(iv) _By His divine providence the Lord assembles the affections of all mankind into one form--the human form._ In a subsequent paragraph it will be seen that this is the universal effort of divine providence. Those who ascribe everything to nature deny God at heart, and those who ascribe everything to human prudence, at heart deny divine providence; the one cannot be separated from the other. Yet both groups for their reputation's sake and for fear of losing it profess in words that divine providence is universal, but say its details fall to man and in their aggregate are grasped by human prudence.
[2] But consider: what is universal providence when the details are taken from it? Is it anything but just an expression? For that is called universal which consists of the total of details as what is general does of particulars. If, then, you remove details, what is the universal except something empty, thus like a surface with nothing underneath or an aggregate without content? If it should be said that divine providence is a universal government but nothing is governed but only held in connection and items of the government are handled by others, can this be called a universal government? No king has such a government. For if a king gave his subjects the government of everything in his kingdom, he would no longer be king, but would only be called king; he would have the standing in name only and not in fact. In the case of such a king one cannot speak of government, still less of universal government.
[3] God's providence is called man's prudence. As universal prudence cannot be said of a king who has only kept the name so that the kingdom may be called a kingdom and be held together, so one cannot speak of universal providence if human beings provide everything by their own prudence. The same is true of the terms "universal providence" and "universal government" in reference to nature when they mean that God created the universe but endowed nature to produce everything from herself. What is "universal providence" then but a metaphysical term, and nothing but a term? Many of those who attribute everything produced to nature and everything accomplished to human prudence and yet profess orally that God created nature, regard divine providence as an empty expression. But the reality is that divine providence is in the least things of nature and of human prudence also and is thereby universal.
The Lord's divine providence is universal by being in the least things in that He created the universe in order that an infinite and eternal creation might come about from Him, and it does as He forms a heaven from mankind which in His sight is like one humanity, His image and likeness. We showed above (nn. 27-45) that heaven formed of human beings is such in His sight; that this was the purpose of creation; and that the divine regards what is infinite and eternal in all that it does (nn. 46-69). The infinite and eternal to which the Lord looks in forming His heaven from mankind is the growth of it to infinity and eternity and thus His dwelling constantly in the purpose of His creation. This infinite and eternal creation the Lord provided for in creating the universe and He pursues it steadily in His divine providence.
[2] Can anyone who knows and believes from the church's doctrine 202-1 that God is infinite and eternal be so lacking in reason that he does not agree on hearing it that God can then regard only what is infinite and eternal in the great work of His creation? To what else can He look from His infinite being? To what else in mankind of which He forms His heaven? What else can divine providence then have for its end than the reformation and salvation of mankind? No one can be reformed by himself through his prudence; he is reformed by the Lord through His divine providence. Consequently, unless the Lord leads man every least moment the man lapses from the way of reformation and perishes.
[3] Every change or variation in the state of the human mind means a change or variation in a series of things present and to come; what then of progress to eternity? The situation is like that of an arrow shot from a bow, which if it deviated from the target in the least on being aimed would deviate widely at a thousand feet or more. The like would happen if the Lord did not lead the states of the human mind every least moment. The Lord does so according to the laws of His divine providence; it is according to them that it seems to man he leads himself; but the Lord foresees how he leads himself and constantly acts in adaptation. In what follows it will be seen that laws of tolerance are also laws of divine providence, that every man can be reformed and regenerated, and that no other predestination is possible.
Since every man lives forever after death and is allotted a place either in heaven or in hell according to his life, and heaven and hell must each be in a form to act as a unit, as we said before, and since no one can be allotted a place in that form other than his own, humanity in all the world is under the Lord's guidance and everyone is led by the Lord from infancy to the close of life in the least things, and his place is foreseen and provided.
[2] Clearly then, the Lord's divine providence is universal by being in the least things, and it is an infinite and eternal creation that He has provided for Himself in creating the world. Man does not espy this universal providence, and if he did, it would look to him like scattered heaps and collections of material for building a house such as passersby see, while the Lord beholds rather a magnificent palace, constantly building and enlarging.
