Sig...

THE ESSENTIAL SWEDENBORG

by

SIG SYNNESTVEDT

The works of a writer so prolific as Emanuel Swedenborg can scarecly be synthesized in a single, brief volume. But the sheer bulk of his writings has doubtless been a limiting factor in the study of his thought. This book attempts to present the basic elements of Swedenborg's thought within the confines of a brief compendium. Previous attempts to accomplish this task have taken forms which appealed primarily to persons already acquainted with Swedenborgian teachings. This study presents the central aspects of Swedenborg's thought to persons who' have had little or no previous contact with his writings. Those already initiated into his somewhat difficult terminology, style and concepts, may find this to be a useful over-view. Hopefully, those who are new to Swedenborg will be led to consider his works themselves.

The Swedish seer deserves a wider audience for he speaks to many of the basic life questions which have puzzled theologians, confused the general public and turned the 20th century into an era of religious scepticism. Readers will differ in their understanding of what he has to tell them. But few who are genuinely in search of a more meaningful explanation of life, will fail to be impressed by the scope and power of this 18th century thinker's attempt to "enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith."

TWAYNE PUBLISHERS

New York

The Essential Swedenborg

Basic Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist, Philosopher, and Theologian

SELECTED AND EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION

By SIC SYNNESTVEDT

, THE SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION, INC.

* * * TWAYNE PUBLISHERS, INC.

Copyright© 1970 by Twayne Publishers, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-110362

Manufactured in the United States of America

Preface

T HE sheer bulk of Swedenborg's writings has doubtless been a limiting factor in the study of his thought. During

his earlier years (1720-1745) he wrote on civic, scientific, and philosophical subjects. These contributions fill at least twenty large volumes. During the latter part of his life (174~1772) he turned to theology, and his religious works, not including five volumes of his Spiritual Diary, fill thirty additional tomes of more than a quarter million words each. Probably no religious writer has left a larger body of teachings for later generations to study.l

During his own lifetime, Swedenborg's contributions were well known in European intellectual circles. Men like ImmanueI Kant, Carl Gustaf Tessin, Carl Linnaeus, Hermann Boerhaave, Charles XII of Sweden, Friedrich Christopher Oetinger, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Edmund Halley, Christop~er Polhem,) Jean-Jacq'Jes Bousseaw Fran<;ois ~ Arouet de Volta~ and John Wesley knew Swedenborg or his wor~. Some reacted favorably to his writings; others did not. But few leading ~llects~e_eighteenth century failed to take note of them:-

SwedeiiOorg's fame increased during the nineteenth century. Distinguished thinkers looked on him as one of the great men of all time. Ralph Waldo Emerson, when including Swedenborg . in his collection of essays on representative men of history, called him, "A colossal soul, ... [who] lies vast abroad on his times, uncomprehended by them, and requires a long focal distance to be seen. . . . One of the missouriums and mastodons


of literature, he is not to be measured by whole colleges of ordinary scholars." 2 _

Of Swedenborg, Henry James, Sr. wrote: "The incomparable depth and splendor of SwecIenborg's genius are shown in this that he alone of men has . . . dared to bring creation within the bounds of consciousness. . . . He grasped with clear and intellectual vision the seminal principles of things." S

Edwin Markham;the American poet who won fame with his "Man With-htheHoe" at the turn of the century, once said: "There is no doubt that Swedenborg was one of the greatest intellects that have appeared upon the planet." On another oc

,\casion Markham called him "the wisest man in millions. H~

"Was the eyeball on the front of the eighteenth ce!.l!Ury." 4

Samuel Taylor Coleri<!ge, John Bigelow, Elizabeth Barrett ~ro~g, William -nrake, Thomas-'-Ga~rle, John Creenleaf Whittier, Edward Everett Hale, Honore de Balzac, John F. QQ.~L~?, RQQert Brow!!ing, Wifliam Dean Howt:lllS:Henri~g§.~ James Freeman Clark~, and other nineteenth-century \ leaders recognized Swedenborg as a man of exceptional inSight and mental power.

The twentieth century has made scant note of Swedenborg's science or philosophy and paid practically no attention at all to his theology. Yet, Emanuel Swedenborg s~aks to ..,!!1odem proble~ns. His teachings deserve more study than they currently rece(ve. "Cod is dea_d" say J:!lany m_odern t~eolo~ians. By this striking phrase, some at least mean that traditional, dozmatic Christi~i!x. has died. Swedenborg wrote in a simIlarvein two hundred years ago. ,- His prophecy of a new church that will mread over the world has yet to be realized. But interested persons will find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that his theological writings contain impressive statements that cover the entire range of human existence and are consistent with the clear teachings of the

PREFACE

Bible. Helen.!<el~~ studied Swedenborg throughout her notable career. She concluded that he was a "Titan Genius" who took "giant strides," served as an "eye among the blind, an ear among the deaf," and emerged eventually as "one of the noblest champions true Christianity has ever known." 5 Thoughtful modem readers may reach similar conclusions after perusing the calm yet intense teachings of this remarkable Swedish philosopher.

This volume contains the basic elements of Swedenborg's thought within the confines of a brief compendium. The task has been attempted before; a score of compendiums of various types have been published. But, most of them appeared during the nineteenth century and nearly all are long out of print. Furthermore, without exception, they have taken forms which appealed primarily to persons already acquainted with Swedenborgian teachings. This study seeks to present the central aspects of Swedenborg's thought to persons who have had little or no previous contact with his writings. Those already initiated into his somew~ ilifficult terminology, style, and concepts, may find this to be a useful overview. Hopefully, those who are new to Swedenborg will be led to consider his works themselves. The Swedish seer deserves a wider audience.

5.5.

Acknowledgments

ABOOK of this type, which attempts to synthesize the lifetime work of so prolific a writer as Emanuel Swedenborg,

can benefit greatly from the pre-publication reactions of talented consultants. I was most fortunate in persuading nine busy persons to give me of their experience in the form of editorial and substantive suggestions. George Dole, E. Bruce Glenn, Bruce Henderson, WiIliam R. Kintner, Clayton Priestnal, DonaId Rose, Jr., Pelle Rosenquist, Larry Soneson, and Michael Stanley read the manuscript and contributed much to whatever of merit it contains. I want to thank them most warmly for their help while, at the same time, absolving them from any limitations of judgment, errors of syntax, and aberrations of style which are, of course, my own responsibility.

I would also like to thank the members of the Board of Directors of the Swedenborg Foundation for their interest in and support of this project. These thanks go particularly to Tomas Spiers, Executive Secretary, who supplied the original idea of the study, and to Virginia Branston, Manager, and Philip M. Alden, President, all of whom encouraged me throughout the work.

I benefited greatly from the secretarial skills of Elizabeth Glover, who carried the load of typing and proofing endless notes and early drafts, and Diana Wedel, who produced the final version in rapid order in spite of heavy pressure from other responsibilities.

Most especially I thank my wife Nadine for all her help and patience.

S.S.

Contents

Preface 5 Acknowledgments 9 Swedenborg Chronology 13 Life of Ema~~l Swedenborg 15

~

Part I: ~e Na~e of Life 37 Freedom 40 Order 43 llie ~

Charity 51 Civil Affairs 57 ~orality 62 ~arriage and Sex 66 The Nature of Wisdom 76 Religion 81 Evil, Sin, and the Pennissions Involved 89

Part 11: t I~e Sou!<:~_of_Lif~ 97 Revelation 99 Life after Death 104 Origin, Nature, and Proper Destiny of ~an 120 Nature ofJhUJniverse 141 Divine Providence 148 The Divine 158 The Two Advents 168


Epilogue 177 Appendix 179

Abbreviations 180 The Theological Writings of Swedenborg 181 Bibliographical Note 191 Notes and References 193 Index 197

1688 1699-1709 1710-1715

1716

1716 1718

1720

1729-1734

1735-1744

1743-1744

1745 1747

1747-1758

Swedenborg Chronology

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 29. Attended Uppsala University. First journey abroad, to England and the Continent. First publications by Swedenborg in the magazine Daedalus. Appointed Assesssor in the Royal College of Mines. Ennoblement of Swedberg family with name changed to Swedenborg. Assumption by Swedenborg of seat in House of Nobles of Swedish Diet. Publication of Swedenborg's first book, a philosophic work titled Principles of Chemistry. Writing and publication of his most important philosophical works in three volumes, titled Philosophical and Mineralogical Works. Period of intensive study, writing, and publication on the nature of human existence, particularly as regards the concept of the soul. First transcendent experiences, visions or dreams, in Holland and England. "Call" to become a revelator, London, England. Resignation from the Swedish Board of Mines to allow time for theological writing. Writing and publication of the twelve-volume Arcana Coelestia, Swedenborg's first major theological work.


1759-1761 Incidents of the Stockholm fire, the Dutch ambassador's receipt, and the Queen's secret illustrating Swedenborg's clairvoyance.

1768-1771 Heresy trial at Gothenburg, Sweden, involving state church accusations against Swedenborg's theology.

1771-1772 Publication of the two-volume True Christian Religion in Amsterdam, Holland, his last major theological work.

1772 Death in London, England, at age 84, on March 29.

Life of Emanuel Swedenborg

VISITORS to the cathedral of Uppsala, Sweden, where renowned citizens are interred, may see an impressive red

granite sarcophagus on which the name Emanuel Swedenborg appears. The sarcophagus contains the remains of one of Sweden's most accomplished sons. As recently as 1910, when belated recognition was extended to this distinguished intellect, Gustav V, King of Sweden, led in paying him national tribute. Resting in public view has been reserved for kings, archbishops, generals, and prominent intellectuals. Only a score of Swedes have earned this distinction.

Who was Emanuel Swedenborg? What historical position did he hold to warrant such honor and attention? What were his major contributions? The great majority of cathedral visitors will doubtless have no idea of the answer to these questions. The flow of persons through the church will include the educated who may pOSSibly remember Swedenborg's scientific and philosophic contributions to eighteenth-century European thought. A scattered few of Swedenborg's followers will look with awe upon the sarcophagus as the final resting place of the man they consider to have been a new prophet of God on earth.

Ancestors endowed this eminent Swede with multiple talents which determined the course and tenor of his life. On his mother's side Swedenborg's relatives had long been prominent in the mining industry; his father was a devout clergyman of intelligence and zeal. Into such a household, marked by a harmonious blending of the secular and the sacred, Emanuel was born on

15


the 29th of January, 1688, in the city of Stockholm. Sara Behm, his mother, died when he was eight years old, but her quiet, benevolent spirit molded the character of her third child and second son. Six other children were born to Jesper and Sara Swedberg before her untimely death in 1696.

His father, professor of theology at the University of Uppsala and dean of the cathedral, later became Bishop of Skara. This post included elevation to the rank of nobleman by Queen Ulrika Eleonora. One result of this honor was the change of the family name from Swedberg to Swedenborg. The Bishop also served as chaplain to the royal family and thus had an entree into the highest social and political circles of Sweden.

From birth young Swedenborg experienced a family atmosphere characterized by reverence and even religious fervor. The Bishop'S children, for the most part, were given scriptural names, to remind them of their duty to God and the church. Emanuel means "God with us" and Swedenborg's early years suited this theme. The family often discussed religious questions at dinner and other gatherings, and the young boy had opportunities to exchange ideas on faith and life with many clergymen. Years later Swedenborg recalled the influence of this early exposure when he wrote: "I was constantly engaged in thought upon God, salvation, and the spiritual diseases of

"6men ... But theology, while it bulked large in the Swedberg home,

did not eliminate all other subjects of conversation. Politics, war, philosophy, technology undoubtedly entered the family dialogues. In June of 1699 intellectual stimulation at home led logically to an early enrollment at Uppsala University. Young Emanuel showed high intellectual promise and a catholic outlook.7 At the time, the university offered four major fields of study: theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. Although Swedenborg majored in the last, his inquiring mind led him

16

LIFE OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORC

into many other fields as well. The faculty of philosophy then included science and mathematics, but he also took courses in law and, since most instruction at Uppsala was still in Latin, he learned this structured language, adding Greek and Hebrew the following year. Subsequent studies and travels enabled Swedenborg to acquire a knowledge of English, Dutch, French, and Italian in addition to his native Swedish and the scriptural languages. For relaxation he wrote poetry in Latin and studied music. Swedenborg also became sufficiently accomplished on the organ to fill in for the regular accompanist at the church. Versatility and imagination grounded in thoroughness and praCticality characterized his academic career.

Upon finishing his formal studies at the university in 1709 he laid plans for an extended period of travel and further study abroad. In 1710, at twenty-two years of age, he went to England for the first time. With the encouragement and financial assistance of his brother-in-law, Eric Benzelius, he was able, either under learned individuals or on his own, to study physics, astronomy, and most of the other natural sciences. He also became intensely interested in practical mechanics and learned watchmaking, bookbinding, cabinet work, engraVing, and brass instrument construction from skiUed English craftsmen. When he went to Holland he studied the technology of lens grinding, then in its early beginnings. His later studies included cosmology, mathematics, anatomy, physiology, politics, economics, metallurgy, mineralogy, geology, mining engineering, and chemistry. In addition he became thoroughly versed in the Bible. Moreover, the avid student-scientist made successful efforts to meet recognized leaders in the world of knowledge. In an age when relatively few men became really learned, Emanuel Swedenborg spent the first thirty-five years of his life in a massive program of formal and self-directed education.

Although he immersed himself in the sciences and other sec

17


ular pursuits, Swedenborg did not abandon his early religious training. He retained his acceptance of God as the allpervasive, causal force in the universe. All evidence indicates that he consistently followed the advice which his father gave to him upon leaving Uppsala to accept an appointment in another diocese: "I beg you most earnestly that you fear and love God above all else," the Bishop said, "for without this fear of God all other training, all study, all learning is of no account, indeed quite harmful." 8

In 1716, even before this period of travel and study ended, Swedenborg began a long career in public service. King Charles XII appointed the talented 28-year-old scientist to the post of Extraordinary Assessor in the Royal College of Mines. The position, though partly honorific, also carried varied duties cQlmected with the supervision and development of mining, one of Sweden's most important industries. For thirty-one years Swedenborg served as a valued member of the Board of Mines. The Board met regularly and made decisions affecting all aspects of the mine industry. Swedenborg sometimes received leaves of absence for travel and study but attended Board meetings faithfully when he was in Sweden.

The post of Assessor became far more than a sinecure. Swedenborg's responsibilities included inspecting mines and rendering detailed reports on the quality and amount of mined ore. He spent most of seven different summers traveling around Sweden on these inspection tours, riding horseback or in carriages through miles of forest, staying at local inns, going down in all types of safe and unsafe mines. He was involved in personnel and administrative problems, hiring officials, arbitrating labor disputes, and submitting suggestions for improvements. He even had the unpopular responsibility of collecting national taxes levied on mining. His activities on the Board of Mines

18

LIFE OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

finally ended when he resigned in 1747 to give full time to more important tasks to which he believed he had been called.

Swedenborg's public career also included some fifty years of service in the House of Nobles, one of the four estates of the Swedish Riksdag or legislature. He first took his seat on the ennoblement of his family in 1719. From that time until a few years prior to his death in 1772, Swedenborg attended most of the sessions of the House of Nobles. Deep dedication to the welfare of Sweden led him to make special efforts to plan his travels abroad during times of legislative adjournment. He usually remained in Sweden when the Riksdag was in session, and though not a ready speaker, he repeatedly wrote pamphlets and resolutions on the important questions of the day. On a number of occasions he expressed views on the nation's economy and tax structure. Foreign policy and matters related to the proper development of Sweden's natural resources also drew his attention.

His most pOinted political contest occurred in 1760, during a period of economic stress in Sweden. The Councillor of Commerce, Anders Nordencrantz, became chairman of a special committee on finance. He was authorized to name all the members of his committee, and their report, not surprisingly, reflected Nordencrantz's thinking on the nation's financial crisis which he had detailed earlier in a lengthy published book. The Nordencrantz analysis contained some useful insights, but his proposals for reform threatened to sweep away the entire structure of the government of Sweden; many felt that his recommendations, if adopted, might tear the fabric of society apart.

Swedenborg, while not unmindful of the need for economic improvement, found Nordencrantz's views generally unacceptable. They put the entire blame for the crisis on government officials. Nordencrantz favored replacing all appointees other

19


than those in church and military positions; these, in turn, would be replaced again every second year thereafter. In brief, Nordencrantz argued for reform by means of a continuous turnover of government officials. The most pernicious feature of his plan would have been vastly increased personal power for the King.

Swedenborg's commentary to the Riksdag objecting to the Nordencrantz report argued that Sweden's problems were caused by a variety of factors in both the private and public sectors rather than simply by the corruption and stupidity of officialdom. He underscored the need for a just balance in criticism of the government in the interests of maintaining an effective structure within which social and civil freedom might gradually be expanded. "Mistakes occur in every country," he wrote, "and with every man. But if a government should be regarded Simply from its faults, it would be like regarding an individual Simply from his failings and deficiencies." 9 In this contest, which he won, Swedenborg showed himself to be a man of moderation willing to work toward practical solutions of real problems.

No summary of Swedenborg's public life would be complete without mention of the many occasions on which he put his mechanical genius to work for his country. King Charles XII asked him to serve as his engineering advisor after the King had been impressed by Swedenborg's contributions as editor of the scientific journal Daedalus, the first periodical devoted to the natural sciences ever published in Sweden. In the King's service, Swedenborg acted as construction supervisor on several important public works. His assignments involved creation of a drydock of new design, a canal, machinery for working salt springs, and a system for moving large warships overland. He also showed an inventive imagination in producing feasible sketches of futuristic machines including an airplane, a subma

20


rine, a steam engine, an air gun, and a slow-combustion stove. Although no observer of nature in the 1700's had refined in

struments to aid him, leading intellectuals developed the science of the times to a remarkable degree. The limited amount of knowledge made it possible for scholars to be conversant with a broader variety of studies than has been possible since, in the context of the explosion of scientific information during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Swedenborg's keen mind coupled with his extensive educational background placed him in the front rank of the learned scientists of the day.

In a century which was ignorant of the existence of oxygen, the circulation of the blood, the composition of water, the makeup of the earth's atmosphere, electricity, spectrum analysis, photography, the concept of the conservation of energy, and the workings of atoms, Swedenborg propounded some impressive theories along with making some incorrect speculations. As his mind developed he became more interested in generalizing from the findings of others rather than conducting extensive experiments of his own. His thinking exhibited a philosophic rather than an empirical bent.

Nevertheless, in metallurgy and biology he made experimental discoveries which rank him with the original thinkers of these two diSciplines. In metallurgy his conclusions regarding the proper treatment of iron, copper, and brass advanced both the science and the technology involved.

In biology, his studies of the nervouS system and the brain earned him credit for supplying the first accurate understanding of the importance of the cerebral cortex, and the respiratory movement of the brain tissues. Modern scholars conclude that Swedenborg's findings pOinted the way to "most of the fundamentals of nerve and sensory physiology." 10 He is also praised for his inSight into the function and importance of the ductless glands, especially the pituitary.ll

21


Had he spent all of his mature years in metallurgy and biology he might have gone considerably farther in these two fields than he did. He refrained from extensive research because he felt that he was not especially gifted in this type of activity. Furthermore, he found that, when he did make a modest experimental discovery, he tended to let it draw him away from philosophical generalizations into one-sided explanations too extensively dependent upon his own observation. He believed that there were two main types of mind; on the one hand, there were those gifted in "experimental observation, and endowed with a sharper inSight than others, as if they possessed naturally a finer acumen: such are Eustachius, Ruysch, Leeuwenhoek, Lancisi, etc." And then there were others "who enjoy a natural faculty for contemplating facts already discovered, and eliciting their causes. Both are peculiar gifts, and are seldom united in the same person." 12

Swedenborg had two central philosophic interests: cosmology and the nature of the human soul. From approximately 1720 until 1745 he studied, wrote, and published on these two subjects. His first Significant philosophic work, entitled Chemistry and published in 1720, emphasized his developing view that everything in nature could be explained mathematically. He rejected the Newtonian concept of permanent, irreducible particles of matter and suggested that everything material was essentially motion arranged in geometric forms.

During the 1720's he developed his thoughts on the process by which the universe exists and continues. A nearly 600-page manuscript called the Lesser Principia, published posthumously, was one product of these efforts, but the great work of his philosophical studies appeared in 1734. It contained three volumes under the general title Philosophical and Mineralogical Works. In Volume One, which he called The Principia, according to the habit of eighteenth-century philosophers, he pre

22


sented his primary cosmological conclusions. He based his explanations of the "Principles of Natural Things" on experience, geometry, and reason and postulated the creation of a "first natural point" of matter. This first natural point, caused by divine impulse to action, consisted of pure motion. From this point of pure motion a series of finites descended, each series larger and somewhat less active than the preceding finite. Swedenborg's cosmology thus teems with energy from beginning to end. He argued that activity permeated all three natural kingdoms, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Any material substance emanated energy spheres which interacted with surrounding matter. His studies of magnetism, crystallography, phosphorescence, and metallurgy contributed to his belief in an active universe.

Modern experimentation, particularly in the field of atomic energy, has confirmed many of Swedenborg's cosmological speculations. Svante Arrhenius, noted Nobel-Prize chemist and founder of the twentieth-century science of physical chemistry, concluded that Buffon, Kant, Laplace, Wright, and Lambert all propounded systems of creation which had been suggested earlier in Swedenborg's PrincipiaY The second volume of the Philosophical and Mineralogical Works dealt with iron and steel, and the third with copper and brass. In them Swedenborg treated not only the technology involved in the use of metals, but included further philosophical speculations regarding the makeup and operation of the universe.

Nothing in Swedenborg's Philosophical and Mineralogical Works indicated that purely material explanations of the universe satisfied him. His writings rest upon the assumption that divine force underlies all matter and his speculations next turned to the relationship between the finite and the infinite. His book-length essay on the Infinite published in 1734, carried the full title "Outlines of a Philosophical Argument on the Infi

23


nite, and the Final Cause of Creation and on the Mechanism of the Operation of Soul and Body." In this and similar studies, Swedenborg judged that although the finite could not know the infinite, reason compelled man to conclude that the human individual was the end of creation. Everything in creation contributed to man's functioning as a thinking being. The soul must be the link between God and man, the infinite and the finite, even though man could not see or measure that soul.

Swedenborg developed his search for the soul most comprehensively in a study which he called The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, published in two lengthy volumes in 1740 and 1741. As the title implies, he found the kingdom of life to be a marvelous unity, tautly structured according to some grand design consistent with the concept of the individual soul as the center of creation. His speculations, which made use of the best anatomical knowledge of the day, focused on the blood as the most likely carrier of the soul. Swedenborg came close to predicting the manner in which the lungs purify the blood at a time when the discovery of oxygen was fifty years in the future. He then drew upon his earlier studies of the brain and concluded that the operations of the brain and the body, by means of the blood, depended upon a "spirituous fluid" which, while it could not be «known" scientifically, must be the carrier of the soul. He pursued his search for rational explanations of the workings of the soul in a second book, The Animal Kingdom, and in other works. He hoped to disperse the «clouds which darken the sacred temple of the mind" and open a path to faith. 14 Other books from this period, some published and some left in manuscript, include The Brain, The Senses, The Organs of Generation, and Rational Psychology. .

The Economy of the Animal Kingdom drew praise from the scholars of the day. However, reviewers increasingly ignored

24


later works in his search for the soul, and his unpublished manuscripts were, of course, unknown outside the circle of Swedenborg's intellectual intimates.

Swedenborg had gone as far as he could go in attempting to explain the great questions of human existence solely through the faith into which he was born and which was reinforced by his own reasoning powers. The results of his search left him dissatisfied, but a new phase of his life opened and the remaining years of his career must be viewed in a different perspective.

During 1744 and 1745 he had a number of dreams and visions which moved him profoundly. He sometimes feared and sometimes felt exhilarated by what he experienced. These were years of disquiet which he could not explain satisfactorily and, typically, he kept silent about them to others, although his Journal of Dreams and Journal of Travel written during this period recorded his experiences and emotions. He renewed his study of the Bible and began to write a book entitled Worship and Love of God.

Then in April of 1745 he underwent a penetrating experience. In London, while dining alone at an inn where he often went, Swedenborg noted that the room seemed to grow dark. He then saw a vision, and an apparition spoke to him. When the room cleared again Swedenborg went home to his apartment, considerably stirred by his experience. During that night he again saw the vision. A spirit reappeared and spoke with him regarding the need for a human person to serve as the means by which God would further reveal himself to men in somewhat the manner of the biblical visions of the Old TestamentY

Swedenborg came to believe that God had called him to bring a new revelation to the world, and from 1745 until his death twenty-seven years later he spent the bulk of his time

25

THE ESSENTIAL S WEDENBORG

adding theological works to his already lengthy scientific and philosophical writings. Few transcendent experiences recorded in human history encompass such a sweeping claim.

He spent the two years immediately following his "call" in further close study of the Bible. He wrote some 3,000 folio pages of unpublished commentary and prepared an extended Bible Index which he used in all of his further works on theology. He perfected his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek in order to study the Bible in the original texts, and, in effect, made a new translation of many of the books of both the Old and New Testaments. In 1747 he began publication of his most extended theological work, Arcana Coelestia-Heavenly Secrets. This study of the books of Genesis and Exodus runs to more than 7,000 pages or about three million words. The subtitle of this multi-volume work asserted that the "heavenly secrets" it contained "are in the Sacred Scripture of the Word of the Lord disclosed" and were presented along with "wonderful things which have been seen in the World of Spirits and in the Heaven of Angels."

Theological writings continued to flow from Swedenborg's pen. He wrote eight volumes explaining the book of Revelation, single volumes entitled Divine Providence, Divine Love and Wisdom, and The Four Doctrines, i.e., the Lord, the Holy Scripture, Life, and Faith. He presented an account of experiences in the other world in the highly descriptive volume titled Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell. In 1768 he published a long volume on the subject of marriage under the title The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love after which follow the Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love. Shorter works dealt with a variety of subjects.16

There are several aspects of the theological phase of Swedenborg's career. First, for much of the period, he wrote and published anonymously, and therefore few, even among his close

26


friends, knew the nature of the theological studies as they evolved. Second, he invested a considerable amount of his own funds in the process since none of his theological studies enjoyed any significant circulation. He gave away many copies anonymously, to clergymen, universities, and libraries. Third, he lived a normal though sometimes secluded life during the early theological years. Unmarried, he was much alone with his books, often in a small summerhouse which he built at the back of the garden of his Stockholm property. Fourth, experiences in his last years reversed the anonymous and secluded pattern of his life as his works became Widely diffused in learned circles. Finally, he remained convinced that the Lord had commissioned him to bring a new revelation to men. Fulfillment of this commission depended upon a dual existence in both the spiritual and natural worlds alternately, for year upon year as his commentaries multiplied.

Swedenborg made no effort to establish a religious sect or to induce people to form themselves into a church following. In fact, his efforts to remain anonymous with regard to his theological works lasted until 1759. In that year an incident occurred in Sweden which brought him considerable notoriety and which eventually led many to connect Swedenborg for the first time with his unusual theological works, particularly Heaven and Hell. In July, in the city of Gothenburg, approximately 300 miles from Stockholm, while he dined with friends at the home of William Castel, a wealthy local merchant, Swedenborg became pale and disturbed, withdrew for a time to the garden, and returned with news that a great fire had broken out in Stockholm not far from his home. He said that the fire was spreading rapidly and he feared that some of his manuscripts would be destroyed. Finally, at 8:00 P.M. he spoke with relief: "Thank God! The fire is extinguished the third door from my house!"

Zl


Persons present, disturbed by the incident since some had homes or friends in Stockholm, were impressed by Swedenborg's apparent clairvoyance. The same evening one of them told the story to the provincial governor and he, in turn, requested that Swedenborg render him a full account. The next day, Sunday, Swedenborg gave the governor details regarding the nature and extent of the fire and the means by which it had been extinguished. News of the alleged fire spread widely in the city of Gothenburg and the subject became the general topic of conversation.

Not until Monday evening did a messenger arrive, from the Stockholm Board of Trade, with details on the fire. 17 Since they agreed with those Swedenborg had given, the general curiosity aroused made him a public figure, and not long afterwards his authorship of Heaven and Hell and the Arcana Coelestia became known. A variety of prominent persons, curious to meet with a man who claimed to be able to see into the spiritual world, began to write accounts of Swedenborg and his habits. Those who had not yet had an opportunity to meet him tended to conclude that Swedenborg had become insane. After meeting and talking with him they found him, on the contrary, to be quite reasonable. They frequently ended in a quandary, not willing to accept his sweeping claims, yet convinced of his sanity.

In the spring of the following year another incident occurred that further revealed Swedenborg's strange powers. The widow of the Dutch ambassador in Stockholm, Mme. de Marteville, became interested in Swedenborg's alleged power to converse with spirits. She hoped that he might be able to help her in a practical matter. A silversmith had presented her with a large bill for a silver service which her husband had purchased before his death. She felt sure that her husband had paid the bill, but could find no receipt. Swedenborg agreed to ask her hus

28


band about it if he saw him in the spiritual world. A few days later Swedenborg reported that he had seen her husband and that the ambassador had told him that he would tell his wife where the receipt was hidden. Eight days later Mme. de Marteville dreamed her husband told her to look behind a particular drawer in the desk. She did so and found not only the receipt but a diamond hairpin which had been missing. The next morning, Swedenborg called on the widow, and, before she told him of her dream and discovery, he reported that he had again conversed with her husband the preceding night and that the ambassador had left the conversation to tell his wife of the missing receipt.

An even more striking incident concerned the "Queen's secret." In the fall of 1761, Count DIric Scheffer invited Swedenborg to go to the court with him to visit Queen Lovisa DIrika who had become interested in Swedenborg through hearing of his varied abilities. The Queen asked if he would communicate with her late brother Augustus William who had died two years before. Swedenborg agreed to do so and a few days later called at the royal residence, presented the Queen with copies of some of his books, and then in a private audience at the far end of the room told her some secret that caused her to show great amazement. She exclaimed that only her brother could have known what Swedenborg told her. The incident became Widely known and discussed in Swedish social circles.

These three examples of Swedenborg's clairvoyant abilities, along with lesser incidents, served to spread his fame. He continued to live and write as before, but curious persons often interrupted his studies; many sought to visit with the man who claimed, in a calm and reasonable way, to be able to converse with angels.

The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant's reaction to Swedenborg's visionary powers is of interest in this connection.

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Although Kant never met Swedenborg himself, he wrote to him and also sent personal messages through mutual friends. Kant, the great rationalist, tended to discount all stories of mystical experience but the persistent and authoritative reports on Swedenborg's powers gave him repeated pause. At times he wrote favorably; at times quite the reverse. However, Kant's continuing interest is indicated by a variety of evidence. Even his most critical survey, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, published in 1766, in which Kant attempted to denigrate Swedenborg, reveals doubts regarding the basis for his own ridicule. In short, Kant must be numbered among those intellects of Swedenborg's day who experienced difficulty explaining satisfactorily the theological phase of Swedenborg's distinguished career.

During Swedenborg's final years a variety of old friends and new acquaintances wrote accounts of their impressions of him. His claims seemed preposterous to many, yet few who met and talked with him had anything really adverse to say of him. They were perplexed at his accounts of conversations with spirits, but found him otherwise to be a gentle, humorous man with a relaxed, benign air. Occasionally, when callers tried to make fun of him, Swedenborg spoke cuttingly, but in general he was the perfect host.

In 1768, Swedenborg, eighty years of age but in excellent health and spirits, set out on the next-to-Iast extensive journey of his life on earth. Many previous trips had taken him all over Europe including Italy, France, Germany, Holland, and England. On this occasion he went first to France and then to England, where he took lodgings with a young couple in Wellclose Square, London. During the summer he spent many hours working on his last great theological work, a two-volume study entitled The True Christian Religion. He also enjoyed walking in the nearby parks, talking with acquaintances, and visiting friends. One associate said of him during this period, "Someone

30


might think that Assessor Swedenborg was eccentric and whimsical; but the very reverse was the case. He was very easy and pleasant in company, talked on every subject that came up, accommodating himself to the ideas of the company; and never spoke on his own views unless he was asked about them." 18

In 1769 he returned to Sweden, partly to answer charges of heresy which had been leveled against him by some of the prelates of the Lutheran state church. He had been informed by friendly correspondents that his theological writings were the cause of much controversy in the Lutheran Consistory in Gothenburg. By this time several of Swedenborg's works had been translated into Swedish, and followers, both among the clergy and the laity, spoke out in favor of his theology.

1

In September, 1768, a country parson precipitated a decisive debate by introducing a resolution in the Gothenburg Cons~story calling for measures to stop the circulation of works at variance with the dogmas of Lutheranism. The parson objected particularly to Swedenborg's writings. While some members of the Consistory insisted that no judgment be rendered until all members had thoroughly studied the works in question, Dean Ekebom, the ranking prelate, announced that he found Swedenborg's doctrines to be "corrupting, heretical, injuriOUS, and in the highest degree objectionable." Although he confessed that he had not read any works other than the Apocalypse Revealed with any care, he concluded that Swedenborg's views on the nature of the Divine, the Bible, the Holy Supper, faith, and other basic teachings should be suppressed as dangerous to established religious concepts. He charged Swedenborg with Socinianism or refusal to accept the divinity of Christ.

On being apprised of these charges Swedenborg wrote vigorr ously in his own defense. The Socinianism charge particularly ) upset him, and he wrote, "I look upon the word Socinian as a ) downright insult and diabolical mockery." One of Swedenborg's

31


most carefully argued lines of theological reasoning directly refutes Socinianism and argues for the acceptance of Christ as God on earth.

