Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence, Emanuel Swedenborg [best ereader for graphic novels .txt] 📗

form. Distinction with its standing is natural and temporal when a man has regard in them only to himself personally and not to the common welfare and to the uses. For he is bound then to think inwardly that the community exists for his sake and not he for its sake. It is like a king's thinking that the kingdom and all its members exist for his sake, and not he for the sake of kingdom and people.

[9] The identical distinction, however, along with the standing it brings, is spiritual and eternal when man considers that he exists for the sake of the common well-being and for uses, and not these for his sake. Doing this, he is in the truth and essence of the distinction and of the standing it brings. But doing as described above, he is in the correspondence and appearance; if then he confirms these, he is in fallacies and has conjunction with the Lord only as those have who are in falsities and evils therefrom, for fallacies are falsities with which evils unite themselves. Such men have indeed done uses and good but from themselves and not from the Lord, thus have put themselves in the Lord's place.

[10] The same is true of riches and wealth; for these also are natural and temporal, and spiritual and eternal. They are natural and temporal with those who have regard only to them and to themselves in them and who find all their pleasure and enjoyment in them. But they are spiritual and eternal with those who regard good uses in them and take an interior pleasure and enjoyment in uses. The outward pleasure and enjoyment in such men also becomes spiritual, and the temporal becomes eternal. They are therefore in heaven after death and in palaces there, the useful designs of which are resplendent with gold and precious stones. They look on these things, however, as the shining and translucent external of inward things, namely, of uses, in which they take a pleasure and enjoyment which are the happiness and joy of heaven. The opposite is the lot of those who have looked on riches and wealth just for the sake of riches and wealth and for their own sake, thus on the externalities and on nothing inward; thus on appearance and not on the essential reality. When they put off the externalities, as they do on dying, they come into their internals, and as these are not spiritual, they cannot but be infernal; they must be one or the other and cannot be spiritual and infernal at the same time. The lot of these men then is poverty instead of riches and wretchedness instead of wealth.

[11] By uses not only the necessities of life are meant, such as food, raiment and habitation for oneself and one's own, but also the good of one's country, community and fellow-citizens. Business is such a good when it is the end-love and money is a mediate, subservient love, as it is only when the businessman shuns and is averse to fraud and bad practices as sin. It is otherwise when money is the end-love and business the mediate, subservient love. For this is avarice, which is a root of evils (on this see Lu 12:15 and the parable on it, verses 16-21).

XII. MAN IS NOT ADMITTED INWARDLY INTO TRUTHS OF FAITH AND GOODS OF CHARITY EXCEPT AS HE CAN BE KEPT IN THEM TO THE CLOSE OF LIFE

221. It is well known in Christendom that the Lord wills the salvation of all, and also is almighty. From this many conclude that He can save everyone and saves those who implore His mercy, especially those who implore it by the formula of the received faith that God the Father may be merciful for the sake of the Son, particularly if they pray at the same time that they may receive this faith. That it is quite otherwise, however, will be seen in the last chapter of this treatise where it will be explained that the Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His divine providence because that would be acting against His divine love and wisdom, thus against Himself. There, too, it will be seen that such immediate mercy is impossible, for man's salvation is effected by means, and he can be led in accordance with these means only by Him who wills the salvation of all and is at the same time almighty, thus by the Lord. These means are what are called laws of divine providence. Among them is this, that man is not admitted inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love except as he can be kept in them to the close of life. To make this plain to the reason, it is to be explained in this order:

i. Man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed. ii. If he recedes from them afterwards and turns to what is the contrary, he profanes holy things. iii. There are many kinds of profanation, but this kind is the worst of all. iv. The Lord therefore does not admit man interiorly into truths of wisdom and at the same time into goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the very close of life.

222. (i) Man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed. This is because he possesses rationality and liberty; by rationality he can be raised into an almost angelic wisdom, and by liberty into love not unlike angelic love. But such as the love is, such is the wisdom; if the love is celestial and spiritual, the wisdom becomes so, but if the love is diabolical and infernal, the wisdom is likewise. Outwardly, and so to others, it may seem to be celestial and spiritual, but in inward form, namely in its essence, it is diabolical and infernal; not as manifested, but as it is within one. That it is of this nature men do not see, for they are natural, see and hear naturally, and the outward form is natural; but angels do see it, for they are spiritual, see and hear spiritually, and the inward form is spiritual.