(v) _Heaven and hell are in the form described._ That heaven is in the human form has been made known in the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in London in 1758 (nn. 59-102), also in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ and here and there in the present treatise. I therefore omit further confirmation. Hell is said to be in the human form also, but it is in a monstrous human form, like that of the devil, by whom hell in its entirety is meant. Hell is in the human form inasmuch as those who are in it were born human beings too; they also possess the two human faculties of liberty and rationality, though they have misused liberty by willing and doing evil, and rationality by thinking and confirming evil.
(vi) _Those who have acknowledged nature alone and human prudence alone make up hell, and those who have acknowledged God and His divine providence make up heaven._ All who lead an evil life, inwardly acknowledge nature and human prudence alone. This acknowledgment lies hidden in all evil, however the evil may be veiled by good and truth, which are borrowed raiment, or like wreaths of perishable flowers, put around the evil lest it appear in its nakedness. That all who lead an evil life, inwardly acknowledge nature and human prudence alone is not known because of this general covering hiding it from view. The source and cause of their acknowledgment, however, may make clear that they acknowledge nature and one's own prudence. We shall say, therefore, whence man's own prudence is and what it is; then whence divine providence is and what it is; next who they are respectively, and of what character, who acknowledge divine providence and who acknowledge man's own prudence; and lastly show that those who acknowledge divine providence are in heaven and that those who acknowledge man's own prudence are in hell.
_Whence man's own prudence is and what it is._ It is from man's proprium, which is his nature and is called his soul from his parent. This proprium is self-love and the accompanying love of the world, or it is love of the world and the accompanying self-love. Self-love by nature regards self only and others as cheap or of no account. If it regards any it does so as long as they honor and do it homage. Inmostly in that love, like the endeavor in seed to fructify and propagate, there lies hidden the desire to become great and if possible a king and then possibly a god. A devil is such, for he is self-love itself; he adores himself and favors no one unless he also adores him; another devil like himself he hates, because he in turn wants alone to be adored. Since no love is possible without its consort and the consort of love or of the will in man is called the understanding, when self-love breathes itself into its consort, the understanding, it becomes pride there, which is the pride of self-intelligence, and from this comes man's own prudence.
[2] Inasmuch as self-love wants to be the one lord of the world and thus a god, the lusts of evil which are derived from it have their life from it, so have the perceptions of the lusts, which are schemes; likewise the enjoyments of the lusts, which are evils, and the thoughts of the lusts, which are falsities. All these are like slaves and ministers of their lord, responding to his every nod, unaware that they do not act but are acted upon; they are actuated by self-love through the pride of self-intelligence. Hence man's own prudence because of its origin lies concealed in every evil.
[3] The acknowledgment of nature alone is also hidden in it, for self-love has closed the window overhead through which heaven is plain and the side windows, too, in order not to see or hear that the Lord alone governs all things, that nature in herself is lifeless, and that man's proprium is infernal and consequently love of it is diabolical. With the windows shuttered, self-love is in darkness, builds itself a hearth fire at which it sits with its consort, and the two reason amicably in favor of nature as against God and in favor of man's own prudence as against divine providence.
_Whence and what divine providence is._ It is the divine activity in the man who has removed self-love. For, as was said, self-love is the devil, and lusts with their enjoyments are the evils of his kingdom, which is hell. On the removal of self-love the Lord enters with the affections of neighborly love, opening the overhead window and then the side windows, thus enabling man to see that there is a heaven, a life after death and eternal happiness. By the spiritual light and at the same time the spiritual love which then flow in, the Lord causes him to acknowledge that God governs all things by His divine providence.
_Who and of what nature those in each group are._ Those who acknowledge God and His divine providence are like the angels of heaven, who are averse to being led by themselves and love to be led by the Lord. It is a sign that they are led by the Lord that they love the neighbor. Those, however, who acknowledge nature and one's own prudence are like the spirits of hell, who are averse to being led by the Lord and love to be led by themselves. If they were powerful persons in a kingdom or prelates in the church they want to dominate all things. If they were judges, they pervert judgment and exercise power over the laws. If they were learned, they apply scientific information to confirm nature and man's proprium. If they were merchants they act like robbers, and if husbandmen like thieves. All are enemies of God and scoffers at divine providence.