The dispute became inflamed and shifted to the political level when the matter was brought up in the nationaLQiet. The Dean's legal advisor and chief prosecutor urged that "the most energetic measures" be taken to "stifle, punish, and utterly eradicate Swedenborgian innovation and downright heresies by which we are encompassed . . . so that the boar which devastates and the wild beast which desolates our country may be driven out with a mighty hand." The Royal Council, appOinted through the Diet, finally rendered its report in April, 1770. The anti-Swedenborgians won most of what they were seeking. Swedenborg's clerical supporters were ordered to cease using his teachings, and customs officials were directed to impound his books and stop their circulation in any district unless the nearest consistory granted permission. In its own words, the Royal Council "totally condemned, rejected, and forbade the theological doctrines contained in Swedenborg's writings."

While the dispute dragged on for three more years, Swedenborg continued to protest the decision of the Council and petitioned the King himself. The Royal Council referred the matter to the Catha Court of Appeals, which asked several universities, including Swedenborg's alma mater, Uppsala, to make a thorough study of Swedenborg's ideas. The universities, however, asked to be excused. Their theological faculties found nothing which they felt they should condemn, but, on the other hand, they had no inclination to put bishops and entire consistories on trial for false accusation, the only means by which the anti-Swedenborgian decisions could be reversed. The matter quieted down. Some clergymen preached Swedenborgian ideas; most did not. Emanuel Swedenborg continued to write and speak as he pleased in his few remaining years on earth. lll

32


Completion of the crowning work of his theological period engrossed him. Although 82 years of age, he undertook his final, eleventh, foreign journey to promote this effort. Apparently he felt he would not return to Sweden for he made farewell calls on the members of the Board of Mines, supporters, and close friends. He arranged a pension for his faithful housekeeper, made lists of his possessions for estate distribution, and told his long-time friend and neighbor, Carl Robsahm, "Whether I shall return again, I do not know, but this I can assure you, for the Lord has promised it to me, I shall not die until I have received from the press this work ... now ready to be printed." 20 He referred to the manuscript to be published in 1771 in Holland under the title The True Christian Religion.

A skeptical but generally friendly observer visited Swedenborg in Amsterdam during the printing of The True Christian Religion and reported that the seer, in spite of his advanced age, worked "indefatigably" and even "in an astonishing and superhuman way," reading proofs and returning them to the publisher. He found Swedenborg convinced that he served, as the title page stated, in the capacity of "The Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ." 21

When the book was printed Swedenborg left Amsterdam and crossed the Channel to England. He arrived in London in early September of 1771 and again rented quarters with a family named Shearsmith in Great Bath Street. Although his health declined he continued to work at his books. But in December, he suffered a stroke which destroyed his ability to speak and rendered him unconscious for most of three weeks. During January and February he gradually recovered and again talked with visitors.

He wrote to John Wesley, the noted English minister, and told him that he would be happy to discuss religion with him if Wesley could come to London. Swedenborg mentioned that he

33


had learned in the world of spirits that Wesley wanted to talk with him about theology. Wesley expressed his great surprise to friends regarding Swedenborg's invitation because he did not recall having told anyone of his interest in the Swedish seer. Wesley answered Swedenborg's letter with hopes that he would be welcomed upon completion of a six months' journey on which he had just embarked. When he received Wesley's reply Swedenborg remarked that six months would be too long since he, Swedenborg, would permanently enter the world of spirits on the 29th of March, 1772. The maid who attended Baron Swedenborg during his final months also reported that he predicted the exact date of his death.22

Several friends visited Swedenborg during March and urged him to make a final statement regarding the truth or falsity of the new revelation which had been flowing from his pen for so many years. Swedenborg answered pointedly: "I have written nothing but the truth, as you will have more and more con·· firmed to you all the days of your life, provided you keep close to the Lord and faithfully serve Him alone by shunning evils of all kinds as sins against Him and diligently searching His Word which from beginning to end bears incontestible witness to the truth of the doctrines 1 have delivered to the world." On another occasion, in answer to a similar question, Swedenborg said: "As truly as you see me before your eyes, so true is everything that 1 have written; and 1 could have said more had it been permitted. When you enter eternity you will see everything, and then you and 1 shall have much to talk about." 23

On Sunday, March 29, 1772, Mrs. Shearsmith and Elizabeth Reynolds, the maid, observed Swedenborg, waking from a long sleep. He asked the women to tell him the time of day. They replied that it was five o'clock. "That is good," Swedenborg said. "I thank you. God bless you!" 24 He then Sighed gently and died.

J

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Shortly after Swedenborg's death, an energetic Londoner named Robert Hindmarsh, came upon a copy of Heaven and Hell. Upon reading it he became a convert and organized the first group of followers of Swedenborg. Meeting regularly in London, the Hindmarsh circle began to expound the tenets of Swedenborgian theology. Swedish followers organized under the leadership of Johan Rosen and Gabriel A. Beyer, two noted intellectuals who had been reading Swedenborg for some time. James Glen, a sometime member of the Hindmarsh group in England, brought copies of Swedenborg's writings to Philadelphia in 1784, and Swedenborgianism in America dates from Glen's efforts to establish Swedenborgian reading circles in the Quaker city and elsewhere. Although the total number of Swedenborg followers has never grown large, there are active adherent groups all over the world.

Swedenborg's teachings exert a clear and direct influence on those who regard themselves as followers of the new faith. Swedenborgians study his theological writings and, like members of other religious sects, they attempt to put the principles expressed into effect in their own lives. The less tangible evidence of Swedenborg's influence-his effect on the mainstream of world thought-remains to be evaluated. Scholars who attempt the task may conclude, with~ur Conan f>oy~, that they have a "mountain peak of mentality''''under scrutmy.211

35

Swedenborg's writings cover a wide range of subjects. The great philosophic questions-what is t~e nature Qf the universe? of God? of man? what is the destiny of each? how may these things be known? what is morality? what constitutes the good life?-which have attracted all of the powerful minds of history, receive attention in Emanuel Swedenborg's teachings. From earliest youth to old age, individuals continuously make choices which affect both their own lives and the lives of those around them. Some of these choices involve minute, personal questions which make little difference to anyone but the person making the judgment. Most of these everyday choices, however, have a larger scope. The courses of human lives proceed in a common sea and the route which an individual takes as well as the wake he leaves affects others. "No man is an island," wrote the poet; Swedenborg agrees. Further, he teaches that a man's relationship with his fellow man determines a man's relationship with his God. Part I of this study, "The Nature of Life," deals primarily with questions concerning men and men, while Part 11, "The Source of Life," treats of more abstruse matters regarding the divine hand behind human affairs. Together the two parts of this compendium present the essence of the Swedenborgian view of life.

Certain assumptions underlie all of Swedenborg's teachings, concrete and abstract alike. In sum, Swedenborg presumes a divine center of the universe from which flow all creative forces which find expression in both a spiritual and a natural kingdom of consciousness. Love and wisdom, united in use, constitute the personal God he pictures. The human individual is the highest end of creation.

39


Human happiness to eternity in heaven is the ultimate object of all divine action.

Man, while he has no life from himself, has been created to feel that he controls his own destiny. And indeed, according to Swedenborg, man does control his own destiny in that he may choose a life which conforms to divine order-one of charity and use-or one which does not. Freedom to accept or reject God sets the stage for the human drama. The quality of a man's life determines his place in the spiritual world after death.

God, according to Swedenborg, has always provided communication with man both by direct revelation and through the workings of nature, although man has not always listened to divine teaching. When man acts in accord with the divine plan his life is blessed ultimately if not at once; when man does not so act he separates himself from the divine order. But happiness, in Swedenborg's view, is entirely within each man's grasp if he only will listen, reason, and apply himself to a good life. By these means man can direct his energies toward a life of useful service to others and eventually enter heaven.

Freedom

Man lives in a world in which freedom and rationality balance each other and produce order. The twin essentials of freedom in order form the crucible of life. Neither can be slighted without harm to human development. Swedenborgian thought rests upon a firm and explicit belief jn the freedom of the human will.

So long as a man is in this world he is midway between evil and good, and is kept in freedom to turn himself to either the one or the other; if he turns to evil he turns away from good; if he turns to good he turns away from evil. (Life 19) 26

Man's free will arises from the fact that he feels the life in himself [to be] ... his own. God leaves him so to feel in

4(J

THE NATURE OF LIFE

order that conjunction may be effected, which is not possible unless it be reciprocal, and it becomes reciprocal when man acts from freedom altogether as if from himself. If God had not left this to man he would not be man, neither would he have eternal life. Reciprocal conjunction with God causes man to be man and not a beast, and also causes him to live after death to eternity. Free will in spiritual things effects this. (TCR 504)

As no one can be reformed except in freedom, therefore freedom is never taken away from a man, in so far as the appearance is concerned for it is an eternal law that every one should be in freedom as to his interiors.... [By these means] the affection of good and truth may be implanted in him. (AC 2876)

From freedom ... [man] feels ... and perceives ... life . . . to be his own. Freedom is the power to think, will, speak, and do from one's self, as if from oneself Therefore freedom was given to man together with his life [If it were] taken away or lessened ... man [would feel] . . . that he does not live, but that another lives in him. . .. The delight of all things of his life would be taken away or lessened ... [and he would] become a slave. (AE 1138)

It is impossible for anyone to know what slavery is, or what freedom is, unless he knows the origin of the one and of the other, which he cannot know but from the Word [Bible].27 He must also know how man is circumstanced as to the affections which appertain to his understanding.

The case with man as to his affections and thoughts is this: no person whatsoever, man, spirit or angel, can will and think from himself, but [only] from others. These others [do not] will and think from themselves, but all again from others, and so on. Thus each [wills and thinks] from the first source of life, which is the Lord. . . . Evil and false principles have connection with the hells.... But goods and truths have connection

41


with heaven.... (AC 2885-86) Few persons know what freedom is, or what it is not. It appears to be whatever is agreeable to any kind of love and the delight thereof. Whatever is contrary to any kind of love and its delight [does not] appear to be ... freedom. The indulgence of self-love and the love of the world, and of the lusts thereof, appears to man like freedom, but it is infernal freedom. [In contrast] the indulgence of love to the Lord and neighborly love, consequently of the love of good and truth, is essential and heavenly freedom. (AC 2870)

Everyone . . . is desirous to come out of a state which is not free into one which is, this being agreeable to his life. Hence . . . nothing is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord which proceeds from a principle . . . void of spontaneity or willingness. When anyone worships the Lord from a principle void of freedom, he worships Him from no principle of his own, but is moved thereto only by some external ... [force which] partakes of compulsion. . . . (AC 1947)

Whoever lives in good, and believes that the Lord governs the universe, and that from Him alone come all the good . . . of love and charity, and all the truth ... of faith ... [indeedJ that from Him comes life ... is in such a state as to be capable of being gifted with celestial freedom, and therewith also with peace. In such case he will trust only in the Lord, and will count other things of no concern. [He] is certain that then all things tend to his good, blessedness and happiness to eternity. But whoso believes that he governs himself, is in continual disquiet, being betrayed into evil lusts and anxieties concerning things to come, and thereby into manifold ... [cares]. Inasmuch as he so believes ... the lusts of evil and the persuasions of what is false adhere to him. (AC 2892)

There are two things that are in man's freedom by reason of the perpetual presence of the Lord, and His perpetual desire to conjoin Himself with man. The first thing . . . is that he has the

42

THE NATURE OF LIFE

means and faculty to think well about the Lord and the neighbor. . .. If he thinks well the door is opened; if ill it is shut. To think well about the Lord and the neighbor is not from man himself . . . but from the Lord, who is perpetually present and by His perpetual presence gives man that means and faculty. But to think ill about the Lord and the neighbor is from man himself....

The other thing which is in man's freedom by reason of the perpetual presence of the Lord with him ... is man's ability to abstain from evils. So far as he does abstain the Lord opens the door and enters. The Lord is unable to open and enter so long as evils are in man's thoughts and will, since these block the way.... Moreover, it has been granted to man by the Lord to know the evils of the thought and will, as also the truths by which evils are to be dispersed. The Word is given wherein these things are disclosed. (AE 248)

Natural freedom is man's heredity. In it he loves only himself and the world. . . . Rational freedom is from the love of good repute for the sake of standing or gain. The delight of this love is to seem outwardly a moral person. . . . Spiritual freedom is from love of eternal life. Into this love and its enjoyment, only he comes who regards evils as sins and therefore does not will them, and who looks to the Lord. (DP 73) [But] free will in spiritual things is given to man, from the womb to the last hour of his life in the world, and afterward to eternity. (TCR 499)

Order

To Swedenborg, human freedom constitutes the central ingredient of individuality. But he adds that without order, nothing, man included, could be free. Freedom and order are so interrelated that one cannot fully exist without the other. The universe was cr~n

erfect order but man has freedom to create disorder.

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The Lord is order itself, and therefore, where He is p~ent

there is order, andwhere there is order He is present. (AC 7503) God is order because He is substance itself and form itself. He is substance because all things that subsist have come forth and continue to come forth from Him. He isJorm,because every quality of substance has sprung and continues to spring from Him, quality having no other source than form.... God from Himself, introduced ordeu both into the whole universe

--..,." ---. ---_.@.d into all things and each thingjn it. (rCR 53)

Man was created a form of Divine order because he was created an image and likeness of God. As God is order itself, [manLwas created an image and likeness oJ...m:4er.... Two things . . . are the source of order . . . the Divine love and the Divine wisdom. Man was created a receptacle of these, and was therefore created also into the order in . . . which these two act in the universe. . . . The entire heaven is in its largest ... [sense] a form of Divine order, and is in the Sight of God like one man. (rCR 65)

The life of everyone, both of man, of spirit, and also of angel, flows in solely from the Lord, who is life itself, and diffuses itself . . . into everyone. The life which flows in is received by each one according to his disposition. Good and truth are received as good and truth by the good. But good and truth are received as evil and falsity by the evil, and are also turned into evil and falsity in them. The case with this is comparatively like the light of the sun, which diffuses itself into all the objects of the earth, but is received according to the quality of each object, and becomes of a beautiful color in beautiful forms, and of a disagreeable calor in disagreeable forms. (AC 2888)

It is [of] order that the goods and truths [i.e. life] which proceed from the Lord should be received by man. When this is done, there is order in everything the man intends and thinks. But when a man does not receive goods and truths according to

44

THE N A TUBE OF LIFE

the order which is from the Lord [and rather] believes that all things are blind Howings [or deterrninations] of his own prudence, he perverts order. He applies to himself the things of order with a view to taking care only of himself, and not of his neighbor, except in so far as his neighbor favors him. (AC 6692)

The laws of o!"~er enjoined upon man are, that he should acquire for nimself truths from the Word, and reflect upon them naturally, and as far as he can, rationally, and thus acquire for himself a natural faith. The laws of order on the part of God ... are, that He will draw near and fill these truths with His Divine light, and thus fill the man's natural faith ... with a Divine essence. (TCR 73)

Those who do not understand . . . Divine . . . [p~er]

may suppose either that there is no such thing as order, or that God can act contrary to .Qrder as well as according to it. Yet, without order, !!Q....£feation was possible. The primary thing of order is for man to be an image of God, consequently, that he

•. be continually perfecting in love and wisdom, and thus b~~Q..ming that im~e~e and_more. To this end God is working continually in man.... Thus it is the same whether we say, acting contrary to order, or acting contrary to God. God Himself, even, cannot act contrary to His own Divine order, since this would be to act contrary to His very Self. Therefore H~ leads every ma~according to that order which is Himself, guiding the wandering and the fallen into it, and the resisting toward it.

If man could have been created without freedom of choice in spiritual things, what would have been more easy for an omnipotent God than to lead all the inhabitants of the world to believe in the Lord? [He could] ... have implanted this faith in everyone, both without means and by means. [He could have done so] without means, by His absolute power, and its

45


irresistible operation, which is unceasing in its efforts to s~ve

man. Or [he could have done so] by means . . . of torments brought upon man's conscience, or through mortal convulsions of the body and awful threats of death, if he did not receive that faith. Or still further, [he could have done so] by the opening of hell and the presence of devils therefrom holding frightful torches in their hands, or by calling forth therefrom the dead whom they had known, in the forms of fearful specters. (TCR500)

The Lord never does anything cOQtrary tp order, because He Himself is Order. The Divine truth that goes forth from the - ord i; what constitutes order. Divine truths are the laws of - -- .--order. It is in accord with these laws that the Lord leads man. Consequently to save man by mercy apart from means would be contrary to D~ order, and what is contrary to Divine order is contrary to the Divine. Divine ord~rJ~ heaven in m~n, 1/.' y and man has perverted this in himself bY a life contrary to the I

laws of order, which are Divine truths. Into this order man is brought back by the Lord out of pure mercy by means of the la~~der. So far as he is brought back into this order he receives heaven in himself.... This ... makes evident that the Lord's Divine mercy is pure mercy, and not mercy apart from means. (HH 523) To receive order into one's self is to be saved, and this is effected solely by living according to the Lord's commandments. (AC 10659) He who does not live according to the commandments and la~s which are of Divine order, does not live in the Lord, consequently ... the Divine iSobscured with him. By living according to order is ... meant to be led by the Lord through good. (AC 8512)

Animals are in the order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in them from the spiritual world, because they have no rational faculty. Man, on the other hand. having perverted what is in him from [the spiritual] ...

46

THE NATURE OF LIFE

world by a life contrary to order, which his rational faculty has favored, must . . . be born into mere ignorance and afterwards be led back by Divine means into the order of heaven. (HH 108) If man were in the order into which he was created -love toward the neighbor and . . . love to the Lord-he above all animals would be born not only into matters of knowledge, but also into all spiritual truths and celestial goods and thus into all wisdom and intelligence. (AC 6323)

Everything which is from the Divine begins from Himself, and advances according to order down to the ultimate end, thus through the heavens down to the world, and there rests . . . in its ultimate. (AC 10634) The order is for the celestial to inflow into the spiritual and adapt it to itself; for the spiritual ... to inflow into the rational and adapt it to itself; and for the rational . . . to inflow into the memory-knowledge [of men] and adapt it to itself. When a man is being instructed in his earliest childhood, the order is indeed the same, but it appears otherwise.... [It appears] that he advances from memoryknowledges to rational things, from these to spiritual things, and so at last to celestial things. The reason it so appears is that a way must ... be opened to celestial things, which are the inmost. All instruction is simply an opening of the way. (AC 1495)

The Lord rules the last things of man equally as his first. . . . The order from the Lord is successive from first things to \\ I~ and in th~rder itself there is nothing but what is Divine.JI This being so, the presence of the Lord must needs be in the last things equally as in the 5) for the one follows from the o~r according to the tenor otorder. (AC 6473)

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Use

Probably Swedenborg's concept of use p~es his view of life more completely than any other single idea. Down through the centuries philosophers and theologians have discussed the ingredients of the "good life." Swedenborg joins this discussion with an abundance of detail and illustration. Use, by which Swedenborg means the service of others, unifies all of creation. Both worldsspiritual and natural-rest upon this concept of use. Man enjoys true happiness when he reaches out to serve others, while at the same time fulfilling his particular destiny in turning his individual talents to the pursuit of excellence in fields consistent with his loves. Use, to Swedenborg, means "good."

Man is born for no other end than that he may perform use to the society in which he is and to the neighbor, while he lives in the world, and in the other life according to the good pleasure of the Lord. The case in this respect is the same as it is in the human body, every part of which must perform some use, even things which in themselves are of no value, such . . . as the many salival fluids, the biles, and other secretions, which must be of service not only to the food, but in separating the excrements and purging the intestines. (AC 1103)

No one ... lives for himself alone, but at the same time for others. From this comes society, which would not otherwise exist. To live for others is to perform uses. Uses are the bonds of society ... and uses are infinite in number. There are spiritual uses, which are of love to God and of love towards the neighbor. There are moral and civil uses, which are of the love of the society and the community in which a man resides, and of his companions and fellow citizens among whom he dwells. There are natural uses, which belong to the love of the world

-""

48

THE NATURE OF LIFE

and its necessaries. And there are uses of the body, which belong to the love of its conservation for the sake of the higher uses. All these uses are inscribed on man, and follow in order one after the other, and when they exist together one is within the other. (CL 18)

All man's knowing, and all his understanding and being wise, and therefore all his willing, ought to have use for their end. . . . That which is conducive to use is to know what is good and true. That which is of use is to will and do what is good and true. (AC 5293)

The Lord leads through the affection of use. (J 170) Since affections are the essences of uses, and uses are the subjects of affections, it follows that there are as many affections as there are uses. (D. Love ix)

Man . . . is such as his use is. But uses are manifold; in general they are heavenly or infernal. Heavenly uses are those that are serviceable more or less . . . remotely, to the church, to the country, to society, and to a fellow citizen, for the sake of these as ends. Infernal uses are those that are serviceable only to the man himself and those dependent on him, and if serviceable to the church, to the country, to SOCiety, or to a fellow citizen, it is not for the sake of these as ends, but for the sake of self as the end. Everyone ought from love, though not from selflove, to provide the necessaries and requisites of life for himself and those dependent on him. When man loves uses by doing them in the first place, and loves the world and self in the second place, the former constitutes his spiritual and the latter his natural. The spiritual rules and the natural serves. (AE 1193)

Use is to perform one's office and to do one's work rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly. It is only known obscurely ... what is really meant in the Word by the goods of charity, which are called "good works," also "fruits," and here uses. From the sense of the letter of the Word it is believed that they

49


consist in giving to the poor, assisting the needy, doing good to widows and orphans, and like things. [However] such uses are not meant in the Word by "fruits," "works," and goods of charity, but ... performing one's office, business, and work rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly. When this is done the ... public good is consulted, also one's country, a society greater and less, the fellow citizen, companion and brother, who . . . are the neighbor in a broad and in a restricted sense. When this is done everyone, whether he be a priest, governor or officer, a merchant, or a labOl'er, is every day doing uses.

A priest performs uses by preaching, a governor or officer by his administrative work, a merchant by trading, and a laborer by his work. For example, a judge who judges rightly, faithfully, sincerely, and justly, is doing uses to the neighbor as often as he judges. A minister [does so] in like manner as often as he teaches; so in other instances. (D. Wis. XI) By pursuit and business are meant every application to use. While a man is in some pursuit and business, or is in use, his mind is limited and circumscribed-as by a circle within which it is succesSively coordinated into a form that is truly human. (CL 249)

By uses are not meant merely the necessaries of life, which have relation to food, clothing and habitation for man and for those dependent on him, but also the good of one's country, of society, and of the fellow citizen. Business is such a good when that is the final love, and money is a mediate and subservient love, provided the businessman shuns and turns away from frauds and evil devices as sins. It is otherwise when money is the final love, and the business is the mediate and subservient love, for this is avarice, which is the root of evils. (DP 220)

Works are more or less good according to the excellence of the use. Works must be uses. The best are those that are done for the sake of the uses of the church. Next in point of goodness

50

THE NATURE OF LIFE

come those that are done as uses of one's country, and so on, the uses detennining the goodness of the works. (AE 975)

Dignities with their honors are natural and temporal when in them man regards himself personally, and not the commonwealth and uses. [In such case] man ... thinks interiorly in himself that the commonwealth is for his sake, and not he for the commonwealth's sake. He is like a king who thinks that the kingdom and all the people in it exist for his sake, and not he for the sake of the kingdom and the people. But . . . dignities with their honors are spiritual and eternal when man regards himself personally as existing for the sake of the commonwealth and uses, and not . . . they . . . for his sake. (DP 220)

The Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of ends, which are uses, or what is the same thing, a kingdom of uses which are ends. For this reason the universe has been so created and formed by the Divine that uses may be everywhere. . . . In the nature of the world, in its threefold kingdom, all things exist in accordance with order and forms of uses, or effects fonned from use for use. . . . In the case of man, so far as he is in accordance with Divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbor, so far are his acts uses in fonn. . . . Through these he is conjoined to heaven. To love the Lord and the neighbor means in general to perfonn uses. (HH 112)

Charity

Since the concept of use takes such a central place in Swedenborg's view of life, the related idea of charity necessarily receives some redefinition. Swedenborg does not demean acts of charity such as giving alms to the poor, supporting the sick, and assisting the needy. Yet he questions the degree of intelligence and even of justice

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present in indiscriminate acts of charity practiced on the underserving and the deserving alike. Motive, of course, determines the quality of the act for the individual who performs it. But society is best served by a life of continuous service through one's prime function rather than by overt benefactions which sometimes do more harm than good. To be useful and to allow everyone else the fullest possible opportunity to be useful also provides the greatest charity. All unjust, arbitrary, and artificial restraints on any individual's opportunity to live a fully useful life intrude upon the divine order of things.

Swedenborg couples charity and faith. Together they lead toward a life freed from evil. The man of charity shuns evils as sins against God, but he does so as a matter of religious faith. Thus, Swedenborg categorically rejects faith without charity; faith alone has no place in his understanding of the order of creation.

The first thing of charity is not to do evil to the neighbor; to do good to him occupies the second place. This is, as it were, the door to the doctrine of charity. (TCR 435) The life of charity consists in willing well and doing well to the neighbor, in acting in every work from justice and equity, from good and truth, and in like manner in every office. In a word, the life of charity consists in performing uses. (NIHD 124)

Those who are in charity, that is, in love to the neighbor . . . pay no regard to the enjoyment of pleasures except on account of the use. There is no charity apart from works of charity. It is in its practice of use that charity consists. He who loves the neighbor as himself perceives no delight in charity except in its exercise, or in use. A life of charity is a life of uses. (AC 997)

It is believed by many that love to the neighbor consists in giving to the poor, in assisting the needy, and in doing good to everyone, but charity consists in acting prudently, and to the end that good may result. He who assists a poor or needy villain does evil to his neighbor through him, for through the assistance which he renders he confirms him in evil, and supplies him

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with the means of doing evil to others. It is otherwise with him who gives support to the good.

Among general uses may be included the expenditure of means and labor for building and maintaining orphanages, houses for the reception of strangers, ... [schools] and other like institutions.... To give aid to the needy, to widows, to orphans, solely because they are needy, widows, and orphans, and to give to beggars solely because they are beggars, are uses of external charity, which charity is called piety. These are uses of internal charity only so far as they are derived from use and the love of use. For external charity without internal charity is not charity. The internal must be there to make it charity, for external charity from internal charity acts pmdently, but external without internal charity acts impmdently, and often unjustly. (D. Wis. XI)

Charity extends itself much more widely than to the poor and needy. Charity consists in doing what is right in every work, and our duty in every office. If a judge administers justice for the sake of justice he exercises charity. If he punishes the guilty and absolves the innocent he exercises charity, for thus he consults the welfare of his fellow citizens and of his country. The priest who teaches truth and leads to good, for the sake of tmth and good, exercises charity. But he who does such things for the sake of self and the world does not exercise charity, because he does not love his neighbor, but himself.

It is the same in other things, whether men are in any office or not, as with children toward their parents, and parents toward their children, with servants toward their masters, and with masters toward their servants, with subjects toward their king, and with a king toward his subjects. Whoever of these does his duty from a sense of duty, and what is just from a sense of justice, exercises charity.

That these things are of love to the neighbor or charity is

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because ... every man is a neighbor, but in a different manner. A smaller and a larger society is more the neighbor. Our country is still more the neighbor, the Lord's kingdom yet more, and the Lord above all. And in the universal sense good, which proceeds from the Lord, is the neighbor, consequently sincerity and justice too. . . . He therefore who does any good for the sake of sincerity and justice, loves his neighbor and exercises charity. He does so from the love of what is good, sincere, and just, and consequently from the love of those in whom good, sincerity, and justice are.

Charity is therefore an internal affection from which man wills to do good, and this without remuneration. The delight of his life consists in doing it. With those who do good from an internal affection there is charity in everything that they think and say, and that they will and do.... A man or an angel, as to his interiors, is charity when good is his neighbor. (NIHD 100-104)

When a man sincerely, justly, and faithfully does the work that belongs to his office or employment, from affection and its delight, he is continually in the good of use, not only to the community or public, but also to individuals and private citizens. But this cannot be unless he looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins. . . . The goods that he does are goods of use, which he does every day.... There is an interior affection which inwardly remains and desires it. Hence . . . he is perpetually in the good of use, from morning to evening, from year to year, from his earliest age to the end of his life. Otherwise he cannot become a form . . . or receptacle of charity. (C 158)

The man of business, if he looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins, and transacts his business sincerely, justly, and faithfully ... becomes charity. He acts as from his own prudence, and yet trusts in the Divine Providence. He is . . . not de

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spondent in misfortune nor elated with success. He thinks of the morrow; yet does not think of it. He thinks of what should be done on the morrow, and how it should be done, yet does not ... concern himself with the morrow, because he ascribes the future to the Divine Providence and not to his own prudence. He loves business as the principle of his vocation and money as its instrumental. . . . He loves his work which is in itself a good of use and not the means rather than the work. · . . He loves the general good while loving his own good. · .. (C 167)

The merchant who acts from sincerity and not from fraud, consults the good of his neighbor with whom he has business. So also a workman or a tradesman, if he does his work rightly and sincerely, and not craftily and deceitfully. It is the same with all others, as with captains and sailors, with farmers and servants.

This is true charity, which may be defined as doing good to the neighbor daily and continually, not only to the neighbor individually, but also collectively. This can only be accomplished by doing what is good and just in the office, business, and employment in which a man is engaged, and to those with whom he has any dealings. This work he does daily. . .. Justice and fidelity form his mind and his bodily exercises, and gradually, because of his form, he desires and thinks of only such things as pertain to charity. (TCR 422-23)

The private duties of charity are . . . numerous, such as the payment of wages to workmen, payment of interest, the fulfillment of contracts, the guarding of securities, and so on. Some · . . are duties by statute law, some by common law, and some by moral law.... Those who are in charity perform them justly and faithfully. . .. But those who are not in charity discharge these same duties quite differently. (TCR 432)

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By charity is meant love toward the neighbor, and mercy. He who loves his neighbor as himself is also compassionate toward him in his sufferings.... (AC 351) The Word teaches nothing else than that everyone should live in charity with his neighbor, and love the Lord above all things. They who do this have in themselves the internal things.... (AC 1408)

It has been a subject of controversy from the most ancient times, which principle is the first-born of the Church, charity or faith. . . . This controversy originated in the ignorance which. anciently prevailed, and which prevails still, concerning this truth: that man has only so much of faith as he has of charity. . . . In the process of regeneration charity meets faith, or what is the same thing, good meets truth, insinuating itself into all the particulars thereof, and adapting itself thereto, and thus causing faith to be faith. Consequently . . . charity is the first [of religion] ... although it appears otherwise to man. (AC 2435)

Charity, which in its essence is the affection of knowing, understanding, willing, and doing truth, does not come into any perception of man until it has formed itself in the thought, which is from the understanding. It then presents itself under some form or image by which it appears before the interior Sight, for the thought that a thing is so in truth is called faith. From this it is clear that charity is actually prior and faith posterior, as good is actually prior and truth posterior, or as that which produces is essentially prior to the product. . . . Charity is from the Lord, and is also formed first in the spiritual mind. Because charity does not appear to man before it becomes faith . . . it may be said that faith does not exist with man until it becomes charity in form. . . . They both come into existence at the same moment. Although charity produces faith, yet as they make one neither of them in respect to man's perception can exist separate from the other.... Faith when

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separated from life is not alive, and what is not alive ... can save no one. (AE 795-96)

When charity is banished and extinguished, . . . the bond which connects the Lord with man is severed, since only charity, or love and mercy, are what conjoin us with Him, and never faith without charity.... Can anyone be of judgment so weak as to believe that faith alone in the memory ... can be of any avail, when everybody knows from his own experience that no one esteems the words or assenting of another, no matter of what nature, when they do not come from the will or intention? It is this that makes them pleasing, and that conjoins one man with another. The will is the real man, and not the thought or speech which he does not will. A man acquires his nature and disposition from the will, because this affects him. If anyone thinks what is good, the essence of faith, which is charity, is in the thought, because the will to do what is good is in it. But if he says that he thinks what is good, and yet lives wickedly, he cannot possibly will anything but what is evil, and there is therefore no faith. (AC 379)

There is no genuine ... living charity, but that which makes one with faith; both unitedly look to the Lord. . . . The Lord, charity, and faith, are the three essentials of salvation. When they make one, charity is charity, and faith is faith, and the Lord is in them and they are in the Lord. But on the other hand, when these three are not united, charity is either spurious, or hypocritical, or dead. (TCR 450)

Civil Affairs

Swedenborg's message deals with the practical matters of everyday human relations as well as with the grander aspects of existence. Many passages contain generalizations about the proper organization and structure of life in the natural world and the role that in

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dividuals should play in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness for all. While civil questions belong to the most external plane of human existence, they provide the base for moral and spiritual order. He who loves proper civil order for its own sake and seeks to maintain individual freedom, comes eventually to support the kingdom of the heavens. Man can scarcely become spiritual without being active in the business of life on the external plane.

There are two things which ought to be in order with men, namely, the things which are of heaven, and the things which are of the world. The things which are of heaven are called ecclesiastical, and those which are of the world are called civil.

Order cannot be maintained in the world without governors. . . . They are to reward those who live according to order, and punish those who live contrary to order. If this be not done, the human race will perish, for the will to command others, and to possess the goods of others, from heredity, is connate with everyone, whence proceed enmities, envyings, hatreds, revenges, deceits, cruelties, and many other evils. Unless ... [men are] kept under restraint by the laws ... [with] rewards suited to their loves ... the human race would perish. Honors and gains [are supplied to] those who do goods, and punishments ... [involving] the loss of honors, of possessions, and of life, for those who do evils. . . .

There must therefore be governors to keep the assemblages of men in order, who should be skilled in the law, wise, and who fear God. There must also be order among the governors, lest anyone from caprice or ignorance, should permit evils which are contrary to order, and thereby destroy it. This is guarded against when there are superior and inferior governors, among whom there is subordination. (N]HD 311-14)

As priests are appOinted to administer those things which relate to the Divine law and worship, so kings and magistrates

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are appointed to administer those things which relate to civil law and judgment.

Because the king alone cannot administer all things, therefore there are governors under him, to each of whom a province is given to administer, which the king cannot ... administer alone. These governors, taken together constitute the royalty, but the king himself is the chief.

Royalty itself is not in the person, but is adjoined to the person. The king who believes that royalty is in his own person, and the governor who believes that the dignity of the government is in his own person, is not wise.