[2] From this it is plain that man can be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed; he is admitted only into a natural love of them, not into a spiritual. This is for the reason that man can admit himself into a natural love, but the Lord alone can admit him into a spiritual love, and those admitted into this are reformed, but those admitted only into the natural love are not. For the most part the latter are hypocrites, and many are of the Order of Jesuits who inwardly do not believe in the divine at all, but play outwardly with divine things like actors.

223. It has been granted me by much experience in the spiritual world to know that man possesses in himself the faculty of apprehending arcana of wisdom like the angels themselves. For I have seen fiery devils who not only understood arcana of wisdom when they heard them, but who spoke them, too, out of their rationality. But the moment they returned to their diabolical love they did not understand them, but in place of them the contrary, which was insanity, and this they called wisdom. In fact, I was allowed to hear them laugh at their insanity when they were in a state of wisdom, and at wisdom when they were in an insane state. One who has been of this character in the world, on becoming a spirit after death is usually brought into states of wisdom and insanity by turns, for him to distinguish the one from the other. But although such men see from the wisdom that they are insane, when the choice is given them, as it is to each, they betake themselves into the state of insanity, love it and feel hatred for the state of wisdom. The reason is that their inward nature has been diabolical and their outward seemingly divine. They are meant by devils who affect to be angels of light, and by the man in the house of the nuptials who was not dressed in a wedding garment and was cast into outer darkness (Mt 22:11-13).

224. Who cannot see that it is the internal from which the external exists and that consequently the external has its essence from the internal? And who does not know by experience that the external can appear out of accord with the essence it has from the internal? It does so obviously with hypocrites, flatterers and dissemblers. That a person can outwardly feign to be other than himself is manifest from actors and mimics. They know how to represent kings, emperors and even angels in tone of voice, speech, face and gesture as though they were really such, when they are nevertheless only actors. We allude to this because man can similarly act the deceiver in spiritual things as well as civil and moral, and that many do is well known.

[2] When the internal in its essence is infernal, and the external in its form appears to be spiritual and yet has its essence, as we said, from the internal, the question arises where in the external that essence is hidden. It does not show in gesture, voice, speech or face, yet is interiorly hidden in all four. That it is, is plain from the same in the spiritual world. For when man passes from the natural world to the spiritual, as he does at death, he leaves his externals behind along with his body and retains his internals, which he has stored up in his spirit. If his internal was infernal, he then appears as a devil, such as he was as to his spirit during life in the world. Who does not acknowledge that everyone leaves external things behind with the body and enters into internal things on becoming a spirit?

[3] To this I will add that in the spiritual world there is a communication of affections and of thoughts from them, which results in no one's being able to speak except as he thinks; likewise, everyone changes facial expression and reflects his affection, and thus shows in his face what he is. Hypocrites are allowed sometimes to speak otherwise than they think, but the tone of the voice sounds utterly out of harmony with their interior thoughts, and they are recognized by the discord. It may be evident from this that the internal lies hidden in the tone of voice, the speech, the face and gesture of the external, and that it is not perceived by men in the world, but plainly by angels in the spiritual world.

225. It is plain from this that while he lives in the natural world man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and into love of them also, and that this happens or can happen with the merely natural as well as with those who are spiritual, with this difference, however, that the latter are reformed by these means and the former are not. It may seem, also, that the former love wisdom, but they do so only as an adulterer loves a noble woman, that is, as mistress, speaking caressingly to her and giving her beautiful garments, but saying of her privately to himself, "She is only a vile harlot whom I will make believe that I love because she gratifies my lust; if she should not, I would cast her away." The internal man of the unreformed lover of wisdom is this adulterer; his external man is the woman.

226. (ii) If man recedes from these later and turns to what is contrary, he profanes holy things. There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy, of which in the following section, but this is the gravest of all. Those who profane in this way become no longer human beings after death; they live indeed, but are continually in wild fantasies. They seem to themselves to soar aloft and while they remain there they sport with fantasies which they see as realities. No longer human, they are referred to not as "he" or "she" but "it." In fact, when they come to view in heaven's light they look like skeletons, some like skeletons of the color of bone, others like fiery skeletons, and still others like charred ones. The world does not know that profaners of this kind become like this after death, and the reason is that the cause is unknown. The real cause is that when man first acknowledges and believes divine things and then lapses and