It is amazing that when heaven is opened to such men and they are told that they are insane, and this is made plain to their very perception by influx and enlightenment, still they angrily shut heaven away from them and look to the earth beneath which is hell. This is done with such men while they are still outside hell. It makes plain how mistaken those are who think, "If I see heaven and hear angels speaking with me, I shall acknowledge." Their understanding makes the acknowledgment, but if the will does not at the same time, they still do not acknowledge. For the love of the will inspires in the understanding what it wills (it is not the other way about); indeed, it destroys everything in the understanding which is not from itself.
_All this can be effected only as it appears to man that he thinks from himself and disposes by himself._ In what precedes we have shown fully that 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. At the same time he would divest himself of the two faculties, liberty and rationality, distinguishing him from the beasts. Above in this treatise and in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom_ it was shown that without this appearance a man would not have the power to receive or reciprocate nor have immortality then.
[2] If then you desire to be led by divine providence, use prudence as a servant and minister that faithfully dispenses his master's goods. This prudence is the talent given to the servants to trade with, of which they were to give account (Lu 19:13-28; Mt 25:14-31). It seems to man to be his own, and he believes it is his own as long as he holds shut up within him the bitterest enemy God and divine providence have, the love of self. This dwells in the interiors of every man by birth; if you do not recognize it (and it wishes not to be recognized), it dwells securely and guards the door lest man open the door and the Lord cast it out. The door is opened by man through shunning evils as sins as if of himself with the acknowledgment that he does so from the Lord. With this prudence divine providence acts as one.
Divine providence operates so secretly that scarcely anyone is aware it exists in order that man may not perish. For man's proprium, which is his will, never acts at one with divine providence, against which it has an inborn enmity. The proprium is the serpent which seduced the race's parents of which it is said,
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, and It shall bruise your head (Ge 3:15).
The serpent is evil of every sort; its head is self-love. The seed of the woman is the Lord, and the enmity set is between the love of man's proprium and the Lord, thus between man's own prudence and the Lord's divine providence. For man's own prudence is constantly exalting that head, and divine providence is constantly abasing it.
[2] If man felt this, he would be enraged and wrought-up against God and would perish. While he does not feel it, he may be enraged and wrought-up against others or himself or against fortune without perishing. Therefore the Lord leads man by His divine providence in freedom always, and the freedom seems to man to be utterly his own. To lead a man freely in opposition to himself is like raising a heavy and resisting weight from the ground by means of screws through the power of which weight and resistance are not felt. And it is as though someone is unknowingly with an enemy who means to kill him and a friend leads him away quietly and only afterwards tells him the enemy's intention.
Who does not talk of fortune? Who does not acknowledge it by speaking of it and know something of it by experience? Yet who knows what it is? One cannot deny that it is something, for it exists and occurs, and a thing cannot exist and occur without being caused; but the cause of this something, fortune, is not known. Lest fortune be denied merely because the cause is unknown, consider dice or playing cards and play yourself or ask the players; do any deny that fortune exists? For they play with it and it plays with them surprisingly. Who can repulse it if it opposes him? Does it not laugh then at prudence and wisdom? When you shake the dice or shuffle the cards, does fortune not seem to know and direct the turns and twists of the wrists in favor of one player rather than another for some cause? Can the cause have any other source than divine providence in outermost things where it works along with human prudence in a wonderful way, constant or changeful, concealing itself at the same time?
[2] We know that pagans of old acknowledged Fortune and built a temple to her, as Italians did at Rome. It has been granted me to learn many things which I am not permitted to make public about this fortune, which, as was said, is divine providence in outmosts. These made it plain to me that fortune is not an illusion of the mind nor a sport of nature nor something without a cause, for this has no reality, but is visible evidence that divine providence is over the least things in human thought and action. As divine providence occurs in these least things which are insignificant and trifling, why should it not in the significant and important matters of peace and war in the world and of salvation and life in heaven?