Royalty consists in administering according to the laws of the realm, and in judging according to them from justice. . . . The king who regards the laws as above himself, places the royalty in the law, and the law has dominion over him. He knows that the law is justice, and that all justice . . . is Divine. But he who regards himself as above the laws, places the royalty in himself, and either believes himself to be the law, or the law . . . to be from himself; he arrogates to himself that which is Divine....

The law . . . ought to be enacted in the realm by persons skilled, ... wise, and who fear God. [Under these circumstances] both the king and his subjects ought to live according to it. The king who lives according to the enacted law, and in this precedes his subjects by his example, is truly a king. A king who has absolute power ... [and] believes that his subjects are such slaves that he has a right to their possessions and lives ... is not a king, but a tyrant. There ought to be obedience to the king according to the laws of the realm, nor should he be injured by any means either by deeds or words. On this the public security depends. (N]HD 319-25)

Man is the neighbor.... A society is the neighbor because a society is a composite man. One's own country is the neighbor

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because the country consists of many societies, and is therefore a still more composite man. And the human race is composed of great societies, each of which is a composite man. (C 72)

One's country is more a neighbor than a single community, because it consists of many communities, and consequently love towards the country is a broader and higher love. Moreover, loving one's country is loving the public welfare. One's country is the neighbor because it is like a parent. One is born in it, and it has nourished him and continues to nourish him, and has protected and continues to protect him from injury. Men ought to do good to their country from a love of it, according to its needs, some of which are natural and some spiritual. Natural needs relate to civil life and order, and spiritual needs to spiritual life and order. That one's country should be loved, not as one loves himself, but more than himself, is a law inscribed on the human heart, from which has come the wellknown principle, which every true man endorses, that if the country is threatened with ruin from an enemy or any other source it is noble to die for it, and glorious for a soldier to shed his blood for it. This is said because so great should be one's love for it. (TCR 414)

The common soldier . . . if he looks to the Lord and shuns evils as sins, and sincerely, justly, and faithfully does his duty ... becomes charity.... He is averse to unjust depredation. He abominates the wrongful effusion of blood. In battle it is another thing. There he is not averse to it, for he does not think of it, but of the enemy as an enemy, who desires his blood. When he hears the sound of the drum calling him to desist from the slaughter, his fury ceases. He looks upon his captives after victory as neighbors, according to the quality of their good. Before the battle he raises his mind to the Lord, and commits his life into His hands. After he has done this, he lets his mind down from its elevation into the body and becomes

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brave, the thought of the Lord-which he is then unconscious of remaining still in his mind, above his bravery. And then if he dies, he dies in the Lord; if he lives, he lives in the Lord. (C 166)

The public duties of charity are especially the payment of tribute and taxes, which ought not to be confounded with official duties. Those who are spiritual pay these with a different disposition of heart from . . . those who are merely natural. The spiritual pay them from good-will, because they are collected for the preservation of their country, and for its protection and that of the church, also for the administration of government by officials and governors, to whom salaries and stipends must be paid from the public treasury.

They to whom their country and also the church are the neighbor, pay their taxes with a spontaneous and favorable will, and regard it as iniquitous to withhold them Or to deceive in their payment. But they to whom their country and the church are not the neighbor, pay them with a reluctant and repugnant will, and at every opportunity defraud and pilfer. . . . (TCR430)

All men were predestined to heaven, and no one to hell, for all are born men, and in consequence the image of God is in them. The image of God in them is the ability to understand truth and to do good. The ability to understand truth is from the Divine wisdom, and the ability to do good . . . from the Divine love. This ability is the image of God, which remains in every sane man. . . . From this comes his ability to become a civil and moral man. The civil and moral man can also become spiritual, for the civil and moral is a receptacle of the spiritual. He is called a civil man who knows the laws of the kingdom wherein he is a citizen and lives according to them. And he is called a moral man who makes these laws his moral laws and his virtues, and from reason lives them. . . . Live these laws,

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not only as civil and moral laws, but also as Divine laws, and you will be a spiritual man. Scarcely a nation exists so barbarous as not to have prohibited by laws, murder, adultery with the wife of another, theft, false-witness, and injury to what is another's. The civil and moral man observes these laws, that he may be . . . a good citizen. (DP 322)

Those, who in the world love their country's good more than their own, and their neighbor's good as their own, . . . in the other life love and seek the Lord's kingdom, for there the Lord's kingdom takes the place of country. Those who love doing good to others, not with self as an end but with good as an end, love the neighbor, for in heaven good is the neighbor. All such are in the Greatest Man,27 A that is, heaven. (HH 64)

Morality

Swedenborg's teachings on morality are consistent with the great moral teachings of human history. But he emphasizes that a civilmoral life should be grounded in religious convictions which presume spiritual causes. Some of his most pointed and, at the same time, felicitous phrases set forth the principles of a highly ethical life. He wrote them within the context of the rather loose morality of the eighteenth century. His family connections, wealth, education, and public offices gave him access to a wide circle of European upper-class life. He observed the varieties of immorality then in vogue and wrote with keen insight. But all available evidence indicates that Swedenborg's own life epitomized his moral teachings.

There are three kinds of truths, civil, moral, and spiritual. Civil truths relate to matters of judgment and government in kingdoms, and ... to what is just and equitable in them. Moral truths pertain to the matters of every one's life which have regard to companionships and social relations, in general

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to what is honest and right, and in particular to virtues of every kind. But spiritual truths relate to matters of heaven and of the church, and in general to the good of love and the truth of faith. (HH 468)

The laws of spiritual life, the laws of civil life, and the laws of moral life are set forth in the . . . Decalogue; in the first three [appear] the laws of spiritual life, in the four that follow the laws of civil life, and in the last three the laws of moral life.

Outwardly the merely natural man lives in accordance with the same commandments in the same way as the spiritual man does, for in like manner he worships the Divine, goes to church, listens to preachings, and assumes a devout countenance, refrains from committing murder, adultery, and theft, from bearing false witness, and from defrauding his companions of their goods. But all this he does merely for the sake of himself and the world, to keep up appearances. Inwardly, since in [his] heart he denies the Divine, in worship [he] acts the hypocrite, and when left to himself and his own thought laughs at the holy things of the church, believing that they merely serve as a restraint for the simple multitude. Consequently he is wholly disjoined from heaven, and not being a spiritual man he is neither a moral nor a civil man.

Although he refrains from committing murder he hates every one who opposes him, and from his hatred burns with revenge. [He] would ... commit murder if he were not restrained by civil laws and external bonds, which he fears. As he longs to do SO, it follows that he is continually committing murder. Although he does not commit adultery, yet, as he believes it to be allowable he is all the while an adulterer. . .. Although he does not steal, yet as he covets the goods of others and does not regard fraud and wicked devices as opposed to what is lawful, in intent he is continually acting the thief. The same is true of the commandments relating to moral life, which forbid false

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witness and coveting the goods of others. Such is every man who denies the Divine, and who has no conscience derived from religion. (HH 531 )

Moral truths are those that the Word teaches respecting the life of man with his neighbor. [This] life is called charity. The goods of this life, which are uses, have relation, in brief, to justice and equity, to sincerity and uprightness, to chastity, to temperance, to truth, to prudence, and to benevolence. To the truths of moral life belong also the opposites which destroy charity, and which have relation to lasciviousness, to intemperance, to lying, to cunning, to enmity, to hatred and revenge, and to ill-will. These latter are called truths of moral life, because all things that a man thinks to be true, whether evil or good, he classes among truths. . . . Civil truths are the civil laws of kingdoms and states, which have relation, in brief, to many phases of justice that are observed, and on the contrary to the various kinds of violence that exist in act. (D. Wis. XI)

The virtues which pertain to the moral wisdom of men are . . . of various names, and are called . . . sobriety, probity, . . . friendship, modesty, . . . obligingness, civility, and also diligence, industry, alertness, alacrity, munificence, liberality, generosity, earnestness, courage . . . and other names.

Spiritual virtues with men are the love of religion, charity, truth, faith, conscience, innocence, and many others. These virtues and the former may in general be referred to as love and zeal for religion, for the public good, for country, for fellow citizens, for parents, for wife, and for children. In all these justice and judgment dominate. Justice is of moral wisdom, and judgment is of rational wisdom. (CL 164)

Every man is taught by his parents and teachers to live morally . . . , to act the part of a good citizen, to discharge the duties of an honorable life, which relate to the various virtues that are essentials of an honorable life, and to bring them forth

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through the formalities of ... [such a] life, which are called proprieties. As he advances in years he is taught to add to these what is rational, and thereby to perfect what is moral in his life. In children, even to early youth, moral life is natural, and becomes afterwards moral and ... rational. Anyone who reflects well upon it can see that a moral life is the same as a life of charity, and that this is to act rightly towards the neighbor, and to so regulate the life as to preserve it from contamination by evils. . . . (TCR 443)

All words and deeds pertain to moral and civil life, and therefore have regard to what is honest and right, and what is just and equitable. What is honest and right pertains to moral life, and what is just and equitable to civil life. (HH 484) Moral life, when it is also spiritual, is a life of charity, because the practices of a moral life and of charity are the same. Charity is willing rightly towards the neighbor, and consequently acting rightly towards him. This is also moral life. (TCR 444)

Good and truth make a man's life. Moral and civil good and truth make the life of the external man, and spiritual good and truth, the life of the internal man. (AC 9182) There are moral men who keep the commandments of the second table of the Decalogue, not committing fraud, blasphemy, revenge, or adultery. Such of them as confirm themselves in the belief that such things are evils because they are injurious to the public weal, and are therefore contrary to the laws of humane conduct, practice charity, sincerity, justice, chastity. But if they do these goods and shun those evils merely because they are evils, and not at the same time because they are sins [against God's order], they are still merely natural men, and with the merely natural the root of evil remains imbedded (Life 108)

The Lord is chiefly worshiped [through] a life according to His injunctions in the Word, for by these man is acquainted with . . . faith . . . and . . . charity. . . . This

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life is the Christian life, and is called spiritual life. But a life according to the laws of what is just and honorable, without that life, is a civil and moral life. This life makes a man to be a citizen of the world, but the other to be a citizen of heaven. (AC 8257)

Marriage and Sex

No aspect of morality as the basis of spiritual life receives more extensive comment in Swedenborg's writings than that of the proper relationship between the sexes. He advocates a monogamous marriage in which the partners love only each other and look together to the Lord for guidance in their lives. Such a marriage he terms truly conjugial 28 and insists that marriage of this kind spans not only life on earth but eternity. Death does not part those who truly love each other.

According to the Swedenborgian view, men and women are fundamentally diHerent, not merely as to body and appearance, but as to mind. Masculinity stems from a nature which is basically intellectual. Femininity, on the other hand, results from inborn affectional qualities. The former looks toward wisdom, the latter toward love. Together they form a unity, each supplementing and complementing the other.

Swedenborg sees the marriage relation as the basic unit of both the natural and the spiritual worlds. Through it the human race continues; from it proper order is maintained. From it also stem such progress as the race may make, for married couples, seeking to perform uses together, fulfill the ultimate purpose of creation. Since the marriage relation is the seminary of human existence, the greatest delights and happiness are found in it.

Swedenborg is surprisingly modern in his frank acceptance of the power of sex. In the second part of his work Coniugial Love, he takes up some of the problems posed by the sensual urge. He subtitles this section "The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love."

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In it he continues to hold up the ideal of a truly monogamous marriage untarnished by other affiliations. Yet his realistic view recognizes problem areas and accepts categories of individual permission to vary from the ideal. Such variances are not set forth as equally valid substitutes for the ideal, but as sometimes permissive departures from it.

The male is born intellectual, and the female volitional. The male is born into an affection for knowing, understanding, and being wise, and the female into the love of conjoining herself with that affection in the male. Since the interiors form the exteriors to their likeness, and the masculine form is a form of intellect, and the feminine form is a form of the love of that intellect, . . . the male has a different face, and a different voice, and a different body from the female. The male has a harder face, a harsher voice, and a stronger body, and moreover a bearded chin, in general, a form less beautiful than the female. They differ also in bearing and manners. In a word, nothing whatever is alike in them, and yet in the least things there is what is conjunctive. (CL 32-33)

Man has not the least of thought, nor the least of affection and action, in which there is not a kind of marriage of the understanding and the will. Without a kind of marriage, nothing ever exists or is produced. In the very organic forms of man, both composite and simple, and even in the most simple, there is a passive and an active, which, if they were not coupled as in marriage, like that of man and wife, could not even be there, still less produce anything. The case is the same throughout universal nature. These incessant marriages derive their source and origin from the heavenly marriage. There is impressed upon everything in universal nature, both animate and inanimate, an idea of the Lord's kingdom. (AC 718)

A wife cannot enter into the duties proper to the man, nor on

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the other hand a man into the duties proper to the wife. They differ as do wisdom and its love, or as thought and its affection, or as understanding and its will. In the duties proper to men, understanding, thought, and wisdom act the leading part. In the duties proper to wives, will, affection, and love act the leading part. From these the wife does her duties, and from those the man does his. Their duties are therefore of their own nature different, and yet are conjunctive. . . . It is believed by many that women can perform the duties of men, if only they are initiated into them from their earliest age after the manner of boys. Into the exercise of them they can indeed be initiated, but not into the judgment on which the right performance of the duties inwardly depends. Women, therefore, who are initiated into the duties of men are constrained in matters of judgment to consult with men, and then, if free to act, they choose out of their counsels what favors their own love.... On the other hand, men cannot enter into the duties proper to women and rightly perform them ... because they cannot enter into their affections, which are . . . distinct from the affections of men. (CL 175)

The inclination to unite the man to herself is constant and perpetual with the wife, but with the man it is inconstant and alternating. . . . Love cannot do otherwise than love . . . in order that it may be loved in return. Its essence and life are nothing else, and women are born loves. Men, with whom they unite themselves that they may be loved in return, are receptions. Love is continually efficient. It is like heat, flame, and fire, which if restrained so that they go not forth into effect, perish. Hence it is that with the wife the inclination to unite the man to herself is constant and perpetual. That with the man there is not a similar inclination to the wife, is because the man is not love but only a recipient of love. The state of reception comes

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and goes, according to interrupting cares, according to the changes of heat and want of heat in the mind from various causes, and according to increase and decrease in the powers of the body.... (CL 160)

No wife loves her husband for his face, but for the intelligence in his employment and in his manners. . . . The wife unites herself with the intelligence of the man, and thus with the man. If then a man loves himself for his own intelligence he withdraws his love from his wife to himself, whence comes disunion and not union. Moreover, to love his own intelligence is to be wise of himself, and this is to be insane. [He] therefore ... [loves] his own insanity. (CL 331)

The conjugial of one man with one wife is the precious treasure of human life.... (CL 457) [It] is the fundamental of all loves. (AC 4280) The most perfect and the noblest human form is when two forms become one form by marriage, thus when the flesh of two becomes one flesh according to creation. For then the mind of the man is elevated into superior light, and the mind of the wife into superior heat. ... They put forth, and blossom, and bear fruit as trees in the time of spring. From the ennobling of this form noble fruits are born, spiritual in the heavens, natural on earth. (CL 201) [Conjugial love], considered in its essence by virtue of its derivation . . . is holy and pure beyond every love with angels and with men. . . . (CL 64)

Few will acknowledge that all joys and all delights from first to last are gathered into conjugiallove, for the reason that love truly conjugial into which they are gathered is so rare at this day that it is not known what is its nature, and it is scarcely known to exist. . . . These joys and delights are in no other but in the genuine conjugiallove. As this is so rare on earth it is impossible to describe its supereminent felicities, otherwise

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than from the mouth of angels.... Its inmost delights, which are of the soul,-into which the conjugial of love and wisdom, or of good and tmth, from the Lord first flows,-are imperceptible and therefore ineffable, because they are delights at once of peace and of innocence. . . . Delights . . . become perceptible, more and more,-in the higher regions of the mind as states of blessedness, in the lower as states of happiness, in the breast as delights therefrom. From the breast they diffuse themselves into each and every part of the body, and finally unite in the ultimates in the delight of delights. (CL 69)

Love of the sex . . . is the universal of all loves. . . . It is implanted by creation in man's very soul, whence it is the essence of the whole man, and this for the sake of propagating the human race. (CL 46) The love of the sex with man is not the origin of conjugiallove but is its first. It is as the external natural in which the internal spiritual is implanted.... Love truly conjugial is with those only who earnestly desire wisdom, and therefore progress in wisdom more and more. The Lord foresees them and provides conjugiallove for them. [This] love begins with them, it is tme, from the love of the sex, or rather through that love, but yet it does not originate from that. ... Wisdom and this love are inseparable companions. That conjugial love begins through the love of the sex, is from the fact that before a consort is found, the sex in general is loved and regarded with a fond eye, and . . . treated with courteous morality. A young man has his choice to make, and . . . from an inherent inclination to marriage . . . which lies hidden in the inmost shrine of his mind, there is an agreeable warmth in his external. ... Decisions with reference to marriage are for various reasons delayed, even to the middle of manhood, and meanwhile the beginning of the love is as lustful desire. . . . These things are said of the male sex, because it has the allurement which actually inflames, but not of the female sex. Love

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of the sex is not the origin of love truly conjugial; . . . it is first in time though not in end. (CL 98)

Love of the sex is the love for many and with many of the sex, but conjugial love is the 10Ye for one and with one only of the sex. Love for many and with many is a natural love, for it is in common with beasts and birds, and these are natural, while conjugial love is a spiritual love and peculiar and proper to men, because men were created and are therefore born to become spiritual. For . . . [this] reason so far as man as a man becomes spiritual he puts off the love of the sex and puts on conjugiallove. In the beginning of marriage the love of the sex appears as if conjoined with conjugiallove. But in the progress of marriage they are separated, and then, with those that are spiritual the love of the sex is exterminated and conjugial love is insinuated. But with those that are natural the contrary takes place.... Love of the sex, because it is with many and in itself natural, . . . [even] animal, is impure and unchaste, and because it is vagrant and unlimited, it is scortatory. Conjugial love is altogether otherwise. (CL 48)

The love of the sex is with the natural man, but conjugial love with the spiritual man. The natural man loves and desires only external conjunctions, and from them pleasures of the body, but the spiritual man loves and desires internal conjunction, and the states of happiness of the spirit therefrom. He perceives that these are given with one wife, with whom he can be perpetually more and more conjoined into one. The more he is thus conjoined the more he perceives his states of happiness ascending in like degree, and continuing to eternity. But the natural man has no thought of this. (CL 38)

True marriage love [is not] possible between one husband and several wives, for its spiritual origin, which is the formation of one mind out of two, is thus destroyed. In consequence interior conjunction, which is the conjunction of good and truth,

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from which is the very essence of that love, is also destroyed. Marriage with more than one is like an understanding divided among several wills. (HH 379)

By betrothal the mind of the one is conjoined to the mind of the other, in order that a marriage of the spirit may be effected before that of the body takes place. (CL 303) Viewed in themselves, marriages are spiritual, and therefore holy. They descend from the heavenly marriage of good and truth, and things conjugial correspond to the Divine marriage of the Lord and the Church, and hence are from the Lord Himself. . . . Because the ecclesiastical order administer on earth the things which are of the priesthood with the Lord, that is, which are of His love, and thus those that pertain to blessing, it is fitting that marriages should be consecrated by His ministers. Because . . . they are also the chief of the witnesses, it is proper that the consent to the covenant . . . should be heard, accepted, confirmed, and thus established by them. (CL 308)

The first state of love between married partners is a state of heat not yet tempered with light. It is successively tempered, as the husband is perfected in wisdom and the wife loves that wisdom in the husband. (CL 145) This is effected by uses and according to them, which uses, both of them by mutual aid, perform. . . . Delights follow according as heat and light, or wisdom and its love, are tempered. (CL 137)

With those who are in love truly conjugial, the happiness of dwelling together increases. With those who are not in conjugiallove it decreases. . . . Those that are in love truly conjugial . . . love each other mutually with every sense. The wife sees nothing more lovely than the man, and the man, nothing more lovely than the wife . . . nothing more lovely do they hear, smell, and touch. Hence the happiness to them of dwelling together in house, in chamber, and in bed.... (CL 213)

That which is done from love truly conjugial is done from

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freedom on both sides, because all freedom is from love, and both have freedom when one loves that which the other thinks and . . . wills. From this it is that the wish to command in marriages destroys genuine love, for it takes away from its freedom, thus also its delight. The delight of commanding . . . brings forth disagreements, and sets the minds at enmity, and causes evils to take root according to the nature of the domination on the one side, and the nature of the servitude on the other.

Marriages are holy, and ... to injure them is to injure that which is holy.... Adulteries are profane. As the delight of conjugiallove descends from heaven, so the delight of adultery ascends from hell. (AC 10173)

Those who have lived together in love truly conjugial do not wish to marry again if one partner dies unless for reasons apart from conjugial love.... They are united as to souls, and thence as to minds, and this unition being spiritual is an actual adjunction of the soul and mind of the one to those of the other, which can by no means be dissolved.... As to the body also they are united, through the reception by the wife of the propagations of the soul of the husband, and thus by the insertion of his life into hers, whereby the virgin becomes a wife. . . . The reception of the conjugiallove of the wife by the husband . . . arranges the interiors of his mind, and at the same time the interiors and exteriors of his body, into a state receptive of love and perceptive of wisdom. [This] state makes him from a young man into a husband. . . . A sphere of love from the wife and a sphere of understanding from the man flows forth continually, and ... this pedects the conjunctions.... (CL 321 )

No one can know the nature of the chastity of marriage except the man who shuns as a sin the lasciviousness of adultery.... The lasciviousness of adultery and the chastity of

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marriage stand toward each other exactly as do hell and heaven; the lasciviousness of adultery makes hell in a man, and the chastity of marriage makes heaven. (Life 76).

The sensuous man believes from fallacy that adulteries are allowable. From the sensuous he concludes that marriages are instituted merely in behalf of order for the sake of the education of the offspring, and that so long as this order is not destroyed, it is immaterial from whom the offspring comes. [He believes] that what is of marriage differs from lasciviousness merely in its being allowed.... [A sensuous man cannot accept the idea that] . . . heavenly marriage and marriages on earth [correspond] ... that no one can have in himself anything of marriage unless he is in spiritual truth and good . . . that genuine marriage cannot possibly exist between a husband and several wives, and. . . that marriages are in themselves holy.... When ... what is sensuous rules in man, the rational . . . sees nothing and is in thick darkness, and it is then believed that everything is rational which is concluded from what is sensuous. (AC 5084)

Fornication is of the love of the sex.... The love of the sex is as a fountain from which both conjugiallove and scortatory love can be derived. . . . The love of the sex is in every man, and it either puts itself forth or does not put itself forth. If it puts itself forth before marriage with a woman that is a harlot it is called fornication. If not until with a wife it is called marriage. If after marriage, with another woman it is called adultery. Therefore . . . the love of the sex is a fountain from which may issue either love that is chaste or love that is unchaste.... [But no one should come] to the conclusion that one who has indulged in fornication might ... be more chaste in marriage.

The love of the sex, from which is fornication, has its beginning when a youth begins to think and act from his own un

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derstanding and the voice of his speech begins to become masculine. . . . At that time a change in the mind takes place. Before, he only thought from things carried in the memory, meditating upon and obeying them. Afterwards ... he disposes the things seated in his memory into a new order, and conformably to this order begins his own life. Successively, more and more [he] thinks according to his own reason, and wills from his own freedom. The love of the sex follows this beginning of his own understanding, and progresses according to the vigor of it. ... It is wisdom to restrain the love of the sex, and insanity to let it loose. (CL 445-46)

If on account of the unbridled power of lust it cannot be [restrained], then an intermediary course is to be sought whereby conjugiallove can meanwhile be kept from perishing. [Limited cohabitation] . . . is such a means. . . . [By it] inordinate, promiscuous fornications are curbed and limited, and a more restrained state induced which is more nearly akin to the life of conjugiallove. The ardor of venery, boiling and as it were burning in its beginning, is quieted and assuaged, and thus the lasciviousness of salacity, which is foul, is tempered by something as it were analogous to marriage. . . . But these things are not said for those who can control the surging heat of lust, nor for those who can enter marriage as soon as they are grown to manhood, and can offer and devote the first fruits of their manly power to their wife. (CL 459)

Conjugial love of one man with one wife is called the precious treasure of human life. . . . In and from this union are the celestial beatitudes, the spiritual satisfactions, and from these the natural delights, which have been provided from the beginning for those who are in love truly conjugial. It is the fundamental love of all celestial, spiritual, and . . . natural loves. Into this love are brought together all joys and all gladnesses, from the first to the last. (CL 456)

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The Nature of Wisdom

The Swedenborgian conception of the nature of creation rests upon belief in the inviolability of human freedom. Man can use this freedom for ends which conform to or deny the divine pattern; otherwise, this freedom would not be genuine. Yet within the divinely given freedom God hopes man will apply himself to wisdom. Swedenborg defines wisdom as the welding of good and truth, in support of use. Some of the more abstruse aspects of the Swedenborgian view of life may be found in his comments on the human mind, how it receives influx from the spiritual world, and how it arrives at decisions. The selections which follow were chosen to provide an introduction into Swedenborg's ideas concerning the difficult subject of the nature of wisdom, a subject which philosophers and theologians have argued through the centuries.

Divine order [provides that] man should act in freedom according to reason, because to act in freedom according to reason is to act from himself. And yet these two faculties, freedom and reason, are not ... [man's own] but are the Lord's in him. In so far as he is a man, they must not be taken away from him, because without them he cannot be reformed. Without them he cannot perform repentance, he cannot fight against evils, and afterwards bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. It is from the Lord that man possesses freedom and reason. As man acts from them, it follows that he does not act from himself, but as from himself (Life 101 )

There are three things which cohere and cannot be separated, love, wisdom and use of life. If one is separated, the other two fall to the ground. (AR 352) Let no one believe that he has wisdom because he knows many things, perceives them in some light, and is able to talk intelligently about them, unless

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his wisdom is conjoined to love. It is love that, through its affections, produces wisdom. Not conjoined to love, wisdom is like a meteor vanishing in the air and like a falling star. Wisdom united to love is like the abiding light of the sun and like a fixed star. A man has the love of wisdom when he is averse . . . to the lusts of evil and falsity. (DP 35)

In the natural [mind] there are memory-knowledges of various kinds. There are memory-knowledges about earthly, bodily, and worldly things, which are the lowest, for these are immediately from the things of the external senses, or of the body. There are memory-knowledges about the civil state, its government, statutes, and laws, which are a little more interior. There are memory-knowledges about the things of moral life, which are more interior still. But the memory-knowledges which belong to spiritual life are more interior than all the former. These latter truths of the church ... in so far as they are only from doctrine with a man, are nothing but memory-knowledges. But when they are from the good of love, they then rise above memory-knowledges, for they are then in spiritual light, from which they look at memory-knowledges in their order beneath them. By means of degrees of memory-knowledges a man mounts to intelligence, for by means of these degrees memoryknowledges open the mind so that light from the spiritual world can flow in. (AC 5934)

From his infancy up to the end of his life in the world, a man is being perfected as to intelligence and wisdom, and, if it is well with him, as to faith and love. Memory-lmowledges chiefly conduce to this use. These knowledges are imbibed by hearing, seeing, and reading, and are stored up in the external or natural memory. These are of ,service to the internal Sight or understanding as a plane of objects, from which it may choose and bring out such things as promote wisdom. By virtue of its light, which is from heaven, the interior Sight or understanding looks

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into this plane, that is, into this memory, which is below itself. From the various things which are there, it chooses and brings out such as agree with its love. These it calls forth to itself from thence, and stores them up in . . . the internal memory. From this is the life of the internal man, and its intelligence and wisdom. (AC 9723)

A boy, being not yet of mature age, cannot think from anything higher than the exterior natural, for he composes his ideas from things of sense. But as he grows up, and, from things of sense, draws conclusions as to causes, he thereby begins to think from the interior natural. From things of sense he then forms some truths, which rise above the senses, but still remain within the things that are in nature. But when he becomes a young man, if, as he then matures he cultivates his rational, he . . . forms reasons from the things in the interior natural, which reasons are truths still higher, and are as it were drawn out from the things in the interior natural. The ideas of thought from these are called in the learned world intellectual and immaterial ideas. [On the other hand], the ideas [derived] from the memory-knowledges ... [of] the senses ... partake of the world [and] are called material ideas. In this way man mounts in his understanding from the world toward heaven. But still he does not come into heaven with his understanding unless he receives good from the Lord, which is continually present and flOWing in. If he receives good, truths also are bestowed on him, for in good all truths find their abode. As truths are bestowed on him, so also is understanding, by reason of which he [eventually] is in heaven. (AC 5497)

A man is not a man because of his having a human face and human body, but because of the wisdom of his understanding and the goodness of his will. As the quality of these ascends, he becomes the more a man. At birth man is more a brute than any animal, but he becomes a man through instruction of various

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kinds, by receiving which his mind is formed. From his mind and according to it man is a man. There are some beasts whose faces resemble the human face, but these enjoy no faculty of understanding or of doing anything from the understanding. They act from the instinct which their natural love excites. . . . A beast expresses by sounds the affections of its love, while man speaks them as they are formulated in thought. A beast with his face downward looks upon the ground, while man with his face raised beholds heaven all about him. From all this it may be inferred that man is a man so far as he speaks from sound reason, and looks forward to his abode in heaven. [When] ... he speaks from perverted reason, and looks only to his abode in the world, . . . he is not a man. Yet even such are men potentially, though not actually, for every man enjoys the ability to understand truth and to will what is good. But so far as he has no wish to do good or understand truth, he can only counterfeit man in externals and play the ape. (TCR 417)

Truths should be known and believed, for man is enlightened by truths, but is made blind by falsities. By truths there is opened to the rational an immense and almost unbounded field. But by falsities comparatively none at all, although this does not appear to be so. It is because the angels are in truths that they enjoy wisdom so great, for truth is the very light of heaven. (AC 2588)

He who learns truths and does not practice them, is like the one who sows seed in a field and does not harrow it in. The seed becomes swollen by the rain and is spoiled. But he who learns truths and practices them, is like one who sows that seed and covers it, and the rain ca\lses it to grow to a crop and to be of use forfood. (TCR347)

Sensual men can reason, some of them more cunningly and keenly than anyone else. But they reason from the fallacies of the senses confirmed by their knowledges. Because they are

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able to reason in this way they believe themselves to be wiser than others. [However], the fire that kindles ... their reasonings is the fire of the love of self and the world. (HH 353)

All [men] have the capacity to understand and to be wise, but the reason one person is wiser than another is that they do not in like manner ascribe to the Lord all things of intelligence and wisdom. . . . They who ascribe all to the Lord are wiser than the rest, because all things of truth and good, which constitute wisdom, flow in from heaven.... The ascription of all things to the Lord opens the interiors of man toward heaven, for thus it is acknowledged that nothing of truth and good is from himself. In proportion as this is acknowledged, the love of self departs, and with the love of self the thick darkness from falsities and evils. In the same proportion also the man comes into innocence, and into love and faith to the Lord, from which comes conjunction with the Divine, influx thence, and enlightenment. . . . All alike have the capacity of being wise [although] not ... an equal capacity of being wise.... By the capaCity to be wise is not meant the capacity to reason about truths and goods from memory-knowledges, nor the capacity to confirm whatever one pleases. The capacity to be wise is to discern what is true and good, to choose what is suitable, and to apply it to the uses of life. They who ascribe all things to the Lord do thus discern, choose, and apply, while those who do not ascribe to the Lord, but to themselves, know merely how to reason about truths and goods.... As they cannot look into truths themselves, they stand outside, and confirm whatever they receive, whether it be true or false. They who can do this in a learned way from memory-knowledges are believed by the world to be wiser than others. But the more they attribute all things to themselves, thus the more they love what they think from themselves, the more insane they are. They confirm falsities rather than truths, and evils rather than goods, and this

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because they have light from no other source than the fallacies and appearances of the world, and consequently from their own [natural] light ... separated from the light of heaven. Light . . . thus separated is mere thick darkness in respect to the truths and goods of heaven. (AC 10227)

From ... [the Lord] proceeds wisdom, through wisdom intelligence, through intelligence reason, and so by means of reason the knowledges of the memory are vivified. This is the order of life. . . . (AC 121)

Religion

According to Swedenborg, life should center on religion, and the life of religion means doing good. But he did not seek a specific church organization to support his concept of religion. He believed that the form of religion meant little compared to its essence-a life of use. Thus the quality of a man's life defines his true religion.

Swedenborg, although convinced that God was speaking a new revelation through him, was ecumenically minded. He asserted that all men can go to heaven, provided they live a good life, in consonance with their religious beliefs.

The truths given to a particular religion do, of course, affect the quality of its goods. Swedenborg looks to the ideal of ultimate acceptance of a rational faith by all men. Yet his teachings allow for varied forms of religious individuality consistent with belief in a God-centered universe.

