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

stock certain persons are; others no doubt know also. If the affections which spring from love are thus derived from parents and transmitted by them, evils are, for these spring from affections. But it shall be told how the resemblance comes about.

[3] Everyone's soul comes from his father and is only clothed with the body by one's mother. That the soul is from the father follows not only from what has been said above, but from many other indications, too; also from this, that the child of a black man or Moor by a white or European woman is black, and vice versa; and especially in that the soul is in the seed, for impregnation is by the seed, and the seed is what is clothed with a body by the mother. The seed is the primal form of the love in which the father is—the form of his ruling love with its nearest derivatives or the inmost affections of that love.

[4] These affections are enveloped in everyone with the honesties of moral life and with the goodnesses partly of civil and partly of spiritual life, which are the external of life even with the evil. An infant is born into this external life and is therefore lovable, but coming to boyhood and adolescence he passes from that external to the inner life and at length to his father's ruling love. If this has been evil and not been moderated and bent by various means by his teachers, it becomes his ruling love as it was his father's. Still the evil is not eradicated, but put aside; of this in what follows. Plainly, then, everyone is in evil.

277 r. It is plain without explanation that man must be led away from evil in order to be reformed. For one who is in evil in the world is in evil after he has left the world. Not removed in the world, evil cannot be removed afterwards. Where a tree falls, it lies. So, too, when a man dies his life remains such as it has been. Everyone is judged according to his deeds, not that these are recounted, but he returns to them and acts as before. Death is a continuation of life with the difference that man cannot then be reformed. For reformation is effected in full, that is, in what is inmost and outmost, and what is outmost is reformed suitably to what is inmost only while man is in the world. It cannot be reformed afterwards because as it is carried along by the man after death it falls quiescent and conforms to his inner life, that is, they act as one.

278. (ii) Evils cannot be removed unless they appear. This does not mean that man must do evils in order for them to appear, but that he must examine himself, his thoughts as well as his deeds, and see what he would do if he did not fear the laws and disrepute—see especially what evils he deems allowable in his spirit and does not regard as sins, for these he still does. To enable him to examine himself, man has been given understanding, and an understanding separate from his will, in order that he may know, comprehend and acknowledge what is good and what is evil, likewise see the character of his will or what it loves and desires. To see this his understanding has been given higher and lower or interior and exterior thought, so as to see from the higher or interior what his will prompts in the lower or exterior thinking: he sees this quite as he does his face in a mirror. When he does and knows what is sin, he is able, on imploring the Lord's help, not to will it but to shun it, then to act contrary to it, if not freely, then by overcoming it through fighting it, and finally to become averse to it and abominate it. Then first does he perceive and also sense that evil is evil and good is good. This, now, is self-examination—to see one's evils, acknowledge them, confess them and thereupon desist from them.

[2] But as few know that this is the Christian religion itself, and these alone have charity and faith and are led by the Lord and do good from Him, something will be said of those who fail to examine themselves but still think that they possess religion. They are 1. Those who confess themselves guilty of all sins but do not search out any one sin in themselves. 2. Those who neglect the search on religious principle. 3. Those who in absorption with the mundane give no thought to sins and hence do not know them. 4. Those who favor them and therefore cannot know them. 5. With all these, sins do not appear and therefore cannot be removed. 6. Finally, the reason, so far unknown, will be made plain why evils cannot be removed apart from their being searched out, appearing, being acknowledged, confessed and resisted.

278 r. But these points will be considered one by one, for they are fundamentals of the Christian religion on man's part.

First, of those who confess themselves guilty of all sins, but do not search out any one sin in themselves. They say, "I am a sinner. I was born in sin. From head to foot there is nothing sound in me. I am nothing but evil. Good God, be gracious to me, pardon, cleanse and save me. Make me to walk in purity and in a right path"; and more of the kind. And yet the man does not examine himself and hence does not know any evil, and no one can shun what he is ignorant of, still less fight against it. After his confessions he also thinks that he is clean and washed, when nevertheless he is unclean and unwashed from the head to the sole of the foot. For the confession of all sins is the lulling of them all to sleep and finally blindness to them. It is like a generality devoid of anything specific, which amounts to nothing.