I know, however, that human prudence bears the rational faculty its way more than divine providence does its way, for the latter does not show itself and the former does. It can be accepted more readily that there is only one life, namely God, and that all men are recipients of life from Him, as we have shown many times, yet this amounts to saying that prudence is from Him, for prudence is part of life. What man, speaking in favor of nature and of human prudence in his reasoning, is not speaking from the natural or external man? And what man, speaking in favor of divine providence and of God in his reasoning, is not speaking from the spiritual or internal man? But, "Pray, write two books," I say to the natural man, "and fill them with plausible, likely and lifelike reasons which in your judgment are solid ones, the one book in favor of one's own prudence, and the other in favor of nature. Then hand them to any angel. I know he will write down on them these few words: `All this is appearance and fallacy.'"
XI. DIVINE PROVIDENCE LOOKS TO WHAT IS ETERNAL, AND TO THE TEMPORAL ONLY AS THIS ACCORDS WITH THE ETERNAL
That divine providence looks to what is eternal and to the temporal only so far as this makes one with the eternal, will be demonstrated in this order:
i. The temporal has to do with distinction and wealth, thus with standing and gain, in the world. ii. The eternal has to do with spiritual standing and abundance, of love and wisdom, in heaven. iii. The temporal and the eternal are separated by man, but are united by the Lord. iv. The uniting of temporal and eternal is the Lord's divine providence.
(i) _The temporal has to do with distinction and wealth, thus with standing and gain, in the world._ Many things are temporal, but they are all related to distinction and wealth. By the temporal is meant all that either perishes in time or at least comes to an end with man's life in the world. By the eternal is meant all that does not perish or come to an end in time and thus not with life in the world. Since, as we said, all that is temporal concerns distinction and wealth, it is important to know the following: what, and whence, distinction and wealth are; the nature of the love of them for themselves and the nature of the love of them for the sake of use; that these two loves are distinct from each other, as hell and heaven are; and that man hardly knows the difference between them. But of these points one by one.
[2] _First: What, and whence, distinction and wealth are._ Distinction and wealth in the most ancient times were quite different from what they gradually became later. Distinction in those times existed only in the relation of parents and children and was one of love, a love full of respect and veneration, accorded the parents not because of birth from them, but because of the instruction and wisdom received from them, which was a second birth of the children, in itself spiritual, being of their spirit. This was the sole distinction in most ancient days because tribes, families, and households dwelt separately and not like today under governments. The distinction attached to the head of the family. Men of old called the times golden ages.
[3] But after those times the love of ruling, just out of enjoyment of that love, crept in by stages, and as enmity and hostility did so at the same time towards those who were unwilling to submit, tribes, families, and households congregated of necessity in communities and set over themselves one whom they called judge at first, then prince, and finally king and emperor. They also began to protect themselves by towers, earthworks and walls. The lust of ruling spread like a contagion to many from the judge, prince, king or emperor as from the head into the body, and as a result degrees of distinction arose and prestige according to them, and self-love also and pride in one's own prudence.
[4] The same thing happened with the love of riches. In the most ancient days when tribes and families lived by themselves, there was no other love of riches than to possess the necessaries of life which they provided for themselves from flocks and herds and from the lands, fields and gardens which supplied their food. Suitable houses, furnished with useful articles of every kind, and clothing were also among their necessities of life. Parents, children and male and female servants, making up the household, engaged in the care and labor for all these necessities.
[5] But after the love of dominion entered and destroyed this state of society, the love of having means beyond what was needed crept in also and grew to the extreme of wanting to possess the wealth of all other men. The two loves are like blood relatives, for one who wants to rule over all things, also wants to possess all things; for then all others become servants, and they alone masters. This is clearly evident from those in the papist world who have exalted their dominion even into heaven, to the Lord's throne, on which they have placed themselves, and who at the same time seek the wealth of the whole earth and want to enlarge their treasury endlessly.