All religion has relation to life and the life of religion is to do good. (Life 1) The glorification _of God . . . means to bring forth the fruits of love, that is, faithfully, sincerely, and diligently to do the work of one's employment. This is of love to God and of love to the neighbor. And this is the bond of society and its good. By this God is glorified.... (CL 9)

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Every man who has religion knows and acknowledges that he who leads a good life is saved, and that he who leads an evil life is damned. He knows and acknowledges that the man who lives aright thinks aright, not only about God but also about his neighbor. Not so the man whose life is evil. The life of man is his love, and that which he loves he not only likes to be doing, but also likes to be thinking.... Doing what is good acts as a one with thinking what is good, for if in a man these two things do not act as a one, they are not of his life. (Life 1 )

A deed or work is in quality such as are the will and thought that produce it. If the thought and will are good the deeds and works are good. But if the thought and will are evil the deeds and works are evil, although in outward form they appear alike. A thousand men may ... do ... deeds so alike in outward form as to be almost undistinguishable, and yet each one regarded in itseH [is] different, because from an unlike will. (HH 472)

To acknowledge God and to refrain from doing evil because it is against God are the two things that make a religion to be a religion. If one of these is lacking it cannot be called a religion. To acknowledge God and to do evil is a contradiction; also to do good and not acknowledge God, for one is not possible without the other. The Lord provides that there shall be some religion nearly everywhere, and that there shall be these two things in every religion. The Lord also provides that everyone who acknowledges God should have a place in heaven. (DP 326)

Religion with man consists in a life according to the Divine commandments, which are contained in a summary in the Decalogue. He . . . [who] does not live according to these can have no religion, since he does not fear God, still less does he love God, nor does he fear man, still less does he love him. Can one who steals, commits adultery, kills, bears false witness, fear

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God or man? (AE 948) It is a common principle of every religion that a man ought to examine himself, repent, and desist from sins, and that if he fails to do so he is in a state of damnation. (Life 64)

Man lives a moral life from a spiritual origin when he lives it from religion.... [Then] he thinks, when anything evil, insincere, or unjust presents itself, that this must not be done because it is contrary to the Divine laws. When one abstains from doing such things in deference to Divine laws he acquires for himself spiritual life, and his moral life is then from the spiritual. By such thoughts and faith man communicates with the angels of heaven. By communication with heaven his internal spiritual man is opened, the mind of which is a higher mind, such as the angels of heaven have, and he is thereby imbued with heavenly intelligence and wisdom. . . . To live a mora] life from a spiritual origin is to live from religion. . . . Those who live a moral life from religion and from the Word are elevated above their natural man, thus above what is their own, and are led by the Lord through heaven. They have faith, the fear of God, and conscience, and also the spiritual affection of truth, which is the affection of the knowledges of truth and good from the Word. To such men these are Divine laws, according to which they live....

But on the other hand, to live a moral life not from religion, but only from the fear of the law in the wor~d, or of the loss of fame, honor, and gain, is to live a moral life not from a spiritual but from a natural origin. To such there is not communication with heaven. As they think insincerely and unjustly regarding the neighbor, although they speak and act otherwise, their internal spiritual man is closed, and the internal natural man only is opened. When this is open they are in the light of the world, but not in the light of heaven. For this reason such persons have in them little regard for Divine and heavenly things, and some

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deny them, believing nature and the world to be everything. (AE 195)

From the most ancient times there has been religion, and . . . everywhere the inhabitants of the world have had knowledge of God, and have known something about a life after death.... (SS 117) It is of the Lord's Divine providence that every nation has some religion. . . . Every nation that lives according to its religion, that is, that refrains from doing evil because it is contrary to its god, receives something of the spiritual in its natural. ... [If a man says] I have been baptized, I have known about the Lord, I have read the Word, I have attended the sacrament of the Supper-does this amount to anything if he does not regard murders, or the revenge that breathes them, adulteries, secret thefts, false testimony or lies, and various kinds of violence, as sins? Does such a man think about God or any eternal life? Does he believe that there is any God or any eternal life? Does not sound reason declare that such a person cannot be saved? (DP 322)

There is a general opinion that those born outside of the church, who are called the nations, or heathen, cannot be saved, because not having the Word they know nothing about the Lord, and apart from the Lord there is no salvation. But ... the mercy of the Lord is universal ... [and] extends to every individual. [The heathen] equally with those within the church, who are few in comparison, are born men, and . . . their ignorance of the Lord is not their fault. ... No man is born for hell, for the Lord is love itself and His love is to will the salvation of all. (HH 318) Many of the heathen live . . . a moral life, for they think that evil must not be done because it is contrary to their religion. This is why so many of them are saved. (AE 195) Heaven is within man, and those that have heaven within them come into heaven. Heaven with man is ac

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knowledging the Divine and being led by the Divine. (HH 319)

Everyone is born into the religion of his parents, is initiated into it from his infancy, and afterwards holds to it. ... He who remains in his own religion . . . believes in God ... [regards] the Word as holy ... [lives] according to the ten commandments, [and] does not swear allegiance to falsities, . . . can embrace [truths] and so be led away from falsities. Not so the man who has confirmed the falsities of his religion, for confirmed falsity remains and cannot be rooted out. After confirmation a falsity becomes as if the man had sworn to the truth of it, especially if it chimes in with his own self-love, and the derivative conceit of his own wisdom. (SS 92)

It is very common for those who have taken up an opinion respecting any truth of faith, to judge of others that they cannot be saved, unless they believe as they do-a judgment which the Lord has forbidden. . . . Men of every religion are saved, provided that by a life of charity they have received [from the Lord] remains of good and of apparent truth.... The life of charity consists in thinking kindly of another, and . . . wishing him well, and ... perceiving joy in one's self from the fact that others are saved. (AC 2284)

The Lord's spiritual church ... exists throughout the universal world. It is not confined to those who have the Word and thence know the Lord and some truths of faith. It exists also with those who have not the Word and therefore are altogether ignorant of the Lord and consequently know no truths of faith. . . . (AC 3263)

There are three essentials of the church: acknowledgment of the divine of the Lord, acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life which is called charity.... Had these three been regarded as the church's essentials, intellectual

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differences would not have divided it but only varied it as light varies colors in beautiful objects and as various insignia of royalty give beauty to a king's crown. (DP 259)

The natural man says in his heart, how can so many discordant religions exist, instead of one true religion over all the earth, if the Divine providence has as its end a heaven from the human race? [But] all the human beings that are born, however many and in whatever religion, can be saved, provided they acknowledge God and live according to the commandments of the Decalogue, which are not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, and not to bear false witness, for the reason that doing such things is contrary to religion, and thus contrary to God. Such fear God and love the neighbor. They fear God in the thought that to do such things is contrary to God. They love the neighbor in the thought that to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness, and to covet the neighbor's house or wife is against the neighbor. Because such in their life look to God and do not do evil to the neighbor, they are led by the Lord. Those who so live, love to be taught, while those who live otherwise do not. Because they love to be taught, when, after death they become spirits, they are instructed by the angels and gladly accept such truths as are in the Word. (DP 253)

The religion of the Christian world has closed up the understanding, and faith alone has sealed it. Both of these have placed around themselves, like a wall of iron, the dogma that theological matters transcend the comprehension, and cannot therefore be reached by any exercise of the reason, and are for the blind, not for those that see. In this way have the truths been hidden that teach what spiritual liberty is. (DP 149)

What pertains to doctrine does not itself make the external, still less the internal. ... Nor with the Lord does it distinguish churches from each other, but that which does this is a

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life according to doctrinals, all of which, provided they are true, look to charity as their fundamental. What is doctrine but that which teaches how a man must live? In the Christian world it is doctrinal matters that distinguish churches. From them men call themselves Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, or the Reformed and Evangelical, and by other names. It is from what is doctrinal alone that they are so called, which would never be if they would make love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor the principal of faith. Doctrinal matters would then be only varieties of opinion concerning the mysteries of faith, which truly Christian men would leave to everyone to hold in accordance with his conscience, and would say in their hearts that a man is truly a Christian when he lives as a Christian, that is, as the Lord teaches. From all the differing churches there would be made one church. All the dissensions that come forth from doctrine alone would vanish. All hatreds of one against another would be diSSipated in a moment, and the Lord's kingdom would come upon the earth. (AC 1799)

If love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor were regarded as the essential things in religion, all heresies would disappear, and out of many churches there would be formed one church, whatever might be the difference in doctrines and rituals, either Howing from or leading to these essentials. In this case all would be governed as one man by the Lord. They would all be as members and organs of one body which, although dissimilar in form and function, have nevertheless relation to one heart on which they all depend both in general and particular, be their respective forms ever so various. In this case, too, everyone would say of another, in whatsoever doctrine or in whatsoever external worship he might be principled, This is my brother: I see that he worships the Lord, and that he is a good man. (AC 2385)

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With respect to ... priests, they ought to teach men the way to heaven, and also to lead them. They ought to teach them according to the doctrine of their church from the Word, and to lead them to live according to it. Priests who teach truths, and thereby lead to the good of life, and so to the Lord, are good shepherds.... But they who teach and do not lead to the good of life, and so to the Lord, are evil shepherds.

Priests ought not to claim to themselves any power over the souls of men, because they do not know in what state the interiors of a man are. Still l~ss ought they to claim the power of opening and shutting heaven, since that power belongs to the Lord alone.

Dignity and honor ought to be paid to priests on account of the holy things which they administer. But they who are wise give the honor to the Lord, from whom the holy things are, and not to themselves. They who are not wise attribute the honor to themselves; these take it away from the Lord.... The honor of any employment is not in the person, but is adjoined to him according to the dignity of the thing which he administers. What is adjoined does not belong to the person himself, and is also separated from him with the employment. All personal honor is the honor of wisdom and the fear of the Lord.

Priests ought to teach the people, and to lead them by truths to the good of life, but still they ought to compel no one, since no one can be compelled to believe contrary to what he thinks from his heart to be true. He who believes otherwise than the priest, and makes no disturbance, ought to be left in peace.... (NIHD315-18)

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Evil, Sin, and the Permissions Involved

Many modem thinkers doubt the very existence of evil and sin. But Swedenborg believed otherwise. Evil and falsity exist and together lead to sin. Sin, repeated, becomes confirmed and sinners eventually consign themselves to hell. Thus, Swedenborg's view of life contains great similarity to the traditional Christian concept of evil.

Yet Swedenborg presents much new thought on these subjects. Evil and falsity were not part of the divine order except in the sense that man received true freedom to choose evil over good. Subsequently men were born into tendencies toward the evils of their ancestry. Yet, men do not acquire any evils except as a result of confirming them by the actions of their lives. A man does what he loves; he may violate order in accord with the exercise of his inborn free will.

Repentance from sin may lead to regeneration of the man's basic character and to ultimate happiness in heaven. Such character regeneration comes from the Lord, but the man must initiate the process. This initiative can stem only from a genuine desire to refonn, thus from a free choice. Divine love seeks the salvation of every individual but pennits those who will, to fail. No divine fiat could alter this without fundamentally denying the human individual an opportunity to be captain of his own soul.

Does it square with Divine justice that because [Adam and Eve] ... both ate of that tree they were accursed, and that this curse clings to every man that comes after them? [Was] . . . the whole human race . . . damned for the fault of one man, in which there was no evil arising from the lust of the flesh or iniquity of heart? Why did not Jehovah in the first place restrain man from eating of the tree, since He was present and

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saw the consequences? And why did He not hurl the serpent into Hades before he had persuaded them?

But . . . God did not do this, because He would thus have deprived man of his freedom of choice, from which man is man, and not a beast. When this is known it is very evident that by these two trees, one of life and the other of death, man's freedom of choice in spiritual things is represented. Moreover, inherited evil is not from that source, but from parents, by whom an inclination to the evil in which they themselves have been, is transmitted to their children. The truth of this is clearly seen by anyone who carefully studies the manners, dispositions, and faces of the children ... that have descended from one father. Nevertheless, it depends on each one in a family whether he will accede to or withdraw from inherited evil, since everyone is left to his own choice. (TCR 469)

Evils did not exist until after creation. (Can, VI, 10) By turning away from God ... [man] imposed ... [evil] upon himself. [The] . . . origin of evil was not in Adam and his wife, but when the serpent said:-In the day that ye eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be as God. (Gen. iii. 5) They then turned away from God and turned to themselves as to a god. They made in themselves the origin of evil. (CL 444)

Eminence and opulence in the world are not real divine blessings ... [although] man, from his pleasure in them, calls them so. They . . . seduce many, and turn them away from heaven. Eternal life, and its happiness, are real blessings, which are from the Divine. . . .

The evil succeed in evils according to their arts . . . because it is according to Divine order that every one should act . . . from freedom. Unless man were left to act from freedom according to his reason . . . man could by no means be disposed to receive eternal life, for this is insinuated when man is

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in freedom, and his reason is enlightened. No one can be compelled to good, because nothing that is compelled inheres with him. It is not his own. That becomes a man's own which is done from freedom according to his reason, and that is done from freedom which is done from the will or love. The will or love is the man himself. If a man were compelled to that which he does not will, his mind would continually incline to that which he wills. Everyone strives after what is forbidden, and this from a latent cause, because he strives for freedom.... Unless man were kept in freedom, good could not be provided for him.

To leave man, from his own freedom . . . to think, to will, and, so far as the laws do not restrain, to do evil, is called permitting. (NIHD 270-72)

The love of self and the love of the world by creation are heavenly loves, for they are loves of the natural man serviceable to spiritual loves, as a foundation is to a house. Man, from the love of self and the world, seeks the welfare of his body, desires food, clothing, and habitation, is solicitous for the welfare of his family, and to secure employment for the sake of use. . . . Through these things man is in a state to serve the Lord and to serve the neighbor. When, however, there is no love of serving the Lord and serving the neighbor, but only a love of serving himself by means of the world, then, from being heavenly that love becomes hellish, for it causes a man to sink his mind and disposition in what is his own, and that in itself is wholly evil. (DLW 396)

[Thus perverted] the evil of the love of self disjoins the man not only from the Lord, but also from heaven. He loves no one but himself, and others only so far as he regards them in himself, or so far as they make one with him. He diverts to himself the attention of all, and entirely averts it from others, most especially from the Lord. When many in a society do this, it follows that all are disjoined, and at heart each regards the others

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as enemies, and if anyone does aught against him, he holds him in hatred, and takes delight in his destruction. Nor is it different with the evil of the love of the world, for this covets the wealth and goods of others, and desires to possess all that belongs to them. Enmities and hatreds, but in a less degree [arise]. In order for anyone to know what evil is, and consequently what sin is let him merely study to know what the love of self and of the world ... are. In order to know what good is, let him merely study to know what love to God and love toward the neighbor [are]. (AC 4997)

The love of self is the source of hatreds, revenges, cruelties, and adulteries. It is the source of all things that are called sins, wickednesses, abominations, and profanations. Therefore when this love is in the rational part of man, and is in the cupidities and phantasies of his external man, the influx of heavenly love from the Lord is continually repelled, perverted, and contaminated. It is like foul excrement, which dissipates ... [and] defiles all sweet odor. It is like an object that turns the continually inflowing rays of light into dark and repulsive colors. It is like a tiger, or a serpent, which repels all fondling, and kills with bite and poison those who offer it food. Or [it is] like a vicious man who turns even the best intentions of others, and their very kindnesses, into what is blameworthy and malicious. (AC 2045)

Persons who give no thought to the evils in them, and who do not examine themselves and then desist from the evils ... [are] ignorant what evil is, and love it ... from delighting in it. One who is ignorant of [evil] loves it, and one who fails to give it thought, goes on in it, blind to it. Thought sees good and evil as the eye sees beauty and ugliness. One who thinks and wills evil is in evil, and so is a person who thinks that it does not come to God's sight. ... If such persons refrain from doing evil, they do so not because it is a sin against

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God, but for fear of the law and for their reputation's sake. In spirit they still do evil, for it is man's spirit that thinks and wills. . . . In the spiritual world, into which everyone comes after death, the question is not asked what your belief has been or your doctrine, but what your life has been.... Such as one's life is, such is one's belief . . . one's doctrine. Life fashions a doctrine and a belief for itself. (DP 101)

Good continually Hows in from the Lord. It is the evil of life that hinders its being received in the truths which are with man in his memory or knowledge. In so far as a man recedes from evil, so far good enters and applies itself to his truths. Then the truth of faith with him becomes the good of faith. A man may indeed know truth, may also confess it under the incitement of some worldly cause, may even be persuaded that it is true. Yet this truth does not live so long as he is in a life of evil. Such a man is like a tree on which there are leaves, but no fruit. His truth is like the light in which there is no heat, such as there is in the time of winter when nothing grows. But when there is heat in it, the light then becomes such as there is in the time of spring, when all things grow. (AC 2388)

How many . . . live according to the commandments of the Decalogue, and other precepts of the Lord, from religion? How many . . . desire to look their own evils in the face, and to perform actual repentance . . . ? And who among those that cultivate piety, perform any other repentance than oral and oratorical? [They confess] . . . themselves to be sinners, and . . . [pray] according to the doctrine of the church, that God the Father, for the sake of His Son, who suffered upon the cross for their sins, took away their damnation, and atoned for them with His blood ... [will] mercifully forgive their transgressions, that ... they [may] ... be presented without spot or blemish before the throne of His judgment. Who does not see, that this worship is of the lungs only, and not of the heart, con

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sequently that it is external worship, and not internal? He prays for the remission of sins, when yet he does not know one sin with himself, and if he did know of any, he would cover it over with favor and indulgence, or with a faith that is to purify and absolve him, without any works of his. But this is comparatively like a servant going to his master with his face and clothes defiled with soot and filth, and saying, Sir, wash me. Would not his master say to him, Thou foolish servant, what is it thou sayest? See! there is water, soap, and a towel, hast thou not hands, and ability to use them? Wash thyself. (BE 52) Man by his own exertion and power should purify himself from sins, and not stand still believing in his own impotency, and expecting God to wash his sins away in a moment. (TCR 71)

Sins are not forgiven through repentance of the mouth, but through repentance of life. Sins are continually being forgiven man by the Lord, for he is mercy itself. But sins adhere to the man, however much he may suppose that they have been forgiven, nor are they removed from him except through life according to the commands of faith. So far as he lives according to these commands, so far his sins are removed. So far as they are removed, so far they have been forgiven. (AC 8393)

Many ... [think] that man is cleansed from evils by merely believing what the church teaches. Others [think that man is cleansed] by his doing good . . . knowing, talking about, and teaching the things of the church, . . . reading the Word and pious books, ... attending churches, listening to sermons, and especially by coming to the Holy Supper. [Still] others [think man is cleansed] by ... renouncing the world and devoting [oneself] to piety . . . confeSSing . . . sins, and so on. Yet none of these cleanse man in the least unless he examines himself, sees his sins, acknowledges them, condemns himself for them, and repents by refraining from them. All this he must do as if of himself, but with acknowledgment from the

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heart that he does it from the Lord. Until this is done the things that have been mentioned above do not help at all, for they are either meritorious or hypocritical. (DP 121)

The sins ... [man] must refrain from and must shun and turn away from are chiefly adulteries, frauds, illicit gains, hatreds, revenges, lies, blasphemies, and [self adulation in general]. . . . (AE 803)

If a man in his boyhood and youth ... does a certain evil . . . from the enjoyment of his love, like fraud or blasphemy or revenge or whoredom, as these things have been done from freedom in accordance with his thought, he has appropriated them to himself. If he afterwards repents of them, shuns them, and looks upon them as sins that must be hated, and thus refrains from them from freedom in accordance with reason, then the good things to which those evils are opposed are appropriated to him. These goods then constihlte the center and remove the evils toward the circumferences further and further, to the extent that he loathes and turns away from them. Nevertheless, they cannot be so cast out as to be said to be extirpated, although by such removal they may appear to be ... [so] . . . . This is true both of all man's inherited evil and of all his actual evil. (DP 79)

Sins cannot be taken away from a man except by actual repentance, which consists in his seeing his sins, imploring the Lord's help, and desisting from them (Doet. Lord 17)

All the good a man has thought and done from infancy even to the last of his life, remains. In like manner all the evil, so that not the least of it completely perishes. Both are inscribed on his book of life . . . on . . . his memories, and on his nature, that is, his native disposition and genius. From these he has formed for himself a life, and so to speak a soul, which after death is of a corresponding quality. But goods are neve~ so commingled with evils, nor evils with goods, that they cannot

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be separated. If they should be commingled, the man would eternally perish. In relation to this the Lord exercises His providence, and when a man comes into the other life, if he has lived in the good of love and of charity, the Lord then separates his evils, and by what is good with him elevates him into heaven. But if he has lived in evils, . . . contrary to love and charity, the Lord then separates from him what is good, and his evils bring him into hell. Such is the lot of every one after death. (AC 2256)

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The topics treated in Part I, "The Nature of Life," namely Freedom, Order, Use, Charity, Patriotism, Morality, Marriage, Wisdom, Religion, and Evil all relate primarily to man's everyday life rather than to things which look beyond natural existence.

But no theology, no way of life which considers all potential eventualities including possible life after death, can avoid reference to transcendent concepts. Every theology requires metaphysical explanations for the great questions of man's origin, nature, and destiny. Although Emanuel Swedenborg believed that reason and rationality characterized life, he did not imply that all things could be understood merely by the exercise of reason based upon sense impressions. To the contrary, such efforts alone could never lead to wisdom. He said that the ultimate meaning of life could only be understood from revelations given by the divine creator. Consequently, Swedenborg's concept of life contains much that deals with the abstruse. The six topics which follow present the basic aspects of his metaphysics, although a variety of more recondite teachings might easily have been added.

Revelation

Swedenborg, as has been noted, believed implicitly in two worlds, the natural and the spiritual. He often writes of the connection between the natural and spiritual worlds; the word of God serves to link heaven and earth. In Swedenborg's view, God has always spoken to man and usually has done so in written form to enable man to study and reflect on necessary truths of life. The Sweden

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borgian view postulates the necessity of God revealing himself to man continuously.

It is believed in the world that a man is able to know from the light of nature, thus without revelation, many things that belong to religion, as that there is a God, that He is to be worshiped, and also that He is to be loved, likewise that man will live after death, and many other things that depend upon . . . self-intelligence. But . . . of himself, and without revelation, man knows nothing whatever about Divine things, and about the things that belong to heavenly and spiritual life.

Man is born into the evils of the love of self and of the world, which are of such a nature that they shut out the influx from the heavens, and open influx from the hells. Such ... make man blind, and incline him to deny that there is a Divine, that there is a heaven and a hell, and that there is a life after death. This is very manifest from the learned in the world, who by means of knowledges have carried the light of their nature above the light of others. It is known that these deny the Divine, and acknowledge nature in place of the Divine, more than others. Also that when they speak from the heart, and not from doctrine, they deny the life after death, likewise heaven and hell, consequently all things of faith, which they call bonds for the common people. (AC 8944)

Without the Word no one would possess spiritual intelligence, which consists in haVing knowledge of a God, of heaven and hell, and of a life after death.... (SS 114) It is through the Word that the Lord is present with a man and is conjoined with him, for the Lord is the Word, and as it were speaks with the man in it. The Lord is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is the Word. From this it is evident that the Lord is present with a man and is at the same time conjoined with him, according to his understanding of the Word. According to this the man has

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truth and the derivative faith, and also love and the derivative life. The Lord is indeed present with a man through the reading of the Word, but he is conjoined with him through the understanding of truth from the Word. (SS 78)

The Word is truth Divine itself, which teaches man that there is a God, that there is a heaven and a hell, and that there is a life after death, and which teaches besides how a man must live and believe in order that he may come into heaven, and thus, be eternally happy. Without revelation, thus on this earth without the Word, all these things would have been utterly unknown. . . . (AC 9352)

[It was] necessary that of the Lord's Divine Providence some revelation should come into existence, for a revelation or Word is the general recipient vessel of spiritual and celestial things, thus conjoining heaven and earth. Without it they would have been disjoined, and the human race would have perished. Besides it is necessary that there should be heavenly truths somewhere, by which man may be instructed, because he was born for heavenly things, and, after the life of the body, ought to come among those who are heavenly. The truths of faith are the laws of order in the kingdom in which he is to live forever. (AC 1775)

The nations in every part of the earth have been in worship from some religion. . . . Religion cannot exist except by some revelation, and by the propagation thereof from nation to nation. (Coronis 39) There was immediate revelation with the most ancient people on this earth. Therefore they had no written Word. But after their times, when immediate revelation could neither be given nor received without danger to their souls, lest the communication and conjunction of men with the heavens should be intercepted and perish, it pleased the Lord to reveal Divine truth by means of the Word.... (De Verbo 27)

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The Word ... [has] existed in all times, but not the Word which we have at this day. There ... [was] another Word in the Most Ancient Church which was before the flood, and another Word in the Ancient Church which was after the flood. Then came the Word written by Moses and the prophets in the Jewish Church. Lastly the Word ... was written by the Evangelists in ... the [Christian] church. (AC 2895)

From the most ancient times there has been religion, and . . . the inhabitants of the world have had knowledge of God, and have known something about a life after death. [These knowledges came] . . . at a later period from the Israelitish Word. From these two Words the things of religion . . . spread into the Indies and their islands, and through Egypt and Ethiopia into the Kingdoms of Africa, and from the maritime parts of Asia into Greece, and from thence into Italy. But as the Word could not be written in any other way than by means of representatives, which are such things in this world as COrrespond to heavenly things, and therefore Signify them, the things of religion among many of the nations were turned into idolatry. In Greece [they were turned] into fables, and the Divine attributes and predicates into so many gods, over whom they set one supreme, whom they called "Jove" from "Jehovah." They had knowledge of Paradise, of the flood, of the sacred fire, and of the four ages, from the first or golden age to the last or iron age, by which are meant the four states of the church.... The Mohammedan religion, which came later . . . destroyed the former religions of many nations. [It] was taken from the Word of both Testaments. (SS 117)

Man, like the earth, can produce nothing of good unless the knowledges of faith are first sown in him, whereby he may know what is to be believed and done. It is the office of the understanding to hear the Word, and of the will to do it. (AC 44)

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He who abstains from profaning the name of God, that is, the holiness of the Word, by contempt, rejection or any blasphemy, has religion. Such as his abstinence is such is his religion. No one has religion except from revelation, and ... revelation is the Word. Abstinence from profaning the holiness of the Word must be from the heart, and not merely from the mouth. Those who abstain from the heart live from religion. But those who abstain merely from the mouth do not live from religion, for they abstain either for the sake of self or for the sake of the world, in that the Word can be made to serve them as a means of acquiring honor and gain, or they abstain from some fear. Of these, many are hypocrites who have no religion. (AE 963)

No one can believe in and love a God whom he cannot comprehend under some form. Those who acknowledge the incomprehensible, in their thought fall into nature, and thus believe in no God. Wherefore it pleased the Lord to be born . . . [on earth] to make this manifest by the Word, not only in order that it might become known on this globe, but that by this means it might also be made manifest to all in the universe who come into heaven from any earth whatever. In heaven there is a communication of all. (AC 9356)

The Word is in all the heavens. It is read there as in the world and they preach from it, for it is the Divine truth from which the angels have intelligence and wisdom. Without the Word no one knows anything of the Lord, of love and faith, of redemption, or of any other arcana of heavenly wisdom. Without the Word there would be no heaven, as without the Word, there would be no church in the world, thus there would be no conjunction with the Lord. There is no such thing as natural theology without revelation, and in the Christian world without the Word.... If it cannot exist in the world, neither can it exist after death, for such as a man is as to his religion in the world, such he is as to his religion after death when he becomes

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a spirit. The whole heaven does not consist of any angels created before the world, or with the world, but of those who have been men, and were then interiorly angels. These through the Word come in heaven into spiritual wisdom, which is interior wisdom, because the Word there is spiritual. (De Verbo 30)

Life after Death

More than perhaps any other seer of history, Swedenborg details a life after death which consists of real experiences in a world in many basic ways quite similar to the natural world. Angels in heaven do not have an ethereal or ephemeral existence but enjoy an active life of service to others. They sleep and wake, love, breathe, eat, talk, read, work, recreate, and worship. They live a genuine life in a real spiritual body and world.

Swedenborg goes into great detail describing the three main parts or states of the spiritual world-heaven, hell, and the world of spirits located between them. This world of spirits serves as a final preparation ground for a life to eternity in surroundings consistent with the ruling loves of the novitiate. Those whose dominant loves are good go to heaven while those who have chosen evil are led by their perverse loves to hell. There they are kept in external order and are as happy as their selfish nature permits them to be. They perform uses but, unlike the angels, from compulsion rather than desire.

The angelic heaven is the end for which all things in the universe were created. It is the end on account of which the human race exists, and the human race is the end regarded in the creation of the visible heaven, and the earths included in it. . . . The angelic heaven primarily has respect to infinity and eternity, and therefore to its multiplication without end, for the Divine Himself dwells therein. . . . The human race will never

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cease, for were it to cease, the Divine work would be limited to a certain number, and thus its looking to infinity would perish. (L] 13)

Heaven does not consist of angels created such to begin with, nor does hell come from any devil created an angel of light and cast down from heaven. Both heaven and hell are from mankind, heaven consisting of those in the love of good and consequent understanding of truth and hell of those in the love of evil and consequent understanding of falsity. (DP 27)

The Lord's Divine influx does not stop midway but goes on to its outmosts. . . . The connection and conjunction of heaven with the human race is such that one has its permanent existence from the other. The human race apart from heaven would be like a chain without a hook; and heaven without the human race would be like a house without a foundation. (HH 304)

Hell and heaven are near to man, yea, in man. Hell [is] in an evil man, and heaven in a good man. Everyone comes after death into that hell or into that heaven in which he has been while in the world. (AC 8918) It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of anyone; it is within him.... Unless heaven is within one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can How in and be received.... If those that have lived wickedly come into heaven they gasp for breath and writhe about, like fishes out of water in the air, or like animals in ether in an air pump when the air has been exhausted. (HH 54)

Angels and spirits are entirely above or outside of nature, and are in their own world, which is under another sun. Since in that world spaces are appearances . . . angels and spirits cannot be said to be in the ether or in the stars. In fact, they are present with man, conjoined to the affection and thought of his spirit. . . . The spiritual world is wherever man is, and in no wise away from him. In a word, every man as regards the interi

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ors of his mind is in that world, in the midst of spirits and angels there and he thinks from its light and loves from its heat. (DLW 92)

The universals of hell are three loves: the love of ruling from the love of self, the love of possessing the goods of others from the love of the world, and scortatory love. The universals of heaven are the three loves opposite to these: the love of ruling from the love of use, the love of possessing the goods of the world from the love of performing uses by means of them, and love truly conjugial. (CL 261)

Man's spirit, which is his mind in his body, is in its entire form a man. Man after death is just as much as he was in the world, with this difference only, that he has cast off the coverings that formed his body in the world. (DP 124)

Man is in this [natural] world in order to be initiated by his activities there into the things which are of heaven. His life in this world is hardly a moment in comparison with his life after death, for this is eternal. [Although] ... there are few who believe that they will live [again] ... man immediately after death is in the other life. . . . His life in this world is wholly continued there, and is of the same quality as it had been in this world. This I can assert ... for I have talked, after their decease, with almost all with whom I had been acquainted in the life of the body, and thus by living experience it has been given me to know what lot awaits everyone, namely, a lot according to his life.... (AC 5(06)

The first state of man after death resembles his state in the world, for he is then likewise in externals, having a like face, like speech, and a like disposition, thus a like moral and civil life. . . . He is made aware that he is not still in the world only by giving attention to what he encounters, and from his having been told by the angels when he was resuscitated that he had become a spirit. Thus is one life continued into the other, and

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death is merely transition. (HH 493) This first state of man after death continues with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year, but seldom with anyone beyond a year. (HH 498)

The second state of man after death is called the state of his interiors because he is then let into the interiors of his mind ... [or] his will and thought. His exteriors, which he has been in during his first state, are laid asleep. (HH 499) When the spirit is in the state of his interiors it becomes clearly evident what the man was in himself when he was in the world, for at such times he acts from what is his own. He that had been in the world interiorly in good then acts rationally and wisely, and even more wisely than in the world, because he is released from connection with the body, and thus from those earthly things that caused obscurity and interposed, as it were, a cloud. But he that was in evil in the world then acts foolishly and insanely, and even more insanely than in the world, because he is free and under no restraint. (HH 505)

The third state of man after death . . . is a state of instruction. This state is for those who enter heaven and become angels. . . . Good spirits . . . are led from the second state into the third, which is the state of their preparation for heaven by means of instruction. One can be prepared for heaven only by means of knowledges of good and truth . . . since one can know what spiritual good and truth are . . . only by being taught. [This third state] is not for those who enter hell, because such are incapable of being taught, and therefore their second state is also their third, ending in . . . [being] wholly turned to their own love, thus to that infernal society which is in a like love. (HH 512)

Spirits . . . possess far more exquisite sensations than during the life of the body. I know ... [this] by experience repeated thousands of times. Should any be unwilling to believe

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this, in consequence of their preconceived ideas concerning the nature of spirit, let them learn it by their own experience when they come into the other life, where it will compel them to believe. . . . Spirits have sight, for they live in the light, and good spirits, angelic spirits, and angels, in a light so great that the noonday light of this world can hardly be compared to it. . . . Spirits also have hearing, hearing so exquisite that the hearing of the body cannot be compared to it. . . . They have also the sense of smell. . . . They have a most exquisite sense of touch. . . . They have desires and affections. . . .

Spirits think with much more clearness and distinctness than they had thought during their life in the body. There are more things contained within a single idea of their thought than in a thousand of the ideas they had possessed in this world. They speak together with so much acuteness, subtlety, sagacity, and distinctness, that if a man could perceive anything of it, it would excite his astonishment. In short, they possess everything that men possess, but in a more perfect manner, except the flesh and bones and the attendant imperfections. They acknowledge and perceive that even while they lived in the body it was the spirit that sensated, and that although the faculty of sensation manifested itself in the body, still it was not of the body.... When the body is cast aside, the sensations are far more exquisite and perfect. Life consists in the exercise of sensation, for without it there is no life, and such as is the faculty of sensation, such is the life. . . . (AC 322)

Man after death is as much a man as he was before, so much so as to be unaware that he is not still in the former world. He has Sight, hearing and speech as in the former world. He walks, runs, and sits, as in the former world. He lies down, sleeps, and awakes, as in the former world. He eats and drinks as in the former world. He enjoys marriage delight as in the former world. In a word, he is a man in each and every respect.

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Death is not the extinction but the continuation of life. (TCR 792)

In the heavens there is no inequality of age, nor of rank, nor of wealth. As respects age, all there are in the bloom of youth, and remain in it to eternity. As to station, all there regard others according to the uses they perform. The more eminent look upon those in lower station as brethren, and do not put the dignity above the excellence of the use [And] ... the Lord is Father of all. As regards wealth this is there the gift of attaining wisdom; according to this, riches are given to them in sufficiency. (CL 250)

Those that are in heaven are continually advanCing towards the spring of life, with a greater advance towards a more joyful and happy spring the more thousands of years they live. This [goes on] to eternity, with increase according to the growth and degree of their love, charity, and faith. Women who have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the Lord, in charity to the neighbor, and in happy marriage love with a husband, advance with the succession of years more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty that transcends every conception of any beauty as it is seen on the earth. Goodness and charity are what give this form and thus manifest their own likeness, causing the joy and beauty of charity to shine forth from every least particular of the face, and causing them to be the very forms of charity....