[2] Second: Those who omit the search in consequence of their religion. They are especially those who separate charity from faith. They say to themselves, "Why should I search out evil or good? Why evil, when it does not condemn me? Why good, when it does not save me? Faith alone, thought and uttered with trust and confidence, justifies and purifies from all sin, and when once I am justified, I am whole in the sight of God. I am indeed in evil, but God wipes it away the moment it is committed and it no longer appears"; and much else. But who does not see, if he opens his eyes, that these are empty words, without reality because nothing of good is in them? Who cannot think and speak so, with trust and confidence, too, even when he is thinking of hell and eternal condemnation? Does he want to know anything further about either truth or good? Of truth he says, "What is truth except that which confirms this faith?" and of good, "What is good except what is in me from this faith? And that it may be in me I will not do it as from myself, for that would be self-righteous and what is self-righteous is not good." So he neglects all until he does not know what evil is; what then is he to search out and see in himself? Is it not his state then that a pent-up fire of lusts of evil consumes the interiors of his mind and lays them waste even to the entrance? He is on guard only at the door to keep the fire from appearing. After death the door is opened and the fire appears for all to see.

[3] Third: Those absorbed with the mundane give no thought to sins, hence do not know of any. These love the world above all things and welcome no truth that would lead them away from any falsity in their religion. They tell themselves, "What is this to me? It is not to my way of thinking." So they reject truth on hearing it and if they listen to it smother it. They do much the same on hearing sermons; they retain some sayings but not any of the substance. Dealing in this way with truths they do not know what good is, for truth and good act as one; and from good which is not linked with truth one does not recognize evil except as one calls it good also, which is done by rationalizing from falsities. It is these who are meant by the seed which fell among thorns, of whom the Lord said:

Other seeds fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up and choked them … These are they who hear the Word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word so that it become unfruitful (Mt 13:7, 22; Mk 4:7, 18, 19; Lu 8:7, 14).

[4] Fourth: Those who favor sins and therefore cannot know them. These acknowledge God and worship Him with the usual ceremonials and assure themselves that a given evil, which is a sin, is not a sin. For they color it with fallacies and appearances and thus hide its enormity. Then they indulge it and make it their friend and familiar. We say that those who acknowledge God do this, for others do not regard an evil as a sin, for one sins against God. But let examples illustrate this. A man makes an evil not to be a sin when in coveting wealth he makes some kinds of fraud allowable by reasoning which he devises. So does the man who confirms himself in plundering those who are not his enemies in a war.

[5] Fifth: Sins do not appear in these men, therefore cannot be removed. All evil which does not come to sight nurses itself; it is like fire in wood under ashes or like matter in an unopened wound; for all evil which is repressed increases and does not stop until it destroys all. Lest evil be repressed, therefore, everyone is allowed to think in favor of God or against God and in favor of the sanctities of the church or against them, without being punished for it in the world. Of this the Lord says in Isaiah:

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness; wound, and scar, and fresh bruise; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor softened with oil…. Wash you, make you clean, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good. . . . Then if your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; if they have been red like crimson, they shall be like wool. . . . But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword (Isa 1:6, 16, 17, 18, 20).

To be devoured by the sword signifies to perish by falsity of evil.

[6] Sixth: The cause, hidden so far, why evils cannot be removed apart from their being searched out, appearing, being acknowledged, confessed and resisted. In preceding pages we have mentioned the fact that all heaven is arranged in societies according to affections of good, and all hell in societies according to the lusts of evil opposite to the affections of good. Each person as to his spirit is in some society, in a heavenly one if in an affection of good, but in an infernal one if in some lust of evil. While living in the world man does not know this and yet as to his spirit he is in some society; otherwise he cannot live; and by it he is governed by the Lord. If he is in an infernal society, he cannot be led out of it by the Lord except according to the laws of divine providence, among which is this also, that a man shall see that he is there, want to leave, and make the effort himself to do so. One can do this while in the world but not after death, for then he remains forever in the society in which he put himself in the world. It is for this reason that man is to examine himself, see and avow his sins, do repentance, and thereupon persevere to the close of life. I might substantiate this to full belief by much experience, but this is not the place to document the experience.

279. (iii) So far as evils are removed they are remitted. It is an error of the age to believe

1. That evils are separated and