[6] Second: _The nature of the love of distinction and wealth for their own sake and for usefulness' sake respectively._ The love of distinction and standing for their own sake is self-love--strictly, the love of ruling from self-love; and the love of riches and wealth for their own sake is love of the world--more precisely, the love of possessing the goods of others by whatever device. But the love of distinction and riches for usefulness' sake is love of the use, which is the same as love to the neighbor; for that for the sake of which a man acts is the purpose from which he acts, and is first or primary, and all else is means and secondary.
[7] As for the love of distinction and standing, identical with self-love and strictly with the love of ruling from self-love, it is the love of the proprium; and man's proprium is all evil. Hence it is said that man is born into all evil and that what he has by heredity is nothing but evil. What he has by heredity is his proprium in which he is and into which he comes through self-love and especially through the love of ruling from self-love; for one who is in that love regards only himself and thus immerses his thoughts and affections in his proprium. Hence a love of evil-doing is present in self-love. The reason is that he does not love the neighbor but only himself; and one who loves himself only, sees others as outsiders or as mean or nothing worth, despises them, and does not hesitate to do them injury.
[8] For this reason one who is in the love of ruling from the love of self thinks nothing of defrauding his neighbor, committing adultery with his wife, slandering him, breathing vengeance on him even to the death, treating him cruelly, and other such deeds. This a man gets from the fact that the devil himself, with whom he is conjoined and by whom he is led, is nothing else than the love of ruling from self-love. One who is led by the devil, that is, by hell, is led into all these evils and is constantly led by enjoyments of these evils. Hence all who are in hell want to do evil to all, but those in heaven want to do well by all. From this opposition there results the intermediate state in which man is and in it is in equilibrium, as it were, so that he can turn towards hell or towards heaven. So far as he favors the evils of self-love he turns towards hell, and so far as he removes them from him he turns towards heaven.
[9] It has been granted me to feel the nature and also the strength of the enjoyment of ruling from the love of self. I was let into it that I might know. It was such as to exceed all worldly enjoyments. It was an enjoyment of the whole mind from its inmosts to its outmosts, but felt in the body only as pleasure and gratification, making the chest swell. It was also granted me to perceive that there issued from this enjoyment as from their fountainhead the enjoyments of evils of all kinds, such as adultery, revenge, fraud, slander, and evil-doing in general. There is a similar enjoyment in the love of possessing the wealth of others by whatever ruse, and from this love in the lusts derived from it; yet not the same degree of enjoyment unless this love is conjoined with self-love. As for distinction and riches sought not for themselves but for usefulness' sake, this is not love of them but love of uses; distinction and wealth serve it as means. This love is heavenly. But of it more in what follows.
[10] Third: _These two loves are distinct from each other, as heaven and hell are._ This is plain from what has just been said, to which I will add the following. All who are in the love of ruling from self-love, whoever they are and whether they are great or small, are in hell in spirit. They are also in the love of all evils. If they do not commit them, still in their spirit they believe that they are allowable, and when honor, standing, or fear of the law do not deter, they commit them physically. What is more, the love of ruling from self-love hides hatred of God deeply within itself, consequently of divine things which are of the church and especially of the Lord. If such men acknowledge God it is with the lips only, and if they acknowledge the divine things of the church, it is for fear of losing standing. This love hides hatred of the Lord deeply within it because deep in it is the desire to be God, for it worships and adores itself alone. Hence if anyone honors it, even to saying that it possesses divine wisdom and is the god of the world, it loves him with all the heart.
[11] It is otherwise with the love of distinction and wealth for usefulness' sake; this love is heavenly, for, as was said, it is the same as love of the neighbor. By uses goods are meant, and by doing uses doing good is meant, and by doing uses or good, serving and helping others is meant. Although those doing so may possess distinction and wealth, they regard these only as means for doing uses, thus for serving and helping. They are meant in these words of the Lord:
Whoever would be great among you, must be your minister; and whoever would . . . be first, must be your servant (Mt 20:26, 27).