The form of charity ... in heaven, is such that it is charity itself that both forms and is formed. This [is done] in such a manner that the whole angel is a charity.... This is both clearly seen and felt. When this form is beheld it is beauty unspeakable, affecting with charity the very inmost life of the mind. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. (HH 414)

In heaven, as in the world, there are foods and drinks, there

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are festive meals and banquets. With the principal persons there are tables spread with sumptuous delicacies, with choice and delicious viands, wherewith they are exhilarated and refreshed in spirit. There are also sports and exhibitions, and entertainments of music and song, and all these in the highest perfection. Such things give them joys. . . .

There is a certain latent vein within the affection of the will of every angel which draws the mind on to do something. By this the mind tranquillizes and satisfies itself. This satisfaction and this tranquillity induce a state of mind receptive of the love of use from the Lord. And from the reception of this comes heavenly happiness, which is the life of their joys.... Heavenly food in its essence is nothing else than love, wisdom, and use together. . . . Wherefore, in heaven, food for the body is given to everyone according to the use that he performs. . . . (CL6)

All who [go to heaven] ... are prepared ... in the world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven and hell. After a certain time [they] desire heaven with a ... longing, and presently their eyes are opened, and they see a way which leads to some society in heaven. They enter this way and ascend, and in the ascent there is a gate, and a keeper there. The keeper opens the gate, and thus they go in. Then an examiner meets them, who tells them from the governor, that they may enter in still further, and inquire whether there are any houses which they can recognize as their own, for there is a new house for every novitiate angel. If they find any, they give notice of it and remain there. But if they do not find any, they come back and say they have not seen any. Then they are examined by a certain wise one there, to discover whether the light that is in them agrees with the light of that society, and espeCially whether the heat does.

The light of heaven in its essence is Divine truth, and the

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heat of heaven in its essence is Divine good, both proceeding from the Lord as the sun there. If any other light and any other heat than the light and heat of that society is in them, they are not received.... They depart thence, and go in the ways which are opened among the societies in heaven, and this till they find a society which agrees in every respect with their affections, and here they take up their abode to eternity. They are here among their like, as among relations and friends whom, because they are in a similar affection, they love from the heart. . . . They are in the enjoyment of their life, and in a fullness of bosom delight derived from peace of soul. There is in the heat and light of heaven an ineffable delight, which is communicated. Such is the case with those who become angels. (AR611)

As heaven is from the human race . . . angels, therefore, are of both sexes. From creation woman is for man and man is for woman, thus the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both. (HH 366) Man is a man after death and a woman is a woman. . . . These two are so created that they urgently strive . . . for such conjunction that they may become one. . . . As this conjunctive inclination is inscribed upon all things, and upon every single thing of the male and of the female, it follows that this inclination cannot be obliterated and die with the body. (CL 46) There are marriages in heaven as well as on the earth. But marriages in heaven differ Widely from marriages on the earth. (HH 366)

Those that have regarded adulteries as abominable, and have lived in a chaste love of marriage, are more than all others in the order and form of heaven, and therefore in all beauty, and continue increasingly in the flower of youth. The delights of their love are ineffable, and increase to eternity. (HH 489)

Separations [of pairs married on earth] take place after death because the conjunctions formed on earth are seldom

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formed from any internal perception of love, but from an external perception which hides the internal. An external perception of love has its cause and origin from such things as pertain to the love of the world and of the body. Wealth and large possessions especially are of the love of the world. Dignities and honors are of the love of the body. Besides these there are various seductive allurements, such as beauty, and a simulated propriety of manners, sometimes also unchastity. Moreover, marriages are contracted within the district, city, or village of one's birth or abode, where there is no choice but such as is restricted and limited to the families that are known, and within these limits, to such as are of corresponding station. It is for these reasons that marriages entered into in the world are for the most part external, and not at the same time internal.

Yet internal conjunction which is that of souls constitutes marriage itself. This conjunction is not perceivable until a man puts off the external and puts on the internal, which he does after death. Hence. . . separations then take place, and afterwards new conjunctions with those who are similar and homogeneous, unless these had been provided on earth, as they are in the case of those who from early youth ... loved and desired and asked of the Lord a legitimate and lovely companionship with one, and . . . spurned and detested wandering lusts as an offense to their nostrils. (CL 49)

A suitable wife is given to the man and a suitable husband to the woman.... No married partners can be received into heaven and remain there but such as are inwardly united, or as can be united, as into one. . . . Two married partners are not called two but one angel. . . . That no other married pairs are received into heaven is because no others can live together there, that is be together in one house and in one chamber and bed.

In heaven all are consociated according to affinities and near

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nesses of love, and according to these they have their abodes. In the spiritual world there are not spaces but appearances of space, and these are according to the states of love. For this reason no one there can dwell in any but his own house, which is provided and assigned to him according to the quality of his love. If he abides elsewhere he labors in ... breathing. Nor can two live together in the same house unless they are similitudes, and especially married partners cannot, unless they are mutual inclinations. If they are external inclinations and not at the same time internal, the very house or very place separates, rejects, and expels them. . . .

Married partners enjoy similar intercourse with each other as in the world, only more delightful and blessed, but without prolification. In place of it, they have spiritual prolification, which is of love and wisdom. The reason why married partners enjoy similar intercourse as in the world is that the male is a male and the female is a female after death, and in both an inclination to conjunction is inherent by creation. This,inclinatiUD-in man~

2J.his ~p'irit and thence of the body. There,f-ore after death when m~ ~ec.2W~..L~plrJt thlLS.ap::1~ 2E}}.!£.~J.jpcTIiiation continues, and this cannot be without similar intercourse.... (CL 50-52) Effects are constantly open; they are never lacking when they have desire, since without these their love would be like the channel of a fountain stopped up. The effect opens that channel and causes continuance and conjunction that they may become as one flesh. The vital of the husband adds itself to the vital of the wife and binds together. [Angels] ... declare that the delights of the effects cannot be described in the expressions of any language in the natural world, n~_.Q1ought

g.fjn...any_exceptspi.rU:1.!ali~~as, and that even these do not exhaust them. (AE 992)

Heavenly joy . . . is the .~.ll.:ght..QL<!2j!l.KJ!QJ;!l~thJ~th~is u~.~ful to ourselves and to others. The delight C!.f u~~.deriv~ts

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essence from love and its existence from wisdom. The delight of use springing -from love by wisdom is the life and s~ . . . heavenly- joys. There are most joyous companionships in the heavens, which gladden the minds of angels, amuse their spirits, fill their bosoms with delight, and revive their bodies. But they enjoy these delights when they have performed the uses of their employments and occupations. (CL 5)

In uses all the delights of heaven are brought together and are present, because uses are the goods of love and charity in which angels are. Everyone has delights that are in accord with his uses, and in the degree of his affection for use. (HH 402)

The delight from good and the pleasantness from tmth which cause blessedness in heaven, do not consist in idleness, but in activity. In idleness, delight and pleasantness become undelight and unpleasantness. But in activity, delight and pleasantness are permanent and constantly uplift, and cause blessedness. With those who are in heaven, activity consists in the performance of uses, which to them is delight from good, and in relishing truths with the end of uses, which to them is pleasantness from truth. (AC 6410)

Some think that heaven consists in a life of ease, in which they are served by others. But . . . there is no possible happiness in being at rest as a means of happiness, for so every one would wish to have the happiness of others made tributory to his own happiness. When every one wishes this, no one would have happiness. Such a life would not be an active life, but an idle one, in which they would grow torpid. . . .

Angelic life consists in use, and in the goods of charity. The angels know no greater happiness than in teaching and instructing the spirits that arrive from the world. [They delight] in being of service to men, controlling the evil spirits about them lest they pass the proper bounds and inspiring the men with

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good, and in raising up the dead to the life of eternity. From all this they perceive more happiness than can possibly be described. Thus are they images of the Lord; thus do they love the neighbor more than themselves; and for this reason heaven is heaven. Angelic happiness is in use, from use, and according to use. . . . When those who have the idea that heavenly joy consists in living at ease, idly breathing in eternal joy, have heard these things, they are given to perceive, in order to shame them, what such a life really is. They perceive that it is a most sad one, that it is destructive of all joy, and that after a short time they would loathe and nauseate it. (AC 452-54)

There are in heaven more functions and services and occupations than can be enumerated. In the world there are few in comparison. But however many there may be that are so employed, they are all in the delight of their work and labor from a love of use, and no one from a love of self or of gain. As all the necessaries of life are furnished them gratuitously they have no love of gain for the sake of a living. They are housed . . . , clothed ... , and fed gratuitously. Those that have loved themselves and the world more than use have no lot in heaven. This love or affection remains with everyone after his life in the world, and is not extirpated to eternity.

In heaven everyone comes into his own occupation in accordance with conespondence, and the correspondence is not with the occupation but with the use of each occupation.... In heaven . . . employment or occupation corresponding to . . . use is in much the same condition of life as . . . in the world. What is spiritual and what is natural make one by correspondence. Yet there is this difference, that ... [man] then comes into an interior delight, because into spiritual life, which is an interior life, and therefore more receptive of heavenly blessedness. (HH 393-94)

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Heaven does not consist in being on high, but is wherever there is anyone who is in love and charity, or in whom is the Lord's kingdom. Neither does it consist in desiring to be more eminent than others, for to desire to be greater than others is not heaven, but hell. (AC 450)

Heaven is given to every one in accordance with the things of faith and charity in him. Charity and faith make heaven with everyone.... The life which has heaven in it, is a life according to the truths and goods of faith about which the man has been instructed. Unless these are the rules and principles of his life, in vain does he look for heaven, no matter how he has lived. Without these truths and goods a man is like a reed which is shaken by every wind, for he is bent by evils equally as by goods. He has nothing of truth and good made firm within him, whereby he may be kept by the angels in truths and goods, and be withdrawn from the falsities and evils which the infernals are continually injecting. (AC 7197)

Heaven in itself is so full of delights that viewed in itself it is nothing else than blessedness and delight. The Divine good that flows forth from the Lord's Divine love is what makes heaven in general and in particular with everyone there. The Divine love is a longing for the salvation of all and the happiness of all from inmosts and in fullness. Thus whether you say heaven or heavenly joy it is the same thing.

The delights of heaven are both ineffable and innumerable. But he that is in the mere delight of the body or of the flesh can have no knowledge of or belief in a single one of these innumerable delights. His interiors... look away from heaven towards the world, thus backwards. He that is wholly in the delight of the body or of the flesh, or what is the same, in the love of self and of the world, has no sense of delight except in honor, in gain, and in the pleasures of the body and the senses.

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These so extinguish and suffocate the interior delights that belong to heaven as to destroy all belief in them. (HH 397-98)

The delight ... in the love of doing what is good without any end of recompense, is the reward which remains to eternity. Every affection of love remains inscribed on the life. Into this there is insinuated by the Lord, heaven and eternal happiness. (AC 9984)

Heaven is from the human race, both from those born within the church and from those born out of it; thus it consists of all from the beginning ... that have lived a good life. How great a multitude of men there is in this entire world anyone who knows anything about the divisions, the regions, and kingdoms of the earth may conclude. Whoever goes into a calculation will find that ... thousands of men die every day, ... [and] myriads of millions every year, and this from the earliest times. . . . All of these after death have gone into the other world, . . . and they are constantly going into it. . . . In ancient times the number [entering heaven] was very great, because men then thought more interiorly and spiritually, and from such thought were in heavenly affection. In the following ages not so many [entered heaven] because in the process of time man became more external and began to think more naturally, and from such thought to be in earthly affection....

The immensity of the heaven of the Lord is shown also by this, that all children, whether born within the church or out of it, are adopted by the Lord and become angels. The number of these amounts to a fourth or fifth part of the whole human race on the earth. Every child, wherever born, whether within the church or out of it, whether of pious or impious parents, is received by the Lord when it dies, and is brought up in heaven, and is taught and imbued with affections for good, and through these with knowledges of truth, in accordance with Divine

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order. As he becomes perfected in intelligence and wisdom [he] is brought into heaven and becomes an angel. ... From all this a conclusion may be formed of the multitude of angels of heaven....

Again, how immense the heaven of the Lord is can be seen from this, that all the planets visible to the eye in our solar system are earths, and moreover, that in the whole universe there are innumerable earths, all of them full of inhabitants. (HH 415-17)

The universal heaven represents one man, which is called the Grand Man.... The whole and every part of man corresponds thereto. . .. The angels in heaven all appear in the human form. On the other hand, the evil spirits who are in hell, though from phantasy they appear to one another like men, in the light of heaven appear as monsters, more dire and horrible according to the evil in which they are. Evil itself is contrary to order, and thus contrary to the human form. . . . (AC 4839)

They who are in the Grand Man breathe freely when they are in the good of love.... Everyone when in his own heaven is in his life, and receives influx from the universal heaven, each person there being a center of all the influxes, and therefore in the most pedect equilibrium. .. The amazing fom1 of heaven, ... is from the Lord alone ... [and contains] all variety. (AC 4225)

All those are within the Grand Man who are in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, and who do good to the neighbor from the heart according to the good that is in him, and who have a conscience of what is just and equitable. . . . But all those are outside the Grand Man who are in the love of self and the love of the world and the derivative ... [evils] and who do what is good solely on account of the laws, and for the sake of their own honor and the world's wealth and the consequent reputation. [They] are interiorly unmerciful

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and in hatred and revenge against the neighbor for their own and the world's sake, and are delighted with the neighbor's injury when he does not favor them. These are in hell. (AC 4225)

[Men believe that] at the hour of death ... faith ... can get [one] into heaven no matter in what affection he may have lived during the whole course of his life. . . . [While] every one can be admitted into heaven, because heaven is denied by the Lord to no one, ... whether they can live there, they can [only] know when admitted. Some who firmly believed that they could, have ... been admitted. But as the life there is that of love to the Lord and of love toward the neighbor . . . on coming into it they began to be distressed. Not being able to breathe in such a sphere ... they began to perceive the filthiness of their affections, thus to feel infernal torment. In consequence of this they cast themselves headlong down, saying that they desired to be far away, and marveling that that was heaven which to them was hell. ... They who are in the delight of the affections of evil and falsity can by no means be among those who are in the delights of the affection of good and truth. These delights are opposite to each other, as are heaven and hell. (AC 3938) To the extent that a man loves self and the world and looks to self and the world in everything; he alienates himself from the Divine and separates himself from heaven. (HH 360)

Before the evil are condemned and let down into hell they undergo ... many states.... It is believed that man is at once either condemned or saved, and that this is effected without any process. But the case is otherwise. Justice reigns ... in the world of spirits and no one is condemned until he himself knows, and is inwardly convinced, that he is in evil, and that it is utterly impossible for him to be in heaven. His own evils are . . . laid open to him. . . .

He is also warned to desist from evil. But . . . he cannot do

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this because of the dominion of evil. . . . Finally condemnation follows and the letting down into hell. This takes place when he comes into the evil of his life. (AC 7795)

In hell as in heaven, there is a form of government. ... There is rule, and there is subordination, without which society would have no coherence. But the subordinations in heaven are wholly different from the subordinations in hell. In heaven all are like equals, for one loves another as brother loves brother. Nevertheless one sets another before himself in proportion as he excels in intelligence and wisdom. The very love of good and truth causes everyone, as it were of himself, to subordinate himself to those who are superior to him in the wisdom of good and the intelligence of truth. But ... sub01'

dinations in hell are those of despotic authority, and consequently of severity. He who commands, rages fiercely against those who do not favor all his commands. Everyone regards another as his enemy, although outwardly as a friend, for the sake of banding together against the violence of others. This banding together is like that of robbers. They who are subordinate continually aspire to rule, and also frequently break forth in revolt, and then the conditions there are lamentable. . . . There are severities and cruelties.... (AC 7773)

The Origin, }{ature, and Proper Destiny of Man

Swedenborg has much to say regarding the origin, nature, and proper destiny of man. His philosophy of human nature postulates a divinely ordered soul as the essence of each individual human being. Each soul is destined for eternal happiness in heaven. Yet, each soul must first exist within an earthly body. This combination of soul and body creates a unique human individual capable of receiving life from God.

But man is no mere animated puppet. He can exercise his freedom

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to accept or reject the inBowing life and love from the creator. If he chooses to accept he will eventually enter eternal happiness in heaven. If he refuses to do so he is permitted to do what he pleases and direct himself toward hell.

The soul and body meet in the mind. The mind is the man himself shaped through the formative power of the soul. Influx from God through heaven flows into the soul and from the soul into the mind which in turn activates the body. To live a good life, according to Swedenborg, a man should look to the Lord through service of the neighbor as the proper object of men's useful pursuits. Such a life of use ends in fulfillment, and such a life, contrary to many religious dogmas, is not difficult to lead. On the other hand a life of evil centers upon the man's own desires to the detriment of others. Conscience leads men to know what is right, but life includes temptations which may dull the conscience. All men are prone to error, but each day brings fresh opportunities for the performance of use as long as he lives. Man can regenerate no matter what his previous life if he genuinely repents and subordinates his own nature to divine order. Such regeneration turns man to his proper destiny-a life of continuing happiness in use to all eternity.

Soul, Mind, and Body

Every man consists [of] . . . the soul, the mind, and the body. His inmost is the soul . . . his intennediate . . . the mind ... and his last ... the body. All that flows into man from the Lord flows into his inmost which is the soul, and descends thence into his intennediate, which is the mind, and through this into his last, which is the body. (CL 101)

The soul acts in and into the body, not through it. The body acts of itself from the soul. The soul does not act through the body, for the two do not consult and deliberate each with the other, nor does the soul command or ask the body to do this or

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that, or to speak from its mouth. Neither does the body demand or beg the soul to give or supply anything. Every thing that belongs to the soul belongs also to the body, mutually and interchangeably. (TCR 154) The soul together with the body, although two, make a one. . . . (AC 2005)

The soul is the inmost man; consequently, is the man from the head to the foot. (INV 13) It is a fallacy ... that the very living part of man, . . . called the soul, is merely something ethereal, or flamy which is dissipated when the man dies. [It is a further fallacy] that it resides in the heart, or in the brain, or in some part of this, and from thence rules the body as if . . . [the body] were a machine. The internal man is in every part of the external man. The eye does not see from itself, nor the ear hear from itself, but from the internal man. . . . (AC 5084)

Everyone is judged according to the quality of his soul. The soul of man is his life, for it is the love of his will, and the love of everyone's will is entirely according to his reception of the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord. . . . (AR 871 )

The soul ... is the human form It is the inmost form of all forms of the entire body In a word, the soul is the man himself, because it is the inmost man. . . . Its form is the human form, fully and perfectly, and yet it is not life, but the nearest receptacle of life from God. . . . (CL 315)

The delight of the soul is . . . love and wisdom from the Lord. As love is effective . . . through wisdom, the seat of both is therefore in the effect, and the effect is use. This delight flows into the soul from the Lord, and descends through the higher and the lower degrees of the mind into all the senses of the body, and fills itself full in them. (CL 8)

All the good a man has thought and done from infancy even to the last of his life, remains [with him]. In like manner all the evil [remains with him] so that not the least of it completely

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perishes. Both are inscribed on his book of life . . . and on his nature. . . . From these he has formed for himself a life · .. [or] soul, which after death is of a corresponding quality. (AC 2256)

The Nature of Man's Mind

In every man, both good and evil, there are two faculties, one of which constitutes the understanding, and the other the will. · .. Through these two faculties ... man is a man. (DP 285) Man is not man from his face, nor even from his speech, but from understanding and will. . . . When he is born he has nothing of understanding and nothing of will. . . . His understanding and ... will are formed by degrees from infancy. From this a man becomes a man. . . . The understanding is formed by means of truths, and the will by means of goods, insomuch that his understanding is nothing else than a composition of such things as bear relation to truths, and his will is nothing else than the affection of such things as are called goods. (AC 10298)

Man is born into no truth, but ... has ... to learn ... [through] hearing and seeing. By this way truth has to be insinuated, and implanted in his memory. [But] so long as the truth is ... [in his memory] only, it is merely memoryknowledge. In order that truth may pervade the man it must be called forth thence, and be conveyed more toward the interiors. · .. Unless man is rational, he is not man. Therefore according to the quality and the measure of a man's rational, such is the quality and the measure of the man. Man cannot possibly be rational unless he possesses good. The good whereby man surpasses the animals, is to love God, and to love the neighbor; all human good is from this. Into this good, truth must be initi

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ated and conjoined, and this in the rational. Truth is initiated into good and conjoined with it when man loves God and loves his neighbor, for then truth enters into good.... (AC 3175)

Man possesses a natural mind and a spiritual mind. The natural mind is below, and the spiritual mind above. The natural mind is the mind of man's world, and the spiritual mind is the mind of his heaven. The natural mind may be called the animal mind, and the spiritual mind the human mind. Man is discriminated from the animal by possessing a spiritual mind. By means of this mind he can be in heaven while still in the world. It is by means of this mind also that man lives after death. (Doct. Life 86)

Differences between Men and Animals

Man is man solely from the will and understanding, by which he is distinguished from brutes. In all other respects he is very similar to them. (AC 594) There are in man from the Lord two capacities whereby he is distinguished from beasts. One of these is the ability to understand what is true and what is good; this is called rationality, and is a capacity of his understanding. The other is an ability to do what is ... good; this is called freedom, and is a capacity of his will. Man by virtue of his rationality is able to think whatever he pleases, either with or against God, either with or against the neighbor. He is also able to will and to do what he thinks. When he sees evil and fears punishment, he is able, by virtue of his freedom, to abstain from doing it. By virtue of these two capacities man is man, and is distingUished from beasts. Man has these two capacities from the Lord, and they are from Him every moment. . . . They [are never] taken away, for if they were, man's human would perish. In these two capacities the Lord is with every man,

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good and evil alike. They are the Lord's abode in the human race. From this it is that all men live for ever, both the good and evil. But the Lord's abode in man is nearer as ... man opens the higher degrees [of his mind] for by the opening of these man comes into higher degrees of love and wisdom, thus nearer to the Lord. From this it can be seen that as these degrees are opened, man is in the Lord and the Lord in him. (DLW 240)

The souls of brutes are such that they cannot do otherwise than look downward, thus to earthly things alone, and therefore can be adjoined solely to such things. They perish together with the body. The ends are what show the quality of the life which man has, and the quality of the life which beasts have. Man is able to have spiritual and heavenly ends. He may see them, acknowledge them, believe them, and be affected with them, whereas beasts can have no other than natural ends. Thus man is able to be in the Divine sphere of ends and uses which is in heaven and which constitutes heaven. But beasts cannot be in any other sphere than that of earthly ends and uses. (AC 3646)

Certain animals seem to have prudence and cunning, connubiallove, friendship and seeming charity, probity and benevolence, in a word, a morality the same as with men. For example, dogs, from a genius innate in them, know how to act as faithful guards as if from their own nature. From the transpiration of their master's affection they know as it were his will. They search him out by perceiving the scent of his footsteps and clothes. They know the different quarters and find their way home, even through pathless regions and dense forests. . . . The sensual man concludes that a dog has knowledge, intelligence and wisdom.... (AE 1198) [But this is not the case.]

Let no one believe that man is man from his possession of a natural human face, body, brain, ... organs and members.

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All these are what die and become a carcass. Man is man from being able to think and will as a man, and thus to receive what is Divine. . . . By this man distinguishes himself from beasts and wild animals. In the other life also his quality as a man is determined by what he has received from the Lord and made his own in the life of the body. (AC 4219)

Influx the Key to Life

Man is not life, but an organ recipient of life from God. (I 13) The life of everyone, whether man, spirit or angel ... flows in solely from the Lord. [He] ... is essential life, and diffuses Himself through the universal heaven, and even through hell. . .. But the life which flows in is received by everyone according to his prevailing principle. Good and truth are received as good and truth by the good. [They] are received as evil and falSity by the wicked, and are even changed into evil and falsity in them. This is comparatively as the light of the sun, which imparts itself to all objects on the face of the earth, but is received according to the nature of each object, and becomes a beautiful calor in beautiful forms, and of an ugly color in ugly forms. This is a mystery in the world, but in the other life nothing is more evident or better known. (AC 2888)

From the Lord through the spiritual world into the subjects of the natural world there is a general influx and also a particular influx. . . . Animals of every kind are in the order of their nature, and therefore into them there is general influx. . . . They are born into all their faculties, and have no need to be introduced into them by any information. But men are not in their order ... and therefore they receive particular influx, that is, there are with them angels and spirits through whom the

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influx comes. Unless these were with men, [man] ... would rush into every wickedness and would plunge in a moment into the deepest hell. (AC 5850)

[From this particular influx] man can be elevated above nature, while the animal cannot. Man can think analytically and rationally of the civil and moral things that are within nature, also of the spiritual and celestial things that are above nature. [Indeed] he can be so elevated into wisdom as even to see God. (DWL66)

In every man there is an inmost or highest degree . . . into which the Divine of the Lord primarily . . . flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that follow in accordance with the degrees of order. This inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of the Lord to the angel or man, and His veriest dwelling-place in them. It is by virtue of this inmost or highest that a man is a man, and is distinguished from irrational animals, for these do not have it. From this it is that man, unlike the animals, is capable, in respect to being raised up by the Lord to Himself, or believing in the Lord, of being moved by . . . love to the Lord, and thereby beholding Him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. Also, it is by virtue of this that he lives to eternity. (HH 39)

Love, the Essence of Life

A man is wholly such as is the ruling principle of his life. By this he is distinguished from others. According to this is formed his heaven if he is good, and his hell if he is evil. It is his veriest will, and thus the very being of his life, which cannot be changed after death. (AC 8858)

There are three universal loves of which, from creation, every

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man is composed: the love of the neighbor which is also the love of performing uses: the love of the world which is also the love of possessing wealth; and the love of self which is also the love of ruling others. The love of the neighbor or the love of performing uses is a spiritual love. The love of the world which is also the love of possessing wealth is a material love. Love of self or the love of ruling over others is a corporeal love. Man is man when the love of the neighbor or the love of doing uses makes the head, and the love of the world makes the body, and the love of self, the feet. But if the love of the world forms the head, man is not a man-other than as it were a humpback. When the love of self makes the head, he is not a man standing on his feet but on his palms, with the head downwards and the buttocks upwards. (CL 269)

Love is the ... essence of a man's life, and ... thought is the . . . existence of his life therefrom. Speech and action therefore, which flow forth from thought, do not flow really from the thought, but from the love by the thought. . . . Man after death is not his own thought, but is his own affection and the thought therefrom. He is his own love and intelligence thence. After death man puts off everything that does not accord with his love. He successively puts on the face, tone of voice, speech, gesture, and manner of his life's love. Hence it is that the universal heaven is disposed in order according to all the varieties of the affections of the love of good. The universal hell [is disposed] according to all the affections of the love of evil. (CL 36)

The Good Life

Good works are all things that a man does, writes, preaches, and even speaks, not from self but from the Lord. He acts,

~

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writes, preaches, and speaks from the Lord when he is living according to the laws of his religion. The laws of . . . religion are that one God is to be worshiped, that adulteries, thefts, murders, false witness, must be shunned, thus also frauds, unlawful gains, hatreds, revenge, lies, blasphemies, and many other things that are mentioned not alone in the Decalogue but everywhere else in the Word, and are called sins against God and also abominations. When man shuns these because they are opposed to the Word, and thence opposed to God, and because they are from hell, then man . . . is . . . led by the Lord. So far as he is led by the Lord . . . his works [are] good. He is then led to do goods and to speak truths for the sake of goods and for the sake of truths, and not for the sake of self and the world. Uses are his enjoyments, and truths his delights. Moreover, he is daily taught by the Lord what he must do and what he must say, also what he must preach or what he must write. When evils are removed he is continually under the Lord's guidance and in enlightenment. Yet he is not led and taught immediately by any dictate, or by any perceptible inspiration, but by an influx into his spiritual delight, from which he has perception according to the truths of which his understanding consists. When he acts from this influx, he appears to be acting as if from himself, and yet he acknowledges in heart that it is from the Lord. (AE 825)

One man excels another in the capacity to understand and perceive what is honorable in moral life, what is just in civil life, and what is good in spiritual life. The cause of this consists in the elevation of the thought to the things that pertain to heaven, whereby the thought is withdrawn from the external things of sense. They who think solely from the things of sense cannot see one whit of what is honorable, just, and good, and therefore they trust to others and speak much from the memory, and thereby appear to themselves wiser than others. But

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they who are able to think above the things of sense . . . possess a greater capacity than others to understand and perceive, and this according to the degree in which they view things from what is interior. (AC 6598)

There are some who believe that to live the life that leads to heaven . . . is difficult, because they have been told that man must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They understand this to mean that they must discard worldly things, which consist chiefly in riches and honors ... [and] that they must walk continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life, and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. Such is their idea of renouncing the world, and living in the spirit and not in the flesh.... [But] those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a sorrowful life that is not receptive of heavenly joy, since everyone's life continues the same after death. On the contrary, to receive the life of heaven a man must ... live in the world and engage in its business and employments, and by means of a moral and civil life . . . receive the spiritual life. In no other way can the spiritual life be formed in man, or his spirit [be] prepared for heaven. (HH 528)

A man can live outwardly as others do, can grow rich, keep a plentiful table, dwell in an elegant house and wear fine clothing according to his condition and function, can enjoy delights and gratifications, and engage in worldly affairs for the sake of his occupation and business and for the life both of the mind and body, provided he inwardly acknowledges the Divine and wishes well to the neighbor. . . . To enter upon the way to heaven is not so difficult as many believe. The sole difficulty lies in being able to resist the love of self and the world, and to

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prevent their becoming dominant. .. [They are] the source of all evils. (HH 359)

Both the pious and the impious . . . , the just and the unjust . . . , the good and the evil, alike enjoy dignities and possessions, and yet . . . the impious and unjust . . . come into hell, while the pious and just . . . come into heaven. . . . Dignities and riches, or honors and possessions are both blessings and curses. [They are] blessings to the good and curses to the evil. . . . In heaven there are both rich and poor, and both great and smalL and in hell also. . . . Dignities and riches were blessings in the world to those now in heaven, and were curses in the world to those now in hell. . . . They are blessings to those who do not set their hearts upon them, and curses to those who do set their hearts upon them. To set the heart upon them is to love oneself in them. Not to set the heart upon them is to love uses in them, and not self. (DP 217)

An Evil Life

Man was so created that all that he wills, thinks, and does appears to him just as if in himself and thus of himself. Without this appearance man would not be man, for he could not receive, retain, and . . . appropriate to himself anything of good and tmth, or of love and wisdom.... Without this ... living appearance, man would have no conjunction with God, and therefore no eternal life. But, if from this appearance, he induces on himself the belief that he does will, think, and . . . do good of hinlself, and not from the Lord . . . he . . . turns good into evil within him, and . . . makes in himself the origin of evil. This was the sin of Adam. (CL 444)

The love from which deeds are done is either heavenly or

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THE ESSE~TIAL SWEDENBORG

infernal. ... What is done from ... [infernal] love, which is the love of self and the world, is done from man himself, and everything that is done from man himself is . . . evil. Man regarded in himself, that is, in regard to what is his own, is nothing but evil. (HH 484)

Man when born is, among all wild animals and beasts, the vilest creature living. When he grows up and becomes his own master, if not hindered by outward bonds of the law, and bonds which he imposes on himself for the purpose of gaining . . . honor and wealth, he would rush into every crime and not rest until he had subjugated all in the universe, and raked together the wealth of all. . . . He would not spare any but those who submitted to be his humble servants. Such is the nature of every man. . . . Let the pOSSibility and power be given, and the bonds be relaxed, and they would rush on to the extent of their ability.

[But] the Lord ... rules over evil in man and over hell with him. In order that the evil in man may be subjugated . . . man is regenerated by the Lord and endowed with a new will, which is conscience, through which the Lord alone performs all good. These are points of faith: that man is nothing but evil, and that all good is from the Lord. (AC 987)

Conscience

The good and truth that inflow from the Lord actuate ... [the interior] conscience.... The exterior conscience ... [is actuated by] . . . what is [morally and civilly] just and equitable. . . . There is also an outermost plane which . . . appears as conscience, but is not conscience; doing ... what is just and equitable for the sake of self and the world .

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[or] for the sake of one's own honor or fame . . . , [cannot be called bue conscience.] These three planes . . . rule man. . . . By means of the interior plane ... the Lord rules those who have been regenerated. By means of the exterior plane . . . the Lord rules those who have not yet been regenerated, but ... are being regenerated, if not in the life of the body yet, in the other life. But by means of the outermost plane, which [only] appears like conscience . . . the Lord rules all the rest, even the evil. Without [the restraints of this plane the evil] would rush into all wicked and insane things. (AC 4167)

With the regenerate man there is joy when he acts according to conscience, and anxiety when he is forced to do or think contrary to it. It is not so with the unregenerate, for very many such men do not know what conscience is, much less what it is to do the things that favor their loves. This is what gives them joy, and when they do what is contrary to their loves, this is what gives them anxiety. With the regenerate man there is a new will and a new understanding, and this new will and new understanding are his conscience. . . . Through this the Lord works the good of charity and the truth of faith. With an unregenerate man there is not will, but . . . cupidity, and a consequent proneness to every evil. Neither is there understanding, but mere reasoning and a consequent falling away to every falsity. With the . . . man [of conscience] there is celestial and spiritual life. With the ... man [lacking conscience] there is only corporeal and worldly life. . . . (AC 977)

Temptations

Temptation is an assault upon the love in which [a] ... man is, and the temptation is in the same degree as is the love.

