u.s.ts.

[2] A second reason why the Lord cannot do so sooner is that He acts upon man's inmost and by that on all that follows even to outmosts where man himself is. While outmosts, therefore, are kept closed by man, no purification can take place, but only that activity of the Lord in interiors which is His activity in h.e.l.l, of which the man who is in l.u.s.ts and at the same time in evils is a form--an activity which is solely provision lest one thing destroy another and lest good and truth be violated. It is plain from words of the Lord in the Apocalypse that He constantly urges and prompts man to open the door to Him:

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me (3:20).

120. Man knows nothing at all of the interior state of his mind or internal man, yet infinite things are there, not one of which comes to his knowledge. His internal of thought or internal man is his very spirit, and in it are things as infinite and innumerable as there are in his body, in fact, more numerous. For his spirit is man in its form, and all things in it correspond to all things of his body. Now, just as man knows nothing by any sensation about how his mind or soul operates on all things of the body as a whole or severally, so he does not know, either, how the Lord works on all things of his mind or soul, that is, of his spirit. The divine activity is unceasing; man has no part in it; still the Lord cannot purify a man from any l.u.s.t of evil in his spirit or internal man as long as the man keeps the external closed. Man keeps his external closed by evils, each of which seems to him to be a single ent.i.ty, although in each are infinite things. When a man removes what seems a single thing, the Lord removes infinite things in it. So much is implied in the Lord's purifying man from the l.u.s.ts of evil in the internal man and from the evils themselves in the external.

121. Many believe that a person is purified from evils merely by believing what the church teaches; some, by doing good; others by knowing, speaking and teaching what is of the church; others by reading the Word and books of devotion; others by going to church, hearing sermons and especially by observing the Holy Supper; still others, by renouncing the world and devoting oneself to piety; others still by confessing oneself guilty of all sins; and so on. And yet none of these things purifies man at all unless he examines himself, sees his sins, acknowledges them, condemns himself on account of them, and repents by desisting from them, and does all this as of himself, yet with the acknowledgment in heart that he does so from the Lord.

[2] Until this is done, the things mentioned above do not avail, being either self-righteous or hypocritical. Such persons appear to the angels in heaven either like pretty courtesans smelling badly of their corruption, or like unsightly women painted to appear handsome, or like masked clowns and mimics in the theater, or like apes in men's clothes.

But when evils have been removed, then all that has just been mentioned becomes the expression of love in such persons, and they appear as beautiful human beings to the sight of the angels in heaven and as partners and companions of theirs.