It is these also whom the Lord entrusts with ruling in heaven. For ruling is to them the means of doing uses or good, thus of serving; and when uses or good deeds are their purpose and their love, they do not rule; the Lord does, from whom is all that is good.
[12] Fourth: _Man hardly knows the difference between the two loves._ For most men of distinction and wealth also perform uses, yet do not know whether they do so for their own sake or for the sake of usefulness. They know this the less because love of self and the world has more fire and ardor for doing uses than have those who are not in love of self and the world. The former do uses, however, for the sake of fame or gain, thus for their own benefit; but the latter, doing so for the sake of usefulness and what is beneficial, act not from themselves but from the Lord.
[13] The difference between the two loves can scarcely be recognized by man, for he is ignorant whether he is being led by the devil or by the Lord. Led by the devil he does uses for his own sake or the world's; led by the Lord, he does them for the sake of the Lord and of heaven. All who shun evils as sins do uses from the Lord; all who do not shun evils as sins do uses from the devil, for evil is the devil, and use or good is the Lord. Only so is the difference in question recognizable. Outwardly the two loves look the same; inwardly they are wholly unlike. One is like gold with dross in it, the other like gold with pure gold in it. One is like artificial fruit, looking outwardly like the fruit of a tree, but is colored wax with dust or pitch in it; the other is like noble fruit, flavorsome and fragrant, with seeds in it.
(ii) _The eternal has to do with spiritual standing and wealth, of love and wisdom, in heaven._ As the natural man calls the enjoyments of self-love, which are also the enjoyments of the lusts of evil, good, and confirms that they are goods, he calls distinction and wealth divine blessings. But when the natural man sees the wicked as well as the good raised to distinction and prospered, and still more when he beholds the good despised and poorly off and the wicked honored and affluent, he thinks to himself, "Why is this? It cannot be by divine providence. For if providence governed everything, it would lavish distinction and wealth on the good and inflict contempt and poverty on the wicked, and thus drive the wicked to acknowledge there is a God and divine providence."
[2] But unless he is enlightened by the spiritual man, that is, is at the same time spiritual, the natural man does not see that distinction and wealth can be blessings but also curses, and that when they are from God they are blessings, and when they are from the devil they are curses. It is well known, moreover, that the devil bestows distinction and wealth; it is on this account that he is called the prince of the world. As it is not known when distinction and wealth are blessings and when they are curses, let it be told in this order: 1. Distinction and wealth are blessings and are curses. 2. When they are blessings they are spiritual and eternal; when they are curses they are temporal and ephemeral. 3. Distinction and wealth which are curses, compared with those which are blessings, are as nothing compared with everything or as that which has no existence in itself compared with that which has.
The three points are now each to be clarified. 1. _Distinction and wealth are blessings and are curses._ Common experience attests that both the pious and the impious, or the just and the unjust, that is, the wicked and the good, gain distinction and wealth, and yet it is undeniable that the impious and unjust, that is, the wicked, enter hell, and the pious and just, that is, the good, enter heaven. As this is true, distinction and wealth or standing and means are either blessings or curses, blessings with the good and curses with the evil. It was shown in the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in London in the year 1758, that rich and poor and great and small are found in both heaven and hell (nn. 357-365). It is plain from this that distinction and wealth with those now in heaven were blessings in the world, and with those now in hell were curses in the world.
[2] If he will think about the matter with reason, anyone can know when distinction and wealth are blessings or curses, namely, that they are blessings with those who do not set their heart on them, and curses with those who do. One sets the heart on them in loving oneself in them, and one does not set the heart on them when he loves uses and not himself in them. Above (n. 215) we told what the difference between the two loves, and the nature of it, is. It is to be added that distinction and wealth seduce some and not others. They do so when they excite the loves in man's proprium, that is, self-love, which is the love found in hell and is called the devil (as remarked above), and they do not seduce if they do not excite that love.