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If the love is not assaulted, there is no temptation. To destroy anyone's love is to destroy his very life, for the love is the life. (AC 1690)

Temptations ... are the means by which evils and falsities are broken up and dispersed and by which horror of them is induced.... Conscience [is] given [and] also strengthened thereby and so the man is regenerated (AC 1692)

There are spiritual temptations, and there are natural temptations. Spiritual temptations belong to the internal man, but natural ones to the external man. Spiritual temptations sometimes arise without natural temptations, sometimes with them. Natural temptations exist when a man suffers as to the body, as to honors, as to wealth, in a word, as to the natural life, as is the case in disease, misfortunes, persecutions, punishments, and the like. The anxieties which then arise, are what are meant by "natural temptations."

[However] ... , these temptations ... [cannot be called genuine] but griefs. They arise from the wounding of the natural life, which is that of the love of self and of the world. The wicked are sometimes in these griefs, and they grieve and are tormented in proportion to the extent of their love of self and of the world....

Spiritual temptations belong to the internal man, and assault his spiritual life. In this case the anxieties are not on account of any loss of natural life, but on account of the loss of faith and charity, and consequently of salvation. These temptations are frequently induced by means of natural temptations, for if when a man is . . . in disease, grief, the loss of wealth or honor, and the like-he begins to think about the Lord's aid . . . then spiritual temptation is conjoined with natural temptation. (AC 8164) [But] spiritual temptations are little known at this day. Nor are they permitted to such a degree as for

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merly, because man is not in the truth of faith, and would therefore succumb. (AC 762)

Every temptation is attended with some kind of despair . . . and ... consolation follows. He who is tempted is brought into anxieties, which induce a state of despair as to what the end is to be. The very combat of temptation is nothing else. He who is sure of Victory is not in anxiety, and therefore is not in temptation. (AC 1787) No one undergoes temptations until he has arrived at adult age. (AC 4248)

\JVhen a man is in temptation he is as it were in hunger for good, and in thirst for truth. Therefore when he emerges he draws in good as a hungry man devours food, and receives truth as a thirsty man imbibes drink. . . . After the obscurity and anxiety of temptations, brightness and gladness appear. (AC 8829)

Regeneration

It is the unceasing effort of the Lord in His divine providence to conjoin man to Himself and Himself to man. This conjunction is what is called reformation and regeneration. By it man has salvation. (DP 123)

[Many] suppose that a man can be regenerated without temptation, and some that he has been regenerated when he has undergone one temptation. But ... without temptation no one is regenerated, and . . . many temptations follow on, one after another. . . . Regeneration takes place to the end that the life of the old man may die, and the new heavenly life be insinuated. . . . There must . . . be a fight, for the life of the old man resists, and is not willing to be extinguished, and the life of the new man cannot enter except where the life of

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the old man has been extinguished. . . . There is a fight on both sides, and this fight is a fiery one, because it is for life. . . . Very many kinds of evil have made the delight of his former life.... It is impossible for all these evils to be suddenly and simultaneously mastered, because they cling to the man very firmly, having been rooted in parents from time immemorial, and consequently are innate in him. [They are also] confirmed in him from his infancy through his own actual evils. All these evils are diametrically opposite to the heavenly good that is to be insinuated, and that is to make the new life. (AC 8403)

Temptation is the beginning of regeneration. . . . All regeneration has for its end that man may receive new life.... (AC 848) Man is born into evils of every kind, and consequently into falsities of every kind, thus of himself he is condemned to hell. In order . . . that he may be rescued from hell, he must . . . be born again of the Lord. This being born again is what is called regeneration. In order . . . that he may be born again, he must first learn truths, and if he is of the church he must learn them from the Word, or from doctrine derived from the Word. The Word and doctrine from the Word teach what is true and good and truth and good teach what is false and evil. Unless man knows these, he cannot possibly be regenerated, for he remains in his evils and their falsities, calling the former goods, and the latter truths. . . . The knowledges of truth and good must precede, and must enlighten the man's understanding. The understanding was given to man in order that it may be enlightened by means of the knowledges of good and truth, to the end that these may be received by his will, and may become good.

Truths become good when the man wills them, and from willing them does them. . . . Whether you say to will what is good, or to love what is good, it is the same. What a man loves

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he wills. And whether you say to understand the truth which is of good, or to believe it, it is also the same. . . . With the regenerate man love and faith act as a one. This conjunction, or this marriage, is what is called the church, and heaven, and al')o the Lord's kingdom. In the supreme sense [this conjunction is] the Lord with man. (AC 10367)

As man is formed, so is he perfected in intelligence and wisdom, and becomes a man. No man is a man from his natural mind; from that he is rather a beast. He becomes a man through intelligence and wisdom from the Lord, and so far as he is intelligent and wise he is a beautiful man and an angel of heaven. But so far as he rejects, suffocates, and perverts the truths and goods of the Word ... and ... rejects intelligence and wisdom, so far he is a monster and not a man, because he is so far a devil. . . . (AE 790)

God, in accordance with His laws, is able to remit sins to any man only so far as the man, in accordance with his laws, refrains from them. God is able to regenerate a man spiritually only so far as the man, in accordance with his laws regenerates himself naturally. God is in an unceasing endeavor to regenerate man, and thus save him. But this He is unable to accomplish except as man prepares himself as a receptacle, and thus levels the way and opens the door for God. (TCR 73)

Man who is being regenerated, is not deprived of the delight of the pleasures of the body and lower mind. He fully enjoys this delight after regeneration, and more fully than before, but in inverse ratio. Before regeneration, the delight of pleasures was everything of his life. After regeneration the delight of pleasures serves as a means . . . [or] ultimate plane, in which spiritual good with its happiness and blessedness terminates. (AC 8413)

No one can ever say that he is regenerate unless he acknowledges and believes that charity is the primary thing of his faith,

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and unless he is affected with love toward the neighbor, and has mercy on him. (AC 989) Before he is regenerated a man cannot but think of reward; but it is otherwise when he has been regenerated. He is then indignant if anyone thinks that he benefits his neighbor for the sake of reward, for he feels delight and blessedness in imparting benefits and not in recompense. (AC 8002) With the regenerate the internal man has the dominion, the external being obedient and submissive. With the unregenerate the external man rules, the internal being quiescent, as if it had no existence. The regenerate man knows ... on reflection, what the internal man is, and what the external. Of these the unregenerate man is altogether ignorant, nor can he know them even if he reflects, since he is unacquainted with the good and truth of faith originating in charity. . . . The regenerate, and ... the unregenerate man ... differ from each other like summer and winter, and light and darkness. The regenerate is a living, but the unregenerate a dead man. (AC 977)

The life before regeneration is according to the precepts of faith, but after regeneration it is according to the precepts of charity. Before regeneration no one knows from affection what charity is, but only from doctrine. . .. After regeneration . . . he . . . loves his neighbor, and from the heart wills good to him. He then lives according to a law that is written on him, for he acts from the affection of charity. This state is utterly different from the former state. They who are in the first state are in obscurity in respect to the truths and goods of faith, but they who are in the latter state are relatively in clearness. (AC 8073)

With one who is regenerated the order of life is reversed; from being natural he becomes spiritual. . . . The regenerate man acts from charity. Whatever belongs to his charity he makes to be of his faith also. Yet he becomes spiritual only so

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far as he is in truths. Man is regenerated only by means of truths and a life in accordance with them. By means of truth he knows what life is, and by means of life he does the truths, and thus he conjoins good and truth, which is the spiritual marriage in which heaven is. (DP 83)

Man knows nothing of how he is being regenerated, and scarcely that he is being regenerated. But if he is desirous to know this, let him merely attend to the ends which he proposes to himself, and which he rarely discloses to anyone. If the ends are toward good ... [and] he cares more for his neighbor and the Lord than for himself, then he is in a state of regeneration. But if the ends are toward evil ... [and] he cares more for himself than for his neighbor and the Lord . . . he is in no state of regeneration. (AC 3570)

There is no definite period of time within which man's regeneration is completed, so that he can say, "I am now perfect." There are illimitable states of evil and falsity with every man, not only simple states but also states in many ways compounded, which must be so far shaken off as no longer to appear. . . . In some states the man may be said to be more perfect, but in very many others not so. Those who have been regenerated in the life of the body and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are continually being perfected in the other life. (AC 894)

Every man, while he is led by any love, and while following whithersoever it carries him, supposes himself to be free, whereas it is the evil spirits in whose company ... [or] torrent, he is, that are carrying him away. This the man supposes to be the greatest freedom, so much so that he believes that the loss of this state would bring him into a life most wretched, indeed into no life at all. He believes this not merely because he is unaware of the existence of any other life, but also because he is under the impression that no one can come into heaven

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except through miseries, poverty, and the loss of pleasures. But . . . this impression is false. . . . Man never comes into a state of [genuine) freedom until he has been regenerated, and is led by the Lord through love for what is good and true. When he is in this state, then for the first time can he know and perceive what freedom is, because he then knows what life is, and what the true delight of life is, and what happiness is. Before this he does not even know what good is, sometimes calling that the greatest good which is the greatest evil. (AC 892)

Man's regeneration in the world is ... [the] plane for the perfecting of his life to eternity. (AC 9334)

P1'Oper Destiny of Man

Man is born not for the sake of himself but for the sake of others ... , to serve his fellow-citizens, SOciety, his country, the church, and thus the Lord. He who does this provides well for himself to eternity. (TCR 406)

There are four periods of life through which man passes from infancy to old age. The first is when he acts from others according to instructions, the second, when he acts from himself, under the gUidance of the understanding, the third, when the will acts upon the understanding, and the understanding regulates the will, and the fourth, when he acts from confirmed principles and deliberate purpose. But these periods of life are

. the periods of the life of a man's spirit, not in like manner of his body. The body can act morally and speak rationally while its spirit is willing and thinking opposite things. That this is the nature of the natural man is obvious in the case of pretenders, flatterers, liars, and hypocrites. These . . . enjoy a double mind ... divided into two discordant ... [parts]. It is

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otherwise with those who will rightly and think rationally, and consequently act rightly and talk rationally. (TCR 443)

To serve the Lord, by doing according to His commandments and thus by obeying Him, is not to be a servant but is to be free. The veriest freedom of man consists in being led of the Lord, because the Lord inspires into the very will of man the good from which he is to act, and though it is from the Lord, still it is perceived as if it were from self, thus from freedom. This freedom is possessed by all who are in the Lord, and it is conjoined with inexpressible happiness. (AC 8988)

The Lord loves all, and from love wills good to all, and good is use. As the Lord does goods or uses mediately through the angels, and in the world through men, therefore to them that perform uses faithfully He gives the love of use and its reward which is internal blessedness. This is eternal happiness. (CL 7) No man enjoys affection or perception so like another's as to be the same; nor can such ever be. Moreover, affections may be fructified and perceptions multiplied without end. Knowledge is inexhaustible. . . . (DP 57) Man can . . . be perfected in knowledge, intelligence and wisdom to eternity. (CL 134) When ... [man] is gifted with tmths he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom. When he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom he is blessed with happiness to eternity. (AC 5651)

Nature of the Universe

In Swedenborg's view the spiritu~ and natural world form two interrelated parts of one creation. The two result from the outflowing of diVinely creative love and wisdom. They are so interdependent that one cannot survive without the other.

Creation looks t~ on~ _end-a heaven J?-eopled with spiritual be)1 ings who first established their eternal individuality in the natural

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world. All earths have the same essential E!!rpose and, therefore, endless varieties of the human race exist.

On anyone globe, everything material serves the uses of man in order that man in his turn may better perform uses to other men. Such human service truly promotes the divine purpose in the universe.

There is a spiritual world, and also a natural world. . . . The spiritual world is where spirits and angels dwell; the natural world is where men dwell.... Natural things represent spiritual things and ... they correspond.... What is natural cannot possibly come forth except from a cause prior to itself. Its cause is from what is spiritual. There is nothing natural which does not thence derive its cause. Natural forms are effects, nor can they appear as causes, still less as causes of causes, or beginnings. They receive their forms according to the use in the place where they are. . . . All natural things represent . . . the spiritual things to which they correspond. . . . (AC 2990-91) All things in the world present some idea of the Lord's kingdom, consequently of things celestial and spiritual. .. (AC 1409) God is love itself and wisdom itself. The affections of His love

. . and the perceptions of His wisdom are infinite. All things that appear on earth are correspondences [of divine love and wisdom]. This is the origin of birds, beasts, forest trees, fmit trees, crops and harvests, herbs and grasses. God is not extended, and yet He is present throughout all extension, thus throughout the universe from its firsts to its lasts. He being thus omnipresent, there are . . . correspondences of the affections of His love and wisdom in the whole natural world.... [In the spiritual world, there are like correspondences with those who are receiving affections and perceptions from God.

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THE SOURCE OF LIFE

[In the spiritual] world such things are created by God from moment to moment in accordance with the affections of the angels. In [the natural] world they were created in like manner in the beginning. But it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another, and creation be thus continued. In [the spiritual] world creation is from moment to moment, and in [the natural] continued by propagation, because the atmospheres and earths of . . . [one] are spiritual, and the atmosphere and earths of [the other] . . . natural. Natural things were created to clothe spiritual things as skin clothes the bodies of men and animals, as outer and inner barks clothe the trunks and branches of trees, the several membranes clothe the brain, tunics the nerves, and the inner coats their fibers, and so on. (TCR 78)

The created universe is a connected w,.2rk, from love by wisdom. (I5) All things in the world were created after the image 'I of things that are in heaven, because natural 'things come forth from spiritual things as effects from their causes. . . . Universal nature is a theater representative of the Lord's kingdom. (AC 8812)

The relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. Degrees ,are of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not. Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. . . . On the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but 'discrete,? are distinguished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what

r.. produces and what is produced. . . . In each thing and all Ithings in the whole world there are such degrees of producing and compounding (HH 38) Things which are in

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an inte!ior d~g!ee are more perfect than those which are in an exterior degree, and there is no likeness between them except through correspondences. (AC 10181)

So full of Divine Love and DiY.ll!~i~dom is _the universe in greatest and least, an-d in first and last things, thatItffiay be said to be Divin~ LovjLa.nd_Divine WiseJom in an image.... There is such correspondence of each and every thing that takes form in the created universe with each and every thing of man, that man may be said to be a sort of universe. There is a correspondence of his affections, and thence of his thoughts, with all things of the animal kingdom, of his will, and thence of his understanding, with all things of the vegetable kingdom, and of his outmost life with all things of the mineral kingdom. . . . In . . . the spiritual world there are all things that take form in the natural world in its ~hree kingdoms,! and they are correspondences of affections and thoughts.... (DLW 52)

Previous to creation God was love itself and wisdom itself and the union of these two in the effort to accomplish uses. Love and wisdom apart from use are only fleeting matters of reason, which flyaway if not applied to use. The first two, separated from the third, are like birds flying above a great ocean, which are at length exhausted by flying, and fall down and are drowned. The ~erse was created by God to give existence to

{uses.... [And] may be called ~ theater of uses. [As] man is the chief end of creation . . . each and all things belonging to order were brought together and concentrated in him, to the end that through him God might accomplish primary uses. Love and wisdom apart from ... use, may be likened to the sun's heat and light which, if they did not operate upon men, animals, and vegetables, would be worthless things. By influx into and operation upon these they become real. (rCR 67)

Creation commenced from the supreme or inmost, because '2. from the Divine, and proceeded to ultima~~emes.

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The ultimate" of creation i~_th~natural \Y9rld, including the terraqueous globe, with all things on it. When these were finished, then man was created, and into him were collated all things of Divine order from firsts toJas~. . . . (L] 9) The~atural world derives from the l'Eiritual, and the spiritual world from theDivine~(DLW 293)

There are many earths with inhabitants upon them.... Planets, some of which surpass this earth in magnitude, are not empty masses, created only to course about the sun, and give light to one earth. Their use must be of greater eminence than this. He who believes, as everyone ought to believe, that

!\ the Divine cr.eated the universe for no other en~an that t:l.!.e h~~ race !!l~y arise, and a heaven therefrom . . . cannot but believe that there are men wherever there is any earth. The planets which are visible to our eyes, being within the boundaries of this solar system, are earths. . . . They are bodies of earthy material, because they reflect the sun's light. Also ... they, like our earth, revolve around the sun, and thereby make years and seasons of the year-spring, summer, autumn, and winter,-with variation according to climate. Likewise . . . they revolve upon their own axis like our earth, and thereby make days and times of the day-morning, noon, evening, and night. . . . (AC 6697)

Each and all things of the universe were created by God. Hence the universe, with each and every thing pertaining to it, is called in the Word the work of the hands of Jehovah. There are those who maintain that the world, with everything it includes, was created out of nothing, and of that nothing an idea of absolute nothingness is entertained. From absolute nothingness, however, nothing is or can be made. This is an established truth. The universe, therefore, which is GQ..d's image and consequently fuITOf God, could be created only in God from God. God is Esse itself. and ,from Esse must be whatever is. To create ..,

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11 what is, from nothing which is not, is an ~SQ!ltradiction. Still that which is created in God from God, is not continuous from Him. God is Esse in itself, and in created t~ings there is

Inot any_Esse in itself. If there were in created things any Esse in itself, this would be continuous from God, and that which is

, continuous from God is God. (DLW 55) There are two §uns through which all things were created by

!he Lo@, the sun of the spiritual wo!!d;and the sun of the natural world.",. . . The universe and all things thereof were created by the Lord, the sun of the spiritual world serving as a medium, because that sun is the first proceeding of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and from Divine Love and Divine Wis.dom all things are. In every thing created, greatest as well as least, there are ... end, cause and effect. A created thing in which these three are not, is impossible. (DLW 153-54)

The spiritual universe cannot exist without a natural univ~rse

wherein it can-work out its effect and uses, so . . . a sun was created from which all natural things proceed, and through which in like manner, by means of heat and light, ... atmospheres were created. . . . By means of these atmospheres the terraqueous globe was created where man, beasts, fishes, trees, shrubs, and herbs were formed of earthly substances, composed of soil, stones, and minerals. This is a very general outline of creation and its progress. It would require many volumes to explain the particular and most particular things of it; yet all things point to the conclusion that God did not create the universe out of nothing, for ... out of nothing, nothing comes. He created it by means of the sun of the angelic heaven, which is from His very Esse,; and is therefore nothing but love joined with wisdom. That the univers~ by which is meant both the spiritual world and the natural,.1Vorld, was created from the Divine love by means of the Divine wisdom is attested and proved by each thing and all things in it. (TCR 76)

---......

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The end of all things of creation is that there can be an eternal conjunction of the Creator with the created universe. This is not possible unless there are subjects wherein His Divine can be as in Itself, thus in which it can dwell and abide.... These subjects are men, who are able as of themselves to elevate and conjoin themselves [to heaven].... By means of this conjunction, the Lord is present in every work created by Him. (DLW 170)

All things that have been created in the world have been created for the use, . . . benefit, and . . . delight of men, some more nearly, some mOre remotely. Since ... these things have been created for man's sake, it follows that they are for the Lord's service, who is ... life with men. (DW xii) The world is a complex of uses existing in a successive order, looking to the human race from which is the angelic heaven as its end. . . . How wonderful it is that the insignificant silkworm should clothe with silk and magnificently adorn both women and men, from queens and kings to maidservants and menservants, and that a petty insect like the bee should supply wax for the tapers which make temples and palaces brilliant. (TCR 13) All things in the universe . . . are procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use. (CL 183)

Man is ~ means by which the natural wo~ and the spirit- 11 ual world are conjoined. Mall is the medium of conjunction,}J because in him there is a natural world and there is a spiritual world. To the extent that man is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction, but to the extent that a man is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. (HH 112)

He who knows not the arcana of heaven, may believe that angels subsist without men and men without angels. But . . . no angel or spirit subsists without man, and no man without spirits and angels. There is a mutual and reciprocal conjunction. . . . The human race and the angelic heaven make one,

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and mutually and reciprocally subsist from each other, and thus ... the one cannot be taken away from the other. (L] 9)

Almost all who pass from this world into the other life suppose that hell is the same for everyone, and that heaven is the same for everyone. And yet in both there are endless diversities and varieties, and neither the heaven nor the hell of one person is ever exactly like another. . . . Everyone is formed by the harmony of many components, and ... such as is the harmony, such is the one.... Thus every society in the heavens forms a one, and so do all the societies together [form] ... the universal heaven, and this from the Lord alone, through love. (AC 457)

In the created universe no two things can be found that are identical. . . . [Nor can] two effects . . . be found that are identical among things . . . in the world. . . . In human faces ... throughout the entire world there can be found no one face that is precisely like ... another, nor can there be to eternity. This infinite variety would be impossible except from an infinity in God the Creator. (TCR 32)

Divine Providence

The subject of divine influence in human affairs has been debated by philosophers and theologians through the centuries. Swedenborg, in keeping with the explicit character of his writings, goes to considerable length to spell out the details of the workings of divine prOvidence. For him, providence works in every general and particular happening. All events, no matter how minute, contribute to the eternal welfare of man.

But since man would feel himself to be nothing if he perceived the workings of providence in advance, the Lord provides that man not see these workings "in the face" but merely sense them "in the back" after time has gone by. If man lives a prudent life yet does

~

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not place confidence in his own prudence he will merge himself with the stream of providence. His life, while it will be marked by the normal ebb and Bow of human events will generally be directed well. Still he is free to direct himself otherwise, for the laws of providence provide always for man's continual freedom. In Swedenborg's view of life, an all-wise providence looks constantly to allowing each individual the power to seek his own happiness.

The activity of divine providence to save man begins at his birth and continues to the close of his life and afterwards to eternity.... A heaven from mankind is the very purpose of the creation of the universe. This purpose in its operation and progress is the divine providence for the salvation of man. All which is external to man and available to him for use is a secondary end in creation.... [Yet] ... all [material things] constantly proceed according to laws of divine order fixed at the first of creation. [Since this is the case with the material world] how can the primary end, which is the salvation of the human race, fail to proceed constantly according to laws of its order, which are the laws of divine providence?

Observe just a fruit tree. It springs up first as a slender shoot from a tiny seed, grows gradually into a stalk, spreads branches which become covered with leaves, and then puts forth flowers and bears fruit in which it deposits fresh seed to provide for its perpetuation. This is also true of every shrub and of every herb of the field. Do not each and all things in tree or shrub proceed constantly and wonderfully from purpose to purpose according to the laws of their order of things? Why would not the supreme end, a heaven from the human race, proceed in similar fashion? Can there be anything in its progress which does not proceed with all constancy according to the laws of divine providence? There is a correspondence of man's life with the growth of a tree. . . . (DP 332)

The Divine omnipotence is in order, and ... its govern

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ment, which is called Providence, is in accordance with order. It acts continually and to eternity in accordance with the laws of order. [It cannot] ... act against them or change them one iota, because order, with all its laws, is [God] Himself. (TCR 73)

The Divine providence is Divine order with primary regard to the salvation of men. There is no order pOSSible without laws, for laws are what constitute order, and every law derives from order that it is order.... [As] God is order so is He the Law of His order. The same . . . [can] be said of the Divine providence, that as the Lord is His providence He is also the law of His providence. . . . The Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His prOVidence, for to act contrary to them would be to act contrary to Himself. Again, there can be no operation except upon a subject and upon it through means.... The subject of the Divine providence is men. The means are the Divine truths whereby man gains wisdom and the Divine good whereby he gains love. The Divine prOvidence through these means works out its end, which is man's salvation.... The operation of the Divine proVidence for the salvation of man begins at his birth and continues until the end of his life and afterwards to eternity. (DP 331)

Unless man were led every moment and fraction of a moment by the Lord he would depart from the way of reformation and would perish. Every change and variation of the state of the human mind produces some change and variation in the series of things present, and consequently in the things that follow. . . . It is like an arrow shot from a bow, which, if it should depart in the least at its start from the line of aim, would at a distance of a thousand paces or more go far wide of the mark. So would it be if the Lord did not lead the states of human minds every least moment. This the Lord does in accordance

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with the laws of His Divine providence. It is in accordance with these laws that it should appear to man that he leads himself. How he leads himself is foreseen by the Lord with an unceasing adaptation. (DP 202)

The Lord's Divine providence is universal because it is in particulars, and . . . particular because it is universal. The Lord acts from inmosts and from outmosts simultaneously. . . . In this and in no other way can all things and each thing be held together in connection. Intermediates are connected in unbroken series from inrnosts even to outmosts, and in outmosts they are together. In the outmost there is a simultaneous presence of all things from the first. . . . (DP 124)

[God] from Himself governs order, not as is supposed in the universal only, but also in the veriest singulars, for the universal comes from these. To speak of the universal, and to separate from it the singulars, would be nothing else than to speak of a whole in which there are no parts, and therefore to speak of a something in which there is nothing. To say the Lord's Providence is universal, and is not a Providence of the veriest singulars is to say what is utterly false.... To provide and govern in the universal, and not in the veriest singulars, is to provide and govern absolutely nothing. This is true philosophically, and yet wonderful to say, philosophers themselves, even those who soar the highest, apprehend the matter differently. . . . (AC 1919)

Unless the Lord's Providence was in the veriest singulars, it would be impOSSible for man to be saved, or indeed to live, for life is from the Lord, and all the moments of life have a series of consequences to eternity. (AC 6490) The Divine foresight and providence are in everything, even the very least. Unless this was so . . . the human race would perish. (AC 5122)

The Lord foresees . . . all things in both general and partic

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ular, and provides and disposes therefore, but some things from permission, some from sufferance, some from leave, some from good pleasure, some from will. (AC 1755)

The Divine Providence differs from a]l other leading and gUidance in the fact that Providence continually regards what is eternal, and continually leads unto salvation . . . through various states, sometimes glad, sometimes sorrowful, which the man cannot possibly comprehend. Still they are all profitable to his eternal life. (AC 8560) When the Lord is with anyone, He leads him, and provides that all things which happen, whether sad or joyful, befall him for good. This is the Divine providence. (AC 6303)

The Divine providence proceeds so secretly that man can see scarcely a trace of it, and yet it is active in the most minute particulars relating to him from infancy to old age in the world, and afterwards to eternity. In each one of these it is the eternal that is regarded. As the Divine wisdom is in itself nothing but an end, so providence acts from an end, in an end, and to an end. The end is that man may become wisdom and ... love, and thus a dwelling place and an image of the Divine life. (AE 1135)

It is the constant aim of divine providence to unite good to truth and truth to good in a man, for so he is united to the Lord. (DP 21) The Lord's divine prOVidence continually operates in order that truth may be united in man with good and good with truth, because that union is the church and heaven. That union is in the Lord and in all that proceeds from Him. From that union, heaven and the church are called a marriage, .and the kingdom of God is likened in the Word to a marriage. (DP 21)

It is a law of Divine providence that man shall act from freedom according to reason. (DP 71 ) The Lord leads everyone by means of his affections, and thus bends him by a tacit providence, for He leads him through freedom. (AC 364) It is a

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[further] law of ... providence that man shall not perceive or feel any of the activity of [the] Divine . . . , and yet should know and acknowledge providence. (DJ> 175) The Lord by His . . . providence continually leads man in freedom, and the freedom always appears to man to be that which is his own. To lead man in freedom in opposition to himself, is like raising a heavy and resisting weight from the earth by means of screws, through the power of which the weight and resistance are not felt. It is [also] like a man in company with an enemy who intends to kill him, which at the time he does not know. A friend leads him away by unknown paths, and afterwards discloses his enemy's intention. (DP 211 )

The Lord . . . foresaw that it would be impossible for any good to be rooted in man except in his freedom, for whatever is not rooted in freedom is dissipated on the first approach of evil and temptation. The Lord also [foresaw] that man of himself, or from his freedom, would incline toward the deepest hell. Therefore the Lord provides that if a man should not suffer himself to be led in freedom to heaven, he may still be bent toward a milder hell. If he should suffer himself to be led in freedom to good, he may be led to heaven. This shows what foresight means, and what providence, and that what is foreseen is thus provided. . . . Every smallest moment of man's life involves a series of consequences extending to eternity, each moment being as a new beginning to those which follow. . . . As the Lord foresaw from eternity what would be man's quality . . . to eternity, . . . His proVidence is in the veriest singulars, and . . . governs and bends the man . . . by a continual moderating of his freedom. (AC 3854)

Man would run counter to God, and also deny Him, if he clearly saw the workings of ... Divine providence, because man is in the enjoyment of self-love. That enjoyment constitutes his very life. . . . If . . . he had a perception of being

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continually led away from his enjoyment he would be enraged as against one who wished to destroy his life, and would regard him as an enemy. To prevent this the Lord does not manifestly appear in His Divine providence, but by it He leads men as silently as a hidden current or favoring tide bears a vessel. (DP 186)

It is granted man to see the Divine prOVidence in the back and not in the face [and] also to see it in a spiritual state and not in his natural state. To see the Divine providence in the back and not in the face is to see it after it occurs and not before. To see it from a spiritual, and not from a natural state, is to see it from heaven and not from the world. (DP 187)

It is a law of Divine providence that man shall not be compelled by external means to think and will, thus to believe and love what pertains to religion, but rather to bring himself and at times compel himself to do so. (DP 129) No one is reformed by miracles and signs . . . nor by visions or . . . communication with the dead, for they coerce. (DP 130,134) If man perceived or felt the activity of divine providence he would not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anything appear to be his own doing. It would be the same if he foreknew events. . . . He would thus have no selfhood and nothing could be imputed to him. In that case whether he believed in God or was under the persuasion of hell would be immaterial. In a word, he would not be a human being. . . . Man would have no liberty to act according to reason and there would be no appearance of self-activity if he perceived or felt the activity of divine providence, for if he did he would also be led by it. The Lord leads all men by His divine providence and man only seemingly leads himself. . . . If, therefore, man had a lively perception or sense of being led, he would not be conscious of living life and would be moved to make sounds and act much like a graven image. If he were still conscious of liVing he would be led like

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one bound in manacles and fetters or like a yoked animal. Who does not see that man would have no freedom then? And without freedom he would be without reason, for one thinks horn and in freedom. Whatever he does not so think seems to him to be not horn himself but horn someone else. Indeed if you consider this interiorly you will perceive that he would not possess thought, still less reason, and hence would not be a human being.

If . . . he knew the effect of the eventuality by divine prediction, his reason would become inactive and with it his love. . . . It is reason's very enjoyment to envision with love the effect in thought, not after it is attained but before it is, not in the present but as future. So man has what is called hope, which rises and declines in the reason as he beholds or awaits the event. The enjoyment is fulfilled in the event and then is forgotten along with an event that was foreknown. The human mind dwells always in the trine called end, cause and effect. If one of these is lacking, the mind is not possessed of its life. An affection of the will is the initiating end. The thought of the understanding is the efficient cause. Bodily action, utterance or external sensation is the effect from the end by means of the thought. . . . The human mind is not possessed of its life when it is only in an affection of the will and in naught besides, or when it is only in an effect. The mind has no life from one of these separately, therefore, but from the three together. The life of the mind would diminish and depart if an event were foretold. (DP 176-178)

As a knowledge of future events takes away the human itself, which is to act from freedom in accordance with reason, a knowledge of the future is granted to no one. Nevertheless, everyone is permitted to form conclusions about the future from the reason. In this the reason with all that pertains to it is in its proper life. This is why a man is not permitted to know

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what his lot will be after death, or to know about any event until he is in it. If he knew this he would cease to think from his interior self how he must act or must live in order to come into it. He would simply think from his exterior self that he was coming into it. Such a state closes the interiors of his mind, in which the two faculties of his life, liberty and rationality, have their chief seat. (DP 179)

Unless it seemed to man that he lives of himself and thus thinks and wills, speaks and acts of himself, he would not be man. Consequently, unless he could in his own prudence make the disposition of all pertaining to his function and life, he could not be led and guided by divine providence. He would be like one with his hands hanging limp, his mouth open, his eyes shut, holding his breath in expectation of influx. He would divest himself of the human which he has from the perception and sensation that he thinks, wills, speaks and acts as it were of himself. (DP 210)

All power, prudence, intelligence, and wisdom are from the Lord. (AC 2694) [The] subject [of Divine providence] falls with difficulty into the idea of any man, and least of all into the idea of those who trust in their own prudence. They attribute to themselves all things that happen prosperously for them. The rest they ascribe to fortune, or chance, and few to the Divine Providence. Thus they attribute the things that happen to dead causes, and not to the living cause. (AC 9717) [Yet] relatively to the Divine Providence man's own sagacity is like ... [a] speck of dust in comparison with the universal atmosphere . . . which is relatively nothing and falls to the ground. . . . Those who attribute all things to their own sagacity are like those who wander in dark forests, not knowing the way out. . . . (AC 6485)

Good from the Lord is with those who love the Lord above

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all things and the neighbor as themselves. But good from man is with those who love themselves above all things and despise the neighbor in comparison with themselves. These are they who have care for the morrow, because they trust in themselves. The former are they who have no care for the morrow, because they trust in the Lord. They who trust in the Lord continually receive good from Him. Whatsoever happens to them whether it appears to be prosperous or not prosperous, is still good, because it conduces as a means to their eternal happiness. But they who trust in themselves are continually drawing evil upon themselves. Whatever happens to them, even if it appears to be prosperous and happy, is nevertheless evil, and consequently conduces as a means to their eternal unhappiness. (AC 8480)

They who are in the stream of Providence are . . . carried along toward everything that is happy, whatever may be the appearance of the means. Those are in the stream of Providence who put their trust in the Divine and attribute all things to Him. Those are not in the stream of Providence who trust in themselves alone and attribute all things to themselves, because they are in the opposite, for they take away Providence from the Divine, and claim it for themselves.

In so far as anyone is in the stream of Providence, so far he is in a state of peace. In so far as anyone is in a state of peace from the good of faith, so far he is in the Divine Providence. These alone know and believe that the Divine Providence of the Lord is in everything both in general and in particular, nay, is in the most minute things of all, and that the Divine Providence regards what is eternal. But they who are in the opposite are scarcely willing to hear Providence mentioned, for they ascribe everything to their own sagacity. What they do not ascribe to this they ascribe to fortune or chance [and] some to

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fate, which they do not deduce from the Divine, but from nature. They call those simple who do not attribute all things to themselves or to nature. (AC 8478)

The Divine

In Swedenborg's view of life, the power of the Divine penneates every aspect of human existence. Preceding selections chosen for this presentation of the teachings of Swedenborg clearly show that no subject, from the simple to the most abstract, can be presented without reference to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God.

The passages which follow deal with some of the more difficult aspects of the concept of the Divine. Philosophers and theologians have often disagreed on such topics as the virgin birth, the glorification, the trinity, and the nature of God's influx into the lives of men. Swedenborg avoids none of these difficult subjects and says, moreover, that proper understanding of the Divine must accompany individual and collective human progress.

Religious leaders sometimes refer to these and related subjects as "mysteries of faith." The decline of religious conviction in the twentieth-century world of science has doubtless been partly due to hesitancy and confusion surrounding these mysteries of faith.

Yet as Emerson once said, "The religion which fears science dishonors God and commits suicide." 29 Swedenborg would agree. The entire spread of his theological teachings supports his contention that God's new revelation pennits all who so desire to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith.

On no subject is this more evident than in Swedenborg's commentaries on the Divine.

In the created universe nothing lives except God-Man, that is, the Lord. Neither is anything moved except by life from Him, nor has being except through the sun from Him. It is a

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truth, that in God we live, and move, and have our being. (DLW 301) The first of the church is the knowledge that there is a God, and that He is to be worshiped. His first quality to be known is that He created the universe, and that the created universe subsists from Him. (AC 6879)

The idea of God constitutes the inmost of thought with all who have religion, for all things of religion and all things of worship look to God. Since God, universally and in particular, is in all things of religion and of worship, without a proper idea of God no communication with the heavens is possible.... In the spiritual world every nation has its place allotted in accordance with its idea of God as a man. In this idea, and in no other, is the idea of the Lord. Man's state of life after death is according to the idea of God in which he has become confirmed. . . . The denial of God, and, in the Christian world, the denial of the Divinity of the Lord, constitutes hell. (DLW 13)

Interiorly . . . the idea of God enters into all things of the church, religion, and worship. Theological matters have their residence above all others in the human mind, and the idea of God is in the supreme place there. If this be false, all beneath it, in consequence of the principle from whence they flow, must likewise be false or falsified. That which is supreme, being also the inmost, constitutes the very essence of all that is derived from it. . . . (BE 40)

God alone is Substance ... itself, and therefore Esse itself. . . . From this source alone is the formation of things. Many have seen this, because reason causes them to see it. Yet they have not dared to confirm it, fearing lest they might thereby be led to think that the created universe is God, because from God, or that nature is from itself, and consequently that the inmost of nature is what is called God.... Although many have seen that the formation of all things is from God alone and out of his Esse, yet they have not dared to go beyond their first

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thought on the subject, lest their understanding should become entangled in a so-called Gordian knot, beyond the possibility of release. Such release would be impossible, because their thought of God, and of the creation of the universe by God, has been in accordance with time and space, which are properties of nature. From nature no one can have any perception of God and of the creation of the universe. But everyone whose understanding is in any interior light can have a perception of nature and of its creation out of God, because God is not in time and space.... The Divine is not in space; the Divine apart from space fills all the spaces of the universe; . . . the Divine apart from time is in all time. . . . Although God has created the universe and all things thereof out of Himself, yet there is nothing whatever in the created universe that is God. (DLW 283)

God is everywhere, as well within man as without. . . . (DLW 130) There is a universal [Divine] influx into the souls of men . . . [with the result that] there is in every man an internal dictate that there is a God and that He is one. (TCR 8-9)

The eternity of God is not an eternity of time. As there was no time before the world was created, it is utterly vain to think about God in such [a] way. Moreover ... the Divine from eternity ... abstracted from all time, does not involve days, years, or ages but to God all these are present.... God did not create the world in time, but ... times were introduced by God with creation. (TCR 31) God in all time is without time, and in all space is without space. But nature in all time is in time, and in all space is in space. Nature is from God, not from eternity but in time ... and at the same time with its space. (CL 328 )

Thought about one God opens heaven to man, since there is but one God. On the other hand thought about many gods closes heaven, since the idea of many gods destroys the idea of

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one God. Thought about the true God opens heaven, since heaven and everything belonging to it is from the true God. On the other hand thought about a false God closes heaven, since no other than the true God is acknowledged in heaven. Thought about God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Enlightener opens heaven, for this is the trinity of the one and true God. Again, thought about God infinite, eternal, uncreate, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient opens heaven, for these are attributes of the essence of the one and true God. On the other hand thought about a living man as God, of a dead man as God, or of an idol as God closes heaven because they are not omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, uncreate, eternal and infinite. Creation ... [and] redemption [were not] wrought by them, nor is there enlightenment by them. (AE 1097)

The man who worships one God in whom is a Divine trinity, and who is thus one Person, becomes more and more a living and angelic man. [On the other hand] he who confirms himself in a belief in a plurality of Gods from believing in a plurality of persons, gradually becomes like a statue with moveable joints, within which Satan stands and speaks through its artificial mouth. (rCR 23)

In the Lord is the Trinity-the Divine Itself, the Divine Human, and the proceeding Divine Holy-and these are a one. (AC 3061) Before the world was created this Trinity was not. But after creation, when God became incarnate, it was provided and brought about, and then in the Lord God the Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the Christian church ... a Divine trinity existing before the creation of the world is acknowledged. [Many Christians believe] that Jehovah God begat a Son from eternity, and that the Holy Spirit then went forth from both, and that each of these three is by Himself or singly God because each is one person subsisting of Himself. But as this is incomprehensible to all reason it is called a mys

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tery, which can be penetrated only in this way-that these three have one Divine essence, by which is meant eternity, immensity, omnipotence, and thus an equal Divinity, glory, and majesty. But ... this trinity is a trinity of three Gods, and therefore in no sense a Divine trinity. . . . (TCR 170)

A trinity of Persons was unknown in the Apostolic Church [but].... At length men began to ... [confuse the trinity]. This crime was committed by Arius and his followers. On this account a council was convoked by Constantine the Great at Nice, a city in Bithynia. In order to overthrow the pernicious heresy of Arius it was devised, decided upon, and ratified by the members of the council that there were from eternity three Divine persons, a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit, to each one of whom belonged personality, existence, and subsistence, by Himself and in Himself. [This council also decided] that the second person, or the son, came down and took on a Human and wrought redemption, and therefore His Human by a hypostatic union possesses Divinity, and through that union He has close relationship with God the Father. From that time heaps of abominable heresies about God and the person of Christ began to spring up from the earth. Antichrists began to rear their heads and to divide God into three persons, and the Lord the Saviour into two, thus destroying the temple set up by the Lord through the apostles. . . . [Finally] not one stone was left upon another that was not thrown down. (TCR 174)

That no other trinity than a trinity of Gods was understood by the members of the Nicene Council, from which the Athanasian Creed came forth like a posthumous birth, anyone can see who reads it with his eyes open. Not only was the trinity understood by them to be a trinity of Gods, it was so understood by the whole Christian world as well, for the reason that the whole Christian world derives all its knowledge of God from that source, and every man clings to a belief in its words. I appeal to

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everyone, layman and clergyman, to titled masters and professors, consecrated bishops and archbishops, purple-robed cardinals, and even the Roman pontiff himself, whether in the Christian world today the trinity is understood to be anything else than a trinity of Gods. Let everyone of them consult with himself and speak from the things that are in his mind. From the words of this universally accepted doctrine respecting God this is as manifest and clear as water in a crystal goblet. [It is also clear] that there are three persons, each one of whom is God and Lord, and further that according to Christian verity each person singly ought to be confessed or acknowledged to be God and Lord. But ... the Catholic or Christian religion ... forbids the saying or naming three Gods and Lords. Thus verity and religion, or verity and faith, are not one thing but two things, each contrary to the other. But lest all this should be exposed to ridicule before the whole world . . . [the council] added that there are not three Gods and Lords, but one God and Lord, for who would not laugh at the idea of three Gods? Still does not everyone see the contradiction in this addition? (TCR 172)

They who . . . come from the Christian Church into the other life have nearly all an idea of the Lord as being like any other man, not only separate from the Divine . . . but also separate from Jehovah, and what is more, separate even from the holy that proceeds from Him. They do indeed say <Cone God," but still they think of three. They actually divide the Divine among three, for they distinguish it into persons, calling each God, and attribute to -each a distinct property. Consequently it is said of Christians in the other life that they worship three gods, because they think of three, however much they may say one. (AC 5256)

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three essentials of the one God, like soul, body, and operation in man. It seems to

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the human mind as if these three essentials are three persons. . . . But . . . [be it] understood that the Divine of the Father, which constitutes the soul, and the Divine of the Son, which constitutes the body and the Divine of the Holy Spirit or the proceeding Divine, which constitutes the operation, are the three essentials of the one God.... God the Father is His Divine, the Son from the Father is His Divine, and the Holy Spirit from both is His Divine. As these are one in essence and one in mind they constitute one God. . . .

From the trinity in every man ... who can fail to perceive the trinity in the Lord? In every man there is soul, body, and operation; so also in the Lord. . . . In the Lord the trinity is Divine, but in man it is human. (TCR 168--{)9) These three essentials, namely, soul, body, and operation, both were and are in the Lord God the Saviour. His soul was from Jehovah the Father.... The Son whom Mary brought forth is the body to that Divine soul. In the mother's womb nothing is furnished except the body that has been conceived and derived from the soul.... Operations constitute the third essential, since these proceed from soul and body together, and what proceeds is of the same essence as that which produces it. The three essentials, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Lord are one, like soul, body and operation in man. . . . (TCR 167)

The essence of God consists of two things, love and wisdom. The essence of His love consists of three things, namely, to love others outside of Himself, to desire to be one with them and from Himself to render them blessed. Because love and wisdom in God make one ... the same three things constitute the essence of His wisdom. Love desires these three things, and wisdom brings them forth. (TCR 43 )

By means of the truth proceeding from Himself the Lord directs all things down to the veriest singulars, not as a king in the world, but as God in heaven and in the universe. A king in

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the world exercises only a care over the whole, and his princes and officers a particular care. It is otherwise with God, for God sees all things, and knows all things from eternity, and provides all things to eternity, and from Himself holds all things in their order.... The Lord has not only a care over the whole, but also a particular and individual care of all things. . . . His disposing is immediate through the truth Divine from Himself, and is also mediate through heaven. (AC 8717)

The influx, which is from the Lord is the good of heavenly love, thus of love toward the neighbor. In this love the Lord is present, for He loves the universal human race, and desires to eternally save every member of it. As the good of this love is from Himself, He Himself is in it. He is present with the man who is in the good of this love. (AC 6495)

All that proceeds from the Lord instantly pervades the universe. As it goes forth through degrees, and by continual mediations, it . . . passes on not to animals but also beyond, to vegetables and minerals. (CL 397) The Lord's presence is unceasing with every man, both the evil and the good. Without His presence no man lives. But His coming is only to those who receive Him, who are such as believe on Him and keep His commandments. The Lord's unceasing presence causes man to become rational, and gives him the ability to become spiritual. (TCR 774)

The salvation of man is the continuous operation of the Lord with man from the first of his infancy even to the last of his life. This is a work purely Divine; and can never be given to any man. It is so Divine that it is at once the work of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Man's reformation and regeneration, thus his salvation, are all of the Lord's Divine Providence. . . . (AR 798)

The Lord alone is to be worshiped. He who does not know how the case is with the worship of the Lord, may believe that

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the Lord loves to be worshiped, and desires glory from man, just like a man, who in order to be honored himself, gives others what they ask for. He who so believes has no knowledge of what love is, and still less of what love Divine is. Love Divine consists in desiring worship and glory, not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of man and his salvation. He who worships the Lord and gives glory to the Lord is in humiliation. What is his own departs from the man who is in humiliation. In so far as this departs, so far the Divine is received. What is man's own, because it is evil and false, is that which alone obstructs the Divine. This is the glory of the Lord, and the worship of Him is for the sake of this end. Glory for the sake of self is from the love of self. Heavenly love differs from the love of self as heaven differs from hell, and infinitely more does the Divine love differ from it. (AC 10646)

External worship . . . corresponds to internal when that which is the essential is in the worship. This essential is the adoration of the Lord from the heart. [This] ... is by no means pOSSible unless there is charity, or love to the neighbor. In charity or love toward the neighbor the Lord is present, and then He can be adored from the heart. Thus the adoration is from the Lord, for the Lord gives all the ability and all the being in the adoration. It follows that such as is the charity in a man, such is his adoration or worship. All worship is adoration, because the adoration of the Lord must be in it for it to be worship. (AC 1150)

Everyone acknowledges God and is conjoined with Him according to the goodness of his life. All who know something of religion can know God from information or from the memory; they can also speak about God. Some may also think about Him from the understanding. But this only brings about presence, if a man does not live rightly, for despite it all he can turn away from God and towards hell, and this takes place if he lives

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wickedly. Only those who live rightly can acknowledge God with the heart. These the Lord turns away from hell and towards Himself according to the goodness of their life. (DP 326)

The more nearly a man is conjoined with the Lord the wiser he becomes.... The more nearly a man is conjoined with the Lord the happier he becomes. . . . The more nearly a man is conjoined with the Lord the more distinctly does he seem to himself as if he were his own, and the more clearly does he recognize that he is the Lord's. (DP 34, 37,42)

He that is led by the devil performs uses for the sake of self and the world. But he that is led by the Lord performs uses for the sake of the Lord and heaven. All who shun evils as sins perform uses from the Lord, while all who do not shun evils as sins perform uses from the devil, since evil is the devil, and use or good is the Lord. In this and in no other way is the difference recognized. In external form they appear alike, but in internal form they are wholly unlike. One is like gold within which is dross, the other is like gold with pure gold within. One is like artificial fruit, which in external form appears like fruit from a tree, although it is colored wax containing within it dust or bitumen, while the other is like excellent fruit, pleasing in taste and smell, and containing seeds within. (DP 215)

No one can see God otherwise than from such things as are in himself. He who is in hatred sees Him from hatred. He who is in unmercifulness sees Him in unmercifulness. On the other hand, they who are in charity and mercy see Him from, and thus in, charity and mercy. (AC 8819)

To the man who acknowledges that all things of his life are from the Lord, the Lord gives the delight and blessedness of His love, so far as the man acknowledges this and performs uses. When man, by acknowledgment and by faith from love, as if from himself, ascribes to the Lord all things of his life, the

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Lord in turn ascribes to man the good of His life, which carries with it every happiness and every blessedness. [He] also enables him to feel and perceive interiorly and exquisitely this good to be in himself as if it were his own, and the more exquisitely in proportion as man from the heart wills that which he acknowledges by faith. The perception is then reciprocal, for the perception that He is in man and man is in Him is grateful to the Lord, and the perception that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him is gratifying to man. Such is the union of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord by means of love. (AE 1138)

The Two Advents

Few today, even among practicing Christians, find it easy to accept the idea that God came on earth in the person of Christ. Moreover, the virgin birth of ]esus has been a major religious hurdle for nonbelievers, most of whom reject the idea out of hand. Swedenborg believed that Christ indeed was God on earth. He further states that only such a divine advent could have restrained the then rising power of evil in the world. Therefore, Swedenborgian theology rests upon acceptance of the central tenet of Christianity. .'

- But the most unusual aspe9t of his view centers in' Swedenborg's "') quiet assurance that he was used as thtL.I!2e~l!s. R)'._wl:!i~hj::!'Q.cL~<:

vealed Himself to man a second time. Unlike the first advent, which required God's personal presence, the second coming could be made through the human mind of Emanuel Swedenborg. By the eighteenth century, the r:;tce had evolved to the point where a rational explanation of divine revelation was both possible and necessary. This claim has doubtless been the chief obstacle to a wider acceptance of Swedenborg's theology.'IThe somewhat questioning faith of the nineteenth century has given way to the widespread skepticism of the twentieth~ In such a climate, the Swedenborgian concept of two divine advents evokes scant support.

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Yet' Emanuel Swedenborg's sincere belief in his startling claim can scarcely be questioned and the testimony of those who· have studied Swedenb~-,rg, whether they became converts to hi~ faith or not, indicates that his writings cannot be lightly dismissed:' Further understanding of his second-advent claim expands the meaning which Swedenborg has given to the divine nature of the coming of Jesus.

Jehovah God came down and took upon Him the Human for the purpose of reducing to order all things in heaven and all things in the church. At that time the power of . . . hell prevailed over the power of heaven, and upon earth the power of evil over that of good. In consequence a total damnation stood threatening at the door. This impending damnation Jehovah God removed by means of His Human, thus redeeming angels and men.... Without the Lord's coming no one could have been saved. (T.iaiJgJ)

The hells had increased to such a height because at the time when the Lord came into the world the whole earth had completely alienated itself from God by idolatries and magic. The chl.,l!,ch which had existed among the children OflSrael and afterwards with the Jews, had been utt~rly destroyed by the falsification and adulteration of the Word. All these, both Jews and· Gentiles, had, after death, streamed into the world of spirits, where at length their number was so increased and multiplied that they could be driven out only by a descent of God Himself and ... [by] the strength of His Divine arm. (TCR 121 )

By a life of evil and consequent persuasions of falsity, the human race had become altogether perverted. The lower things ~itlt man then began to dominate over the higher-natural things over the spiritual-so that . . . the Lord could no longer flow in through heaven, and reduce them into order.

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There was a consequent necessity for the coming of the Lord into the world, that thereby He might put on the human, ...

r- make it Divine, and by it restore order so that the universal heaven might have relation to--Hlm is--the Only Man and . . . correspond to Him alone. (AC 3637)

About the time of the Lord's coming the infernals would have occupied a large part of heaven. By coming into the world and making the Human in Himself Divine, the Lord . . . ex

( pel[led] them and cast them down into the heIis, and thusaeliver[ed] heaven from them, and ... 19ave] it for an inheritance to those who would be of His spiritual kingdom. (AC 6306) Unless the Lord had come into the world a_~cL~EeJ:l~d__~e

il!~~.~or things of the Word, the communication with the heavens by means of the Word would have been broken. Then the

r human race of this earth would have perished, f<2!' ma~~

thi~k no truth and do no good except . ._. through heaven from the Lord. The Word ... opens heaven. (AC 10276)

[Many believe] . . . that the Father sent the Son to suffer the hardest things even to the death of the cross, and thus that by looking upon the passion and merit of the Son, He has mercy upon the human race. But ... Jehovah does not have mercy by any looking upon the Son, for He isme!:.<:y_its~!f. The arcanum of the Lord's coming into the world is that He united in

) Himself the Divine to the Human and the Human to the Divine. [This] could not be doneexcept through the most grie~ous things of temptations. . . . By that union it became

/- possible for salvation to reach the human race,- in which no ( celestial and spiritual, or even natural good any longer re

mained. . . . (AC 2854) Jehovah God could have entered upon and have accom

plished such a work only by means of His Human.... One who is invisible cannot shake hands or converse with another un!~~e~c()In_e~\'i.~i?~e. An angel or spirit could have no inter

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course with a man, even if standing close to his body and before his face. Neither can anyone's soul converse with another or act with another except by means of his body. The sun with its light and heat can enter into man, beast or tree only by first entering the air and operating through it. [It] can enter into a fish only by means of the water, since it must act through ... [the] element in which the subject resides. No one can scale a fish without a knife, pluck a crow without fingers, or descend to the bottom of a lake without a diving-bell. In a word, anyone thing must be adapted to another before it can communicate with it or operate with ... or against it.

The passion of the cross was the last temptation which the Lord ... endured, and was the means whereby His Human was glorified. [His Human] ... was united with the Divine of the Father; but it was not redemption. There are two things for which the Lord came into the world and by means of which He saved men and angels, namely, redemption and the glorification of His Human. These two are distinct from each other, yet in reference to salvation they make one.... The work of redemption was . . . a combat against the hells, a subjugation of the hells and restoration of order in the heavens.

But glorification is the uniting of the Lord's Human with the Divine of His Father. This was effected gradually, and was completed through the passion of the cross. Every man on his part ought to draw near to God. As far as man does draw near, God on His part enters into him. It is the same as with a temple which first must be built. This is done by the hands of men. Afterwards it must be dedicated, and finally prayer must be made for God to be present and there unite Himself with the church. The union itself was made complete through the passion of the cross, because that was the last temptation endured by the Lord in the world. It is by means of temptations that conjunction is effected. In temptations, apparently, man is left

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to himself alone, although he is not. God is then most nearly present in man's inmosts and sustains him. When man conquers in temptation he is inmostly conjoined with God, as, in temptation, the Lord was inmostly united to God His Father. . . . (TCR 125-27)

It was not in respect to His Divine but in respect to His Human that the Lord suffered. Thereby an inmost and thus a complete union was effected. . . . These two things, redemption and the passion of the cross, must be seen to be distinct. Otherwise the human mind, like a vessel, strikes upon sandbanks or rocks and is lost, with pilot, captain, and crew together. It errs in all things peltaining to salvation by the Lord. Without an idea of these two things as distinct, man is as if in a dream, and sees imaginary things, and from these draws conclusions, supposing them to be real when yet they are fantastic. . . . But although redemption and the passion of the cross are two distinct things, yet in reference to salvation they make one. It was by union with His Father, which was completed through the passion of the cross, that the Lord became the Redeemer to eternity. (TC R 125-27)

[ManyJ ... believe that the Lord as to His Human not only was, but still is, the son of Mary. But in this the Christian world is under a delusion. It is true that He was the son of Mary, but not that He still is. By the acts of redemption He put off the human from the-mother and put on a Human from the Fath~. This is why the Human of die Lora is DiVIne, and-in Him God is Man and Man is God. (TCR 102)

That there was with the Lord hereditary evil from the mother may cause surprise. . . . [Yet] no human being can possibly be born of another human being without thence deriving evil. But the hereditary evil derived fr.q,m the Father is one thing, and that from the mother is another: T~redi1:~.l~~il

fr-£..I!l theJa~her is more inte~a.IJ.-~!!-~J&..Il1~in~ to eter!.1ity:'~n-

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not possibly b~r·eradicated. But the Lord had not such evil, because He was born of Jehovah the Father, and thus as to internals was Divine or Jehovah. The hereditary evil from the mother is of the external man. This did exist with the Lord. · . . The Lord, born as are other men, . . . had infirmities as have other men. He derived hereditary evil from the mother · .. [and] underwent temptation. No one can possibly be tempted who has no evil. It is the evil in a man which tempts, and through which he is tempted. The Lord was tempted, and · .. underwent temptations a thousandfold more grievous than any man can ever endure. . . . (AC 1573)

In brief, the Lord from His earliest childhood up to the last hour of His life in the world, was assaulted by all the hells, against which He continually fought, and subjugated and overcame them. This [was done] solely from love toward the whole human race. Because this love was human but Divine, and because such as is the greatness of the love, such is that of the temptation, it may be seen how grievous the combats were, and how great the ferocity on the part of the hells. (AC 1690)

The Lord glorified His Human ... [and] united it to the Divine of the Father, . . . [or] to the Divine which was in Him from conception. [This was done] for the sake of rendering it possible for the human race to be united to God the Father in Him and through Him. (AR 618) When the Lord was in the world He was in two states, called the state of exinanition and the state of glorification. The prior state, which was the state of exinanition, is described in the Word in many places, especially in the Psalms of David and also in the Prophets, and particularly in Isaiah (Chapter liii.) where it is said:-That He emptied His soul even unto death (verse 12). This was a state of progress toward union. This same state was His state of humiliation before the Father; for in it He prayed to the Father. He says that He does the Father's will, and ascribes to the Fa

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ther all that He did and said. That he prayed to the Father is evident from ... Matt. xxvi. 39, 44 Mark i. 35 vi. 46 xiv. 32--39 Luke v. 16, vi. 12, xxii. 41-44, John xvii. 9, 15, 20. That He did the Father's will [may be seen] in John iv. 34, v. 30. That He ascribed to the Father all that He did and said [appears in] John viii. 26-28, xii. 49, 50, xiv. 10. He even cried out upon the cross:-My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? (Matt. xxvii. 46, Mark xv. 34) Moreover, except for this state He could not have been crucified.

But the state of glorification is . . . the state of union. He was in that state when He was transfigured before His three diSciples and also when He wrought miracles, and whenever He said that the Father and He are one, that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, and that all things of the Father are His. When the union was complete . . . He had "power over all flesh" (John xvii. 2), and "all power in heaven and on earth" (Matt. xxviii. 18), besides other things.

These two states, of exinanition and of glorification, belonged to the Lord because there is no other possible way of attaining to union, this being in accordance with Divine order, which is immutable. The Divine order is that man should set himself in order for the reception of God and prepare himself to be a receptacle and abode into which God may enter and in which, as in His temple, God may dwell. From himself man must do this and yet must acknowledge that it is from God. This he must acknowledge because he does not feel the presence and operation of God, although God in closest presence operates all the good of love and all the truth of faith in man. Every man . . . must progress in accordance with this order, if from being natural he is to become spiritual.

In like manner it was necessary for the Lord to progress, in order to make Divine His natural human. This is why He prayed to the Father, did the Father's will, ascribed to Him all

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THE SOURCE OF LIFE

that He did and said, and why He exclaimed upon the cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" In this state God seems to be absent. But after this state comes another, which is the state of conjunction with God, in which state man acts as before, but now from GodllBut he does not now need, as before, to ascribe to God every good that he wills and does, and every truth that he thinks and speaks, because this is writt~

upon his heart, and thus is inwardly in all his actions I/and ~

words. In like manner did the Lord unite Himself to His Father, and the Father to Himself. In a word, He glorified His Human . . . or made it Divine, in the same manner in which He regenerates man, [and] makes him spiritual. (TCR 104-05)

Redemption itself was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and by means of these a preparation for a new spiritual church.... At this day [1770] also' the Lord is effecting a redemption, which began in 1757, together with a final judgment which was then accomplished. This redemptionhas been going on up to the present time, and for the reason that at this day is the second coming of the Lord. A new church is now to be established. This could not be done without a previous subjugation of the hells and a restoration of order in the heavens. (TCR 115)

[The Lord's] second -corriing ... is foretold through the Apocalypse, and in Matthew (xxiv. 3,30) Mark (xii. 26) Luke (xxi. 27) Acts (i. 11) and elsewhere. . . . At the Lord's first coming ... [the] increase of the hells was the work of idolaters, magicians, and falsifiers of the Word. At His second coming it was the work of so-called Ghristians, both those who had imbibed naturalism, and those who had falsified the Word by confir~ations of their fabulous faith in three Divine persons from eternity, and in the passioiJ. of the Lord as itself constituting redemption. . . . (TCR 121)

This second coming of the Lord is not a coming in person,

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but in the Word, which is from Him, and is Himself. (TCR 776) Because real_Christianity isJ2~gi.nning to dawn, and a New Church meant oy the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, is now being established by the Lord, wherein God the Father,

\ Son, and Holy Spirit are aclmowledged as one because in one 1Person, it has pleased the Lord to reveal the spiritual sense of

the Word. (TCR 700) This second coming of the Lord is effected by means of a

man to whom the Lord has manifested Himself in person, and whom He has filled with His spirit, that He may teach doctrines of the New Church from the Lord by means of the Word.... He ... [does] this by means of a man, who is able not only to receive these doctrines in his understanding but also to publish them by the pre~s. The Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to this office. He afterward opened the eyes of my spirit, . . . introduced me into the spiritual world ... granted me to see the heavens and the hells, ... to talk with angels and spirits, and this . . . continuously for several years. . . . From the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word. (TCR 779)

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Epilogue

T HE twentieth century cannot be said to be a religious era. While churches continue to enroll members, the number of non

believers increases far more rapidly. While some theologians-a Barth, a Niebuhr, a Pope Paul- gain worldwide acclaim, theological seminaries fall steadily behind secular graduate schools in both the quantity and quality of their student bodies. While fundamentalist sects continue to insist upon a literal interpretation of the Bible, the vast majority of persons within and without the ranks of organized religion doubt the divine origin of biblical teachings and debate the existence of God himself.

The contradiction known as "Christian atheism" receives scholarly attention as the base of a new theology. Christianity seems to be dissolving in a sea of confused skepticism. William Hamilton finds the modern theologian "alienated from the Bible, just as he is alienated from God and the church." 30 Apart from some psalmist poehy, a few, clear prophetic calls and some of the teachings of Jesus, the Bible speaks with many tongues few of which appeal to the modern intellect. Thomas J. Altizer argues that Christianity faces the "most profound crisis" of its existence because "God has died in our time, in our history, in our existence." He concludes that "affirmation of the traditional forms of faith" are mere escapes from the "brute realities of history." 31 In sum, as the same theologian puts it, "On all sides theologians agree that we are now in some sense living in a post-Christian age." 32

Over the centuries, dogmas have grown up which encumber modern Christianity like a host of barnacles on a ship long at sea. Confusions abound over the nature of God the Father, the personality of Jesus, the place of the Holy Ghost, the workings of the Trinity, the

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possibility of the Virgin Birth, the quality of the good life, the means by which sins are identified and forgiven, the process of death, the form and existence of life in another world. In an earlier time, perhaps a century and a half ago, few of the basic questions of life were raised by the average person. However, the intellectual currents of the nineteenth century-Darwinian evolution, Marxian materialism, Freudian psychoanalytic theories-plus the impact of science and technology, undermined the basic assumptions of the fundamentalist view of life. As recently as 1925, the old theology still found some support. But when William Jennings Bryan suffered the humiliating ridicule administered by Clarence Darrow in the Scopes trial, literalist interpretations of the Bible ceased to have meaning and organized religion has remained on the defensive ever since.

Swedenborg would not be surprised at the religious trends of the modern era. Many of his adverse judgments on traditional Christianity sound remarkably current. For those interested, he sorts out the polytheistic tangle of orthodox concepts of God, the process by which Christ's human was made divine, the idea that heaven and hell are not places but states, the causal relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds, the meaning of the Bible in both its exterior and interior messages. Readers will differ in their understanding of what he has to tell them. But few who are genuinely in search of a more meaningful explanation of life, will fail to be impressed by the scope and power of this eighteenth-century thinker's attempt to "enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith." 33

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Abbreviations

The standard American edition of Swedenborg's theological writings is the thirty-volume set published by the Swedenborg Foundation, 139 East 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010. The Swedenborg Society in London, England, also issues a standard edition from a somewhat different translation.

Abbreviations used in the present volume are as follows:

AC Arcana Coelestia AE Apocalypse Explained AR Apocalypse Revealed BE Brief (Summary) Exposition C Doctrine of Charity Can Canons of the New Church CL Coniugial Love Cor Coronis Div. Love Divine Love DLW Divine Love and Wisdom DP Divine Providence Div. Wis. Divine Wisdom Doct. Lord Doctrine of the Lord EU Earths in the Universe HH Heaven and Hell I Intercourse of the Soul and the Body Inv. Invitation to the New Church LJ Last Judgment LJ Post Last Judgment Posthumous Life Doctrine of Life NJHD New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine SS Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture TCR True Christian Religion

All number references in the text refer to paragraphs, not pages, in conformity with Swedenborg's own numbering system.

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The Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg 34

The casual reader may find Swedenborg's theological writings to be somewhat overpowering. The standard American edition, published and distributed by the Swedenborg Foundation of New York City, encompasses thirty volumes. The longest volume contains some 754 pages and the shortest 293 pages. Most of the volumes are over 500 pages and average more than a quarter of a million words per volume.

This collection contains mOre than forty titles which vary in size from fragments and short pamphlets to multivolume studies. These works are set off from Swedenborg's earlier writings by identification with his theolOgical period, characterized by his accounts of transcendent spiritual experiences.

The theological writings are seen best through type grouping rather than through listing in chronological order. Dates refer to the years during which the study was written and not the years of first publication.

I. Bible Commentaries

(1)� Arcana Coelestia: Or Heavenly Mysteries, 1741-1758, 12 vols. oo3G

This study makes up more than a third of the total bulk of Swedenborg's theological writings. The books of Genesis and Exodus receive detailed phrase-by-phrase commentary, but reference is frequently made to many other books of both the Old and New Testaments. Swedenborg asserts that he expounds the internal sense of the Bible accounts. The familiar Bible stories of the origin and early development of man reveal, through what Swedenborg describes as the language of correspondences, basic divine teachings

181


on such subjects as the life after death, relationships between the spiritual and natural worlds, human nature, marriage, regeneration, and religion. The historical accounts of the Old Testament have long proved to be difficult subjects for biblical scholars. They are ob. viously representative in nature but what do they represent? Swedenborg unfolds an impressive picture of a divine consistency through the entire sweep of Bible history.

(2) Apocalypse Explained, 1757-1759, 6 vols. This work is a systematic exposition of the internal meaning of

the book of Revelation. The nature of the Divine, the order of the heavens and the union of the Divine with the created world through new revelation emerge as the key teachings of this work. Like the Arcana and Swedenborg's other Bible commentaries, the Apocalypse Explained sets forth internal meanings of many passages in the Bible not included in Genesis, Exodus, or Revelation, which are the only three books of the Bible which receive detailed, systematic comment.

~ 3) Apocalypse Revealed, 1764-1766, 2 vols.00

This commentary also supplies a consecutive exposition of the internal meaning of the book of Revelation. However, it is much shorter, while covering the full length of Revelation including the final three chapters which the longer work does not treat. Apocalypse Explained may have an uncompleted, earlier rendition of the teachings presented in more concise form in Apocalypse Revealed. Apocalypse Revealed places stress on the effects of divine influx for the establishment of a new Christian church on earth.

II. Teachings on Life

(l) Doctrine of Life, 1761-1763, 58 pp. n

Doctrine of Life is the first of several basic studies on the proper relationship between men on earth. This work emphasizes the view that man can evolve toward a spiritual life after death only from the Lord, although the man acts as if of himself. Swedenborg argues

182

THE THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS

for a correct understanding of the teachings of the Decalogue. As man shuns the evils listed in the Decalogue he comes into the opposite goods and thus turns himself toward heaven.

(2) Doctrine of Charity, 1764, 70 pp. This brief work questions the traditional, pietistic view of good

works and speaks for a life of use to the neighbor and to God. Through use to the neighbor-the faithful execution of the details of one's daily occupation coupled with thoughtful care for one's family -one exercises charity in a broad, true sense.

(3) Coniugial Love, 1767-1768, 525 pp.u

The full title of this unusual work is The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Coniugial Love after Which Follow the Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love. The book treats of marriage and sex-morality and also of various perversions of marriage. Swedenborg asserts that true conjugiallove descends from the Lord into all humans. The male and female receive and apply this love differently, the two receptions complementing each other. In a proper marriage husband and wife together learn the fullness of love through looking to the Lord and shunning selfishness. The delights of marriage are presented as the height of human delight. These delights include raising children by which means the race is continued and heaven peopled.

Coniugial Love is a high-minded work, but not an abstruse one. Many practical matters of the relationship between the sexes such as courtship, betrothal, jealousy, temptation, disaffection, sensuality, prudence, and courtesy are dealt with. This is a book of guidelines for spiritual living with much rational appeal. Eternal ideas are advocated as the only proper starting point for a happy marriage life, although problems posed by the power of the sensual are not ignored. The family, as the basic unit of SOciety, receives stress in Coniugial Love.

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111. Works of Systematic Theology

(1) True Christian Religion, 1769-1771,2 vols.·· This study culminated Swedenborg's many theological inquiries.

Its subtitle, "Universal Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church," summarizes the Swedenborgian teaching that the Lord has again vivified His church through newly revealed truths which have reestablished harmony in the spiritual world and engendered a new faith on earth. Aspects of theology, philosophy, and religious ethics are all included in True Christian Religion.

(2) Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763, 292 pp.o 0

In this work Swedenborg discusses the process of Creation. There are five basic subjects, the nature of God, the creation of the universe, the relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds, the discrete and continuous degrees through which the two worlds function, and the form of the human mind. Thus the work may properly be termed the metaphysics of Swedenborg's theological writings.

(3) Divine Providence, 1763-1764, 376 pp.• 0

This study picks up the basic themes of Divine Love and Wisdom and relates them to the human individual as the highest end of creation. The Lord governs his creation through divine prOvidence. To be in full harmony with divine providence, the human will and the human understanding must be in accord with the order of creation. Providence looks to the preservation of this order although human free will may violate it. Students of Swedenborg's theology believe that Divine Love and Wisdom and Divine Providence are interrelated works which should be read consecutively.

(4) New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, 1757-1758, 205 pp."

In this commentary, Swedenborg presents summaries of a num

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ber of doctrines developed in greater length in other theological writings. Many references to numbers in the Arcana make this a work to be used in connection with the twelve-volume study.

(5) Summary Exposition, 1768-1769, 103 pp. 00

This work is sometimes printed with the title "Brief Exposition." It contrasts the teachings of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Swedenborgianism. The contrast underscores basic differences and argues for the establishment of a new faith. The work may be more important in Swedenborgian theology than is sometimes realized. According to Swedenborg, the Lord commanded him to inscribe the book with the words "This Book is the [Second] Advent of the Lord."

(6) Intercourse of the Soul and the Body, 1769,38 pp.o 0

This metaphysical tract discusses the relationship between the spiritual and the natural and the means by which they are interconnected. Spiritual influx from the Lord interconnects the human soul and body. The work also attempts to make the discrete differences between the spiritual and natural worlds understandable.

(7) White Horse, 1757-1758, 26 pp. 00

This work deals largely with the subject of divine revelation and man's need for it. Its title comes from Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation,36 the internal sense of which is discussed.

(8) Doctrine of the Lord, 1761-1763, pp.o 0

This important study presents teachings on the nature of the Lord. It explains the workings of the divine trinity. It sets forth the fundamental Swedenborgian doctrine of God as a divinely human person, who ministers to the human race as both revealer and redeemer.

(9) Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, 1761-1763, 94 pp. 0 0

In this work Swedenborg supplies support for the idea that the

185


Christian Bible presents the word of God on earth, that it has an internal or spiritual sense, and that its teachings are necessary to maintain human life.

(10) Doctrine of Faith, 1761-1763,58 pp. GO Contrary to the common concept, "faith" to SWedenborg does not

mean believing that which is not understood. Genuine faith is presented as an internal acknowledgment or perception of truth which, in the stream of providence, cannot properly be separated from charity. Faith alone and salvation by faith are pointedly rejected.

IV. Topical Studies

(1) Heaven and Hell, 1757-1758, 455 pp.GO This three-part work has probably attracted more attention than

any other single volume from Swedenborg's pen. The middle section which should, perhaps, be read first, treats of the world of spirits which is a transitory state between heaven and hell. The human soul awakes in the world of spirits after death and there prepares for final entrance into either heaven or hell depending upon the quality of the life which the man lived in the natural world. Each individual determines his own fate by the free choices he makes during his natural life.

The first part of Heaven and Hell describes the life of angels in heaven. Swedenborg's presentation contains much detail regarding the structure, organization, form and nature of heaven, as well as the heavenly mode of life. This emerges not as an ethereal existence of clouds and harps, but a life of use between real persons motivated by similar loves.

The last section of the book describes hell as the perfect perversion of heaven and heavenly life. Yet, as revolting as are some of the descriptions, Swedenborg states that spirits who go there do so because their selfish loves, formed during their life on earth, cause them to find the unselfish love of heaven oppressive. They are, fur

186


thennore, as adjusted in their life in hell as it is possible for them to be and perfonn uses there although from compulsion rather than from desire.

(2) Last Judgment, 1757-1758, 83 pp.o 0

This book speaks against the concept of a divine judgment during some future rising of the dead. Instead, each individual after death, goes through a personal last judgment in the world of spirits. In addition, the entire world of spirits, according to Swedenborg's account, underwent a last judgment in the year 1757. Both spiritual and natural reorderings resulted.

(3) Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment, 1763, 43 pp. 00

This is a further exposition of the nature of the spiritual world and the judgment effected there in 1757. It restates some of the material in the larger work titled Last Judgment noted above.

(4) Earths in the Universe, 1756-1758, 105 pp.oo Science still debates the question of life on other worlds but

Swedenborg had no doubts that the human race was endlessly varied. He says that all terrestrial bodies were created to support human life of some kind and describes the life of spirits from a number of planets other than earth. He believes that the most characteristic aspect of divine creation-infinite variety-is carried out in the varieties of human existence. Each individual soul and earth is distinct from all others and each has a proper place in the plan of creation.

V. Lesser Works

For purposes of presenting the entire list of Swedenborg's theological writings the following lesser works should be included. Quotations for this book have been selected primarily from the major works discussed above, but some comments from the writings listed below were also used.

187


(1) Summary Exposition of the Prophets and Psalms, 1759-1760, 311 pp.

This work presents the internal sense of these books of the Bible in outline fonn. Its condensed nature renders it difficult to read, but students of Swedenborg's theological writings find it useful in conjunction with other works of a more expositional type.

(2) Divine Love, 1762-1763, 36 pp. This study explores the nature of love, which is said to be the

very life of man. The Lord as the source transmits love to all of creation which receives it and turns it into fonns of use or perverts it for evil purposes.

(3) Divine Wisdom, 1763, 76 pp. In this commentary, Swedenborg focuses on man and the manner

in which the human mind receives love and wisdom from the Lord. He describes the will and the understanding and the various manifestations of these twin essentials of creation. This and the preceding work deal with the deepest questions of life and are so complementary that they should be read together as a unit of thought. Indeed, they have sometimes been published together under the title "Doctrine of Uses." They are not to be confused with the larger work Divine Love and Wisdom discussed above, although they cover similar ground and may have been prepared as an early draft for it.

(4) Canons of the New Church, 1769,58 pp. The Canons here discussed contain the basic theology of the new

faith mostly in outline fonn. They are similar in topical coverage to the opening chapters of True Christian Religion.

(5) Invitation to the New Church, 1771, 22 pp. This short statement, apparently intended as an appendix to

True Christian Religion centers on eternal truths which have been lost or distorted down through the centuries. Men of good will are called to join in establishing a New Church on earth.

188


(6) Athanasian Creed, 1760, 63 pp. The creed of Athanasius and its implications for both the Chris

tian and the New Church receive attention. The creed while ambiguous, may be taken to mean a trinity of person and not of persons; the interpretation makes the creed true. The history of the creed in the Christian church, however, suggests that wrong conclusions have been drawn from it.

( 7) Coronis, 1771, 83 pp. Also called the "Appendix to True Christian Religion," Coronis

treats of the history of man with emphasis on the nature of the several religions which have characterized various civilizations.

(8 ) Word of the LO<1'd From Experience, 1761, 59 pp. This incomplete work discusses the structure and organization of

the Bible and the vital relationship between written divine revelation and true religion. Some Swedenborg scholars regard it as a preliminary draft of Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture noted above.

(9) Last Judgment (Posthumous), 1762, 102 pp. These extended notes describe events in the spiritual world which

Swedenborg claims to have witnessed. National groups and individualleaders receive comment.

( 10) On the Spiritual WO<1'ld, 1762, 36 pp. These miscellaneous comments on persons and national groups

depict the spiritual world as quite similar to the natural in some geographical senses.

( 11) Concerning Marriage, 1767, 33 pp. This precursor to Con;ugial Love, discussed above, contains some

points not included in the larger study.

( 12) Spiritual Diary, 1747-1765, 5 vols. Swedenborg kept a journal of experiences during the years of his

theological period. Accounts of the nature and inhabitants of the

189


spiritual world run throughout this multivolume record. However, the diary also contains many comments on religious doctrines and principles, most of which are developed more fully in other works, particularly the Arcana. The diary apparently served Swedenborg as a storehouse of thoughts and impressions from which he drew in preparing his published works, in a manner similar to the way in which Emerson and others have made use of personal journals.

VI. Fragments

The following fragments also belong in the list of Swedenborg's theological writings: (1) The Lord, 1760, 11 pp.; (2) Precepts of the Decalogue, 1762, 4 pp.; (3) Convel'sations With Angels, 1766, 4 pp.; (4) Five Memorable Relations, 1766, 10 pp.; (5) Indices of a Work on Coniugial Love, 1767,5 pp.; (6) Egyptian Hieroglyphics, 1769, 5 pp.; (7) Sketch of the Doctrine of the New Church, 1769, 6 pp.; (8) Memorabilia for the True Christian Religion, 1770, 22 pp.; (9) A Sketch of the Ecclesiastical History of the New Church, 1771,2 pp.; (10) Nine Questions [on the Trinity], 1771, 6 pp.; (11) Consummation of the Age, 1771, 7 pp.

190

Bibliographical Note

The Swedenborg Epic by Cyriel O. Sigstedt (New York: Bookman, 1952, 517 pp.) supplies'th;bestbiographical survey. Written from a pro-Swedenborg perspective, it is nevertheless scholarly, comprehensive, and readable. Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic by ~gne~~vig (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948,389 pp.) provides consistently critical insights by a scholarly skeptic. A Life of Swedenborg by Ge.or~. T!'~r.idge (London: Warne & Co., 1912, 337 pp.), while older and less' scholarly, has enjoyed wider circulation than either Sigstedt or Toksvig and still gives a relatively accurate overview of Swedenborg's life and works.

R. L. Tafel's three volumes of Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg (London: Swedenborg Society, 1875-77) bring together a wide variety of primary source material both by and about Swedenborg. Few of these documents have been published elsewhere and, in any case, most of the originals are in Latin or Swedish.

No comprehensive history of the various Swedenborgian sects has been written, but M~g~fkBlock's New Church in the New World (New York: Holt, 1932,464 pp.) provides a perceptive summary of major portions of the New Church story. Probably twothirds of Swedenborg's followers have been residents of the Western hemisphere. Jo~n XauIkner Po!!s created an indispensable tool for Sweden

borg scholarship during a lifetime of effort in support of Swedenborg studies. His five-volume Swedenborg Concordance (London: Swedenborg Society, 1888 and 1948) makes it possible to approach the thirty-volume corpus of Swedenborg's theology from a variety of subject headings. Without this Concordance an almost unlimited

191


amount of time would be required to survey even a few of Swedenborg's teachings.

The comprehensive Bibliography of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg by James H)'de (London: Swedenborg Society, 1906, 742 pp.) is also useful:-as is Arthur H. Searle's General Index to Swedenborg's Scripture QuotatiOOS(London: Swedenborg Society, 1954, 321 pp. )

Samuel M. Warren prepared the best of many previous Swedenborg stuaies unaei- the title A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (London: Swedenborg Society, 1875-1954, 776 pp.) Those who find the volume in h~interesting

may want to consult Warren for further insights.~. F. Barrett'S" twelve brief volumes of The Swedenborg Library (Ge~ 1 Pa.: Swedenborg Publishing Association, 1875-1881) illustrate Swedenborg's teachings under major subject headings and employ felicitous translations. The editing and comment are particularly effective but, unfortunately, the volumes have long been out of print. Warren, Barrett and virtually everyone of the some twenty other Swedenborgian compendiums were prepared essentially for use by persons already familiar with Swedenborg's writings. Hopefully this new study will have a wider appeal.

192

Notes and References

1. Martin Luther's collected works number ten volumes; Thomas Aquinas wrote somewhat less; John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion total only two volumes, although his collected works are more extensive. Buddha's theology fills several tomes. The Koran and the Book of Mormon are single volumes.

2. R. W. Emerson, Representative Men (Boston: Houghton MifHin Co., 1930), pp. 102--103.

3. Henry James Sr., Society the Redeemed Form of Man (Boston: Houghton MifHin Co., 1879), p. 138. Henry James Sr. also wrote: ". . . if intellectual power is to be measured by the measure of truth possessed it would seem unaffectedly ludicrous, to anyone acquainted with his writings, that any other person in the intellectual history of the race should be named ... in the same day with him."

4. Interview in the New York American, October 7, 1911. See also Markham's hand-written note in the flyleaf of his copy of Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, Markham Collection, Wagner College Library, Staten Island.

5. Helen Keller, My Religion (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1968), pp. 17, 27, 28, 33.

6. Letter to G. A. Beyer, November 14, 1769, in R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg (Swedenborg Society, London, 1875), n, 279-80.

7. Swedenborg was a lad only eleven years old but entering upon university work at such an age was not unusual for the time.

8. Cyriel O. Sigstedt, The Swedenborg Epic (New York: Bookman, 1952),p.l1.

9. Tafel, Documents, I, 511-15. 10. George Gaylord Simpson and William S. Beck, Life (New York:

Harcourt, 1965) pp. 827-28. 11. In 1910, in celebration of its 100th anniversary, and the 200th anni

versary of Swedenborg's first trip to London, England, the Swedenborg Society of London sponsored an International Swedenborg Congress. King Gustav V of Sweden was the honorary patron and delegates came from all over the world. Swedenborg's contributions in science, philosophy and

193


theology were treated in more than forty scholarly papers by a vaIiety of learned persons. The scientific papers were delivered by some eminent twentieth-century scholars. See Transactions of the International Swedenborg Congress. (London: Swedenborg Society, 1912),373 pp.

12. J. R. Rendell, "Swedenborg on the Cerebral Cortex as the Seat of Physical Activity," International Swedenborg Congress, p. 56.

13. Sigstedt, Swedenborg EpiC, pp. 116-17, and footnotes 170 and 569. .

14. Swedenborg, The Animal Kingdom (London: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1960, p. 15.)

15. Swedenborg's account as related to Carl Robsahm, a Stockhohn banker and friend of the Swedenborg family. Tafel, Documents, I, 35-36.

16. The contents of the individual theological works by Swedenborg are summarized in the Appendix to this study.

17. The many similar accounts of this incident and the two succeeding ones are synthesized and cited in Sigstedt, Swedenborg EpiC, pp. 269-82.

18. Testimony of Arvid Ferelius, Tafel, Documents, II, 560. 19. The best account of the Gothenburg heresy trial is found in

Sigstedt, Swedenborg EpiC, chap. 41. 20. Tafel, Documents, I, 38-39. 21. Johan Christian Cunno as quoted in Sigstedt, Swedenborg EpiC,

p.415. 22. Tafel, Documents, II, 564-65, 546. 23. Tafel, Documents, II, 579-80, 557-58. 24. Tafel, Documents, II, 578, 568-69. 25. Arthur Conan Doyle, History of Spiritualism (New York: Double

day, 1926), p. 22. 26. Numbers do not refer to pages but to the subject paragraphs of

Swedenborg's numbering system. 27. Swedenborg consistently uses Word to refer to a somewhat short

ened version of the Bible. In his view the Word of God was given to man in the Bible excepting only certain books which do not contain divine teachings throughout.

27A. Swedenborg frequently compares all of creation to a "grand man" in which each soul fits and to which each individual contributes.

28. Swedenborg's use of the spelling "conjugiaI" in preference to the more common "conjugal" is consistent throughout his theological writings. Doubtless he sought to underscore his belief in the distinctive quality of his teachings on marriage love.

29. Bliss Perry, ed., Heart of Emerson's Journals (New York: Dover Publications, 1958), p. 48.

30. William Hamilton, "Thursday's Child," in Radical Theology and the Death of God, pp. 89-90.

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NOTES AND REFERENCES

31. Thomas J. Altizer, ''Theology and the Death of God," Ibid., p. 95. 32. Ibid., p. 9. 33. Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion, No. 508. 34. These comments on Swedenborg's theological writings owe much

to the longer summary by Wm. Cairns Henderson, New Church Life, Jan.-Oct., 1967, and to the excellent statement by Frank S. Rose, New Church Life, Oct. 1968, pp. 467-68, which argues for a somewhat different arrangement.

35. Double-starred works were published by Swedenborg and the rest posthumously.

36. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

Book of Revelation, Chapter 19, Verses 11-16

195

Index

NOTE: In preparinl?, this Index it was found advisable to leave out all entries under "God,' "the Lord," "man," since these names and concepts appear on virtually every page.

adultery, 73, 74 advents, 168 affections, 49 Altizer, Thomas J., 177 Ancient Church, 102 angel, 79, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,

108, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 118, 126, 147, 169, 170, 171, 176

animal kingdom, 144 Animal Kingdom, The, 24 animal mind, 124 animals, 124, 125, 126 angelic heaven, see heaven, angelic Antichrists, 162 Apocalypse Revealed, 31 apostles, 162 Apostolic Church, 162 Arcana CoelestUJ,-Henvenly Secrets,

26,28 Arius, 162 Arrhenius, Svante, 23 Asia, 102 Athanasian Creed, 162 Augustus William, 29

Barth, Karl, 177 Behm, Sara, 16 Benzelius, Eric, 17 Beyer, Gabriel A., 35 Bible, 17,25,26,31,41,177,178 Bible Index, 26 Bithynia, 162 blessings, divine, 90 Board of Mines, 18, 33

(I r),.".I\.A.--tt: !1 , 10'1

body, 121,122 Brain, The, 24 Bryan, William Jennings, 178 Buffon, George de, 23

Castel, William, 27 celestial freedom, see freedom, celes

tial charity, 42, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56,

57, 60, 61, 64, 65, 85, 87, 96, 109, 114, 116, 118, 133, 134, 138, 139, 166, 167

charity, external, 53 charity, internal, 53 Charles XII, 18, 20 chastity, 65, 73, 74 Chemistry, 22 "Christian Atheism," 177 Christian church, 102, 161, 163 Christianity, 176, 177, 178 Cluistians, 175 church, 152 civil affairs, 57 civil law, see law, civil civil life, see life, civil civil man, see man, civil civil truth, see truth, civil civil uses, see uses, civil conjugial love, see love, conjugial conjunction, 41, 113, 171 conjunction, interior, 71 conjunction, internal, 112 conjunction, state of, 175 conscience, 46, 132, 133

197


conscience, exterior, 132 conscience, interior, 132 Constantine the Great, 162 continuous degrees, see degrees, con

tinuous corporeal love, see love, corporeal correspondence, 115, 142, 149 Creation, 45, 90, 141, 144, 145, 147,

149, 160

Daedalus, 20 Darrow, Clarence, 178 Darwinian evolution, 178 death, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111,

119,128 Decalogue, the, 63, 65, 82, 86, 93, 129 degree, exterior, 144 degree, interior, 144

[ degrees, continuous, 143 delight, interior, 115, 117 Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Con

;ugial Love after which follow the Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love, The, 26

destiny of man, 120, 140 devil,46,167 dignities, 51 divine blessings, see blessings, divine Divine good, 111, 116, 150 Divine Holy, 161 Divine Human, 161 Divine Itself, 161 Divine justice, see justice, divine Divine law, see law, divine Divine life, see life, divine Divine love, see love, divine Divine Love and Wisdom, 26 Divine mercy, see mercy, divine Divine of the Father, 171 Divine of the Lord, 127 Divine order, see order, divine Divine Providence, 26 Divine Providence, see prOVidence,

divine Divine, the, 31, 47, 63, 80, 85, 158,

160,163,164,170,172,173 Divine trinity, 161, 162

198

Divine truth, see truth, divine Divine wisdom, see wisdom, divine dogs, 125 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 35 Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, 30 duty, 53, 55, 68

Economy of the Animal Kingdom, The. 24

Egypt, 102 Ekebom, Dean, 31 eminence, 90 England,17 Esse, 145, 146, 159 eternal life, see life, eternal eternity, 140, 153, 160, 162, 165, 172.

175 Ethiopia, 102 Eustachius, 22 Evangelists, 102 evil, 40, 41, 60, 80, 82, 89, 90, 92, 93,

94, 95, 96, 118, 119, 120, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140, 169, 173

evil, hereditary, 172, 173 evil, inherited, 90 evil spirits, see spirits, evil examination, state of, 173, 174 exterior conscience, see conscience,

exterior exterior degree, see degree, exterior exteriors, state of, 107 external charity, see charity, external external man, see man, external external worship, see worship, external

faith, 42, 52, 56, 57, 85, 87, 93, 94, 103, 109, 116, 119, 133, 134, 137. 138,163,174

falsity, 89, 119 feminine form, 67 fidelity, 55 first coming of the Lord, 175 Hood, the, 102 form, 44 fornication, 74, 75 Four Doctrines, The, 26 free Will, 41, 43

INDEX

freedom, 40, 41, 42, 43, 76, 90, 91, 95, 124, 139, 140, 141, 152, 153, 155

freedom, celestial, 42 freedom, heavenly, 42 freedom, human, 43 freedom, infernal, 42 freedom, natural, 42 freedom, rational, 42 freedom, spiritual, 43 Freudian psychoanalytic theories, 178

Gentiles, 169 Glen, James, 35 glorification, 171 glorification, state of, 173, 174 God-Man, 158 golden age, 102 good, 40, 41, 42, 44, 54, 55, 56, 62,

63, 64, 65, 80, 93, 95, 96, 114, lIS, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 152, 157, 167, 168, 169, 170, 174

good life, 128 goodness, 109 good works, 128 GOtha Court of Appeals, 32 governors, 58, 59, 61 Grand Man, 118 Greece, 102 Gustav V,15

Hades, 90 Hamilton, William, 177 happiness, 115, 140, 157 heaven, 51, 58, 61, 77, 80, 82, 100,

101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130, 131, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 175, 176

Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell, 26,27,28,35

heaven,angellc,104,147 heaven from the human race, 149

heavenly freedom, see freedom, heavenly

heavenly love, see love, heavenly heavenly marriage, see marriage, heav

enly heavenly uses, see uses, heavenly heavenly wisdom, see wisdom, heav

enly hell, 46, 61, 100, 101, 104, 105, 107,

110, 116, 118, 119, 120, 129, 131, 136, 148, 153, 159, 166, 167, 169, 170,171,173,175,176

hereditary eVil, see evil, hereditary Hindmarsh, Robert, 35 Holland,17 Holy Supper, 94 House of Nobles, 19 human freedom, see freedom, human Human, His, 171, 173, 174, 175 human mind, see mind, human Human, the, 169, 170, 172

immensity, 162 Indies,l02 infernal freedom, see freedom, infernal infernal uses, see uses, infernal influx, 126, 127, 129 inherited evil, see evil, inherited instruction, state of, 107 intelligence, 120, 125, 156 interior conjunction, see conjunction,

interior interior conscience, see conscience, in

terior interior degree, see degree, interior interior dellght, see delight, interior interior llfe, see life, interior interiors, state of, 107 interior wisdom, see wisdom, interior internal charity, see charity, internal internal conjunction, see conjunction,

internal internal man, see man, internal internal memory, see memory, internal internal natural man, see man, internal

natural

199

THE

internal spiritual man, see man, internal spiritual

iron age, 102 Israel, 169 Israelitish Word, 102 Italy, 102

Jehovah, 89, 102, 145, 161, 163, 164, 169, 170

Jews, 169 lournal of Dreams, 25 lournalof Travel, 25 Jove, 102 justice, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 64, 65, 119 justice, divine, 89

Kant, Immanuel, 23, 29, 30 king, 53, 58, 59 kingdom, mineral, 144 Kingdoms of Africa, 102 kingdom, vegetable, 144 knowledge, 125

Lambert, Johann, 23 Lancisi, 22 Laplace, Pierre Simon de, 23 law, 59, 61 law, civil, 62, 64 law, divine, 58, 62, 83 law, moral, 62 laws of order, 45, 46, 150 Leeuwenhoek, Antony van, 22 Lesser Principia, 22 liberty,156 fife, 44, 108, 109, 126 life after death, 104 life, civil, 60, 63, 65, 66, 129 life, divine, 152 life, eternal, 84, 90, 131, 152 life, interior, 115 life, moral, 63, 64, 65, 66, 83, 84, 129 life, spiritual, 60, 63, 66, 115, 129, 130 love, 42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52, 56, 57, 60,

63,68,69,70,72,74,76,77,87,91, 92, 96, 101, 103, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 127, 131,

ESSENTIAL SWEDENBORG

132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 155, 164, 165, 166, 173

love, conjugial, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 106

love, corporeal, 128 love, divine, 44, 61, 116, 144, 146, 166 love, heavenly, 91, 92, 166 love, marriage, 71 love, material, 128 love of self, 91, 128 love of the neighbor, 128 love of the sex, 70, 71, 74, 75 love of the world, 128 love, scortatory, 74, 106 love, spiritual, 71, 91, 128 Lovisa Ulrika, 29 Lutheran Consistory, 31

man, civil, 61, 62 man, external, 138 man, internal, 78, 138 man, internal natural, 83 man, internal spiritual, 83 man, moral, 61, 62 man, natural, 71, 86 man, spiritual, 62, 71 man's mind, 123 marriage, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73,

74,75,111,112 marriage, heavenly, 67 marriage love, see love, marriage Marteville, Mme de, 28, 29 Marxian materialism, 178 Mary, 164, 172 masculine form, 67 material love, see love, material memory, internal, 78 memory-knowledges, 47, 77, 78, 80 mercy, 56, 57, 167 mercy, divine, 46 mind,121 mind, human, 124 mind, natural, 124 mind, spiritual, 124 mineral kingdom, see kingdom, min~

eral

200

INDEX

Mohammedan religion, see religion, Mohammedan

morality, 62 moral law, see law, moral moral life, see life, moral moral truth, see truth, moral moral uses, see uses, moral moral wisdom, see wisdom, moral Moses, 102 Most Ancient Church, 102

natural freedom, see freedom, natural natural mind, see mind, natural natural temptations, see temptations,

natural natural universe, see universe, natural natural uses, see uses, natural natural world, see world, natural nature, 160 nature of man, 120 nature, universal, 143 neighbor, 43, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,

55,60,61,86,91,118,119 New Church, 176 New Jerusalem, 176 Nice, 162 Nicene Council, 162 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 177 Nordencrantz, Anders, 19, 20

omnipotence, 162 order, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 58, 150,

151, 175 order, divine, 44, 45, 46, 51, 52, 76,

90, 117, 118, 145, 150, 174 Organs of Generation, The, 24 origin of man, 120 "Outlines of a Philosophical Argument

on the Infinite, and the Final Cause of Creation and on the Mechanism of the Operation of Soul and Body," 23,24

Paradise, 102 passion of the cross, 171,172 peace,42 permissions, 89

Philosophical and Mineralogical Works, 22,23

Pope Paul VI, 177 power, 156 priest, 50, 88 Principia, The, 22, 23 prophets, 102 Providence, 150, 151, 153, 157 Providence, divine, 54, 55, 84, 86, 101,

148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 165

prudence, 156

rational freedom, see freedom, rational rationality, 40, 156 Rational Psychology, 24 reason, 76, 152, 155 redemption, 171, 172, 175 reformation, 135 regeneration, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139 religion, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 93, 101,

102, 103, 129, 159, 163, 166 religion, Mohammedan, 102 Revelation, Book of, 26, 99, 101, 103 Reynolds, Elizabeth, 34 Riksdag, 19, 20 Robsahm, Carl, 33 Rosen, John, 35 Royal College of Mines, 18 Royal Council, 32 Ruysch,22

salvation, 116, 134, 135, 150, 152, 165, 166,170

Scheffer, Count Ulric, 29 Scopes trial, 178 scortatory love, 74, 106 second coming of the Lord, 175, 176 self-love, 42 Senses, The, 24 Sex, 66, 70, 74 Shearsrnith, 33, 34 sin, 89, 92, 94, 95, 137 sincerity, 54, 65 Socinianism, 31, 32 soul, 121, 122, 125 spirits, 105, 107, 108, 126, 176

201


spirits, evil, 139 spiritual freedom, see freedom, spiritual spiritual life, see life, spiritual spiritual love, see love, spiritual spiritual mind, see mind, spiritual spiritual temptations, see temptations,

spiritual spiritual truths, see truths, spiritual spiritual universe, see universe, spirit

ual spiritual uses, see uses, spiritual spiritual virtues, see virtues, spiritual spiritual world, see world, spiritual state of conjunction, see conjunction,

state of state of exinanition, see exinanition,

state of state of exteriors, see exteriors, state of state of glorification, see glorification,

state of state of instruction, see instruction,

state of state of interiors, see interiors, state of state of union, see union, state of Stockholm, 16 Stockholm Board of Trade, 28 substance, 44 Swedberg, Jesper, 16

temptations, 133, 134, 135, 136, 171, 172,173

temptations, natural, 134 temptations, spiritual, 134 Trinity, the, 161, 162, 163, 164 True Christian Religion, The, 30, 33 truth, 41,42, 44, 56, 63, 65,77,78,79,

80, 81, 85, 93, 107, 114, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 129, 135, 136, 139, 152, 164, 170, 174

truth, ciVil, 62, 64 truth, divine, 46, 100, 101, 103, 110,

122, 150 truth, moral, 62, 64 truth, spiritual, 47, 62,63

Ulrika Eleonora, 16

understanding, 123 universal nature, see nature, universal universe, 141, 144, 145, 147, 148, 159,

160 universe, natural, 146 universe, spiritual, 146 Uppsala University, 16, 17, 18,32 use, 48, 53, 104, 110, 114, 122, 129,

141, 144, 147, 167 use of life, 76 uses, civil, 48 uses, heavenly, 49 uses, infernal, 49 uses, moral, 48 uses, natural, 48 uses of the body, 49 uses, spiritual, 48

vegetable kingdom, see kingdom, vegetable

verity, 163 virgin birth, 178 virtues, spiritual, 64

Wesley, John, 33, 34 will, 91, 122, 123, 124 wisdom, 45, 76, 77, 80, 85, 110, 114,

120, 122, 125, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146,150,152,156,164

wisdom, divine, 44, 61 wisdom, heavenly, 103 wisdom, interior, 104 wisdom, moral, 64 Word, the, 26, 41, 43, 45, 49, 50, 64,

65, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 94, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 129, 130, 136, 137, 145, 152, 169, 170, 173, 175, 176

world, 115, 116, 117, 119 world, natural, 126, 142, 143, 144,

145, 146, 147 world of spirits, 104, 110, 169 world, spiritual, 46, 105, 126, 142,

143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 159, 176 Worship and Love of God, 25 worship, external, 166 Wright,23

202

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\�

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Raised in a highly cultivated Swedenborgian environment, and with a background of 20 years as educator and writer, Dr. Synnestvedt is amply equipped to offer an authoritative presentation of The Essential Swedenborg.

Receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in'1959, he embarked upon a teaching career (chiefly American History and Literature) with academic appointments at the Academy of the New Church, Penn State University, University of Verm,ont, and currently at State University College, Brockport, New York, where he is Chairman of the History Department.

He also served as Research Associate of the Foreign Policy Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, as Assistant to the Director of its Latin American Project, Co-Director of its Cold War Alignment Project, and was awarded a Post Doctoral Fellowship there. A number of his studies have been published in CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE, ORBIS, and various church periodicals. Dr. Synnestvedt is also on the Board of Directors of the Swedenborg Foundation of New York.

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Dr. Sig Synnestvedt�

THE SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION, INC.� &

TWAYNE PUBLISHERS, INC.

MY RELIGION by

BELEN KELLER "If a world-wide poll were to be taken to determine

the most outstanding woman of our generation, no doubt the top selection would be ReJen Kener.

The good she has done through her work for the blind and other handicapped people throughout the world is enormous. And many a person, with or without handicaps, has been inspired by Relen Keller's books.

One of the most helpful of these books is "My Religion" in which she tells of her early problems and how she gained the inner resources to overcome her own handicaps and lead such a magnificent and noble life.

Miss Keller's dynamic personality shines out through her lovely paean of praise to God and appreciation of the people who helped her spiritually, particularly a kindly old man who assisted Alexander Graham Bell in his work for the deaf and at the same time shared with Relen Keller the writing of the famous Swedish theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg.

Re was the Consul-General for Switzerland in the United States, Mr. John Ritz, and his service beyond the call of duty brought Relen Keller the great glow of Christian faith that has shone through her life so splendidly! To read "My Religion" is a rich blessing that I wish every person might enjoy.

I am very glad to add Il1Y tribute to the many she has so deservedly received."

-DR. NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

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