[3] Both the wicked and the good come to distinction and are prospered in means because the wicked as well as the good perform uses. The wicked perform uses for the sake of their personal standing and gain; the good do so for the sake of the standing and profit of the work which they do. The good regard the standing and profit of their work as principal causes of action, and personal standing and gain as instrumental causes; but the wicked regard their personal standing and gain as the main incentives and the standing and gain of their work as the instrumental. Yet who does not see that a person, whatever his function or standing, is to serve the affairs which he administers, and not they him? Who does not see that a judge is to serve justice, a magistrate the common welfare, a king his kingdom, and that it is not to be the other way around? According to the laws of a kingdom, a man is invested therefore with distinction and standing in keeping with the eminence of the work he does. Moreover, who does not see that the difference between the two loves is like that between what is principal and what is instrumental? One who ascribes to himself personally the eminence of a position appears in the spiritual world, when this inversion is pictured, as himself inverted, feet up and head down.
[4] Second: _When distinction and wealth are blessings they are spiritual and eternal, but when they are curses they are temporal and ephemeral._ There are distinction and wealth in heaven as there are in the world. For governments and hence administrations and functions exist there, trade also and hence wealth, for there are societies and communities. All heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom. Each kingdom is divided into innumerable societies, larger and smaller, all of which with all in them are arranged according to differences of love and of wisdom thence, the societies of the celestial kingdom according to differences of celestial love, which is love to the Lord, and the societies of the spiritual kingdom according to differences of spiritual love, which is love to the neighbor. Inasmuch as there are such societies, and all who are in them were men in the world and hence retain the loves they cherished in the world, with the one difference that they are spiritual beings now, and that distinction and wealth are spiritual in the spiritual kingdom and celestial in the celestial kingdom, therefore those have greater distinction and abundance than others who have greater love and wisdom. And to them distinction and wealth in the world were blessings.
[5] The nature of spiritual distinction and wealth may then be plain--they attach to one's function and not to one's person. The distinguished person in the spiritual world indeed enjoys magnificence and glory like those of kings on earth, yet does not regard the distinction itself as anything but rather the uses in the administration and discharge of which he is engaged. Each also receives the honors of his high post but ascribes them not to himself but to the uses, and as all uses are from the Lord, he ascribes the honors to the Lord as their source. Such are the spiritual distinction and wealth which are eternal.
[6] It is quite otherwise with those to whom eminence and wealth were curses in the world. Having attributed these to themselves and not to uses, and not wanting the uses to control them but wanting to control the uses, which they regarded as uses only as they served their own standing and honor, they are in hell and are base slaves, despised and wretched. Their distinction and wealth are gone, therefore are called temporal and fleeting. The Lord teaches about both sorts in the words:
Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal; but lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts and where thieves do not break through and steal; for where your treasure is . . . your heart also is (Mt 6:19-21).
[7] Third: _The distinction and wealth which are curses, compared with those which are blessings, are as nothing compared with everything or as that which has no existence in itself compared with that which has._ Everything that perishes and comes to nothing is inwardly nothing in itself. Outwardly, indeed, it is something and appears to be much and to some everything while it lasts; but inwardly in itself it is not. It is like a surface with nothing beneath or like an actor in kingly robes when the play is over. But what remains to eternity is something in itself perpetually, thus everything, and it truly is, for it does not cease to be.
(iii) _The temporal and the eternal are separated by man, but are united by the Lord._ For all that is man's is temporal, and he may therefore be called temporal, but all things that are the Lord's are eternal, and so the Lord is called eternal. Temporal things are such as come to an end and perish, eternal things are such as do not. Anyone can see that the two can be united only by the infinite wisdom of the Lord, thus by Him and not by man. To make it known, however, that the two are separated by man and united by the Lord, this is to be demonstrated in the following order:
1. What temporal things are and what eternal are. 2. The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and only the eternal from the Lord. 3. Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves. 4. The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances. 5. He does so by correspondences also.
These points will be clarified and established one by one. First: _What temporal things are and what eternal are._ The temporal are all things that are proper to nature and from nature proper to man. Space and time especially are proper to nature, both of them having a limit or termination. Things thence derived and proper to man are all things of his own will and understanding, thus of his affection and thought and especially of his prudence; it is well known that these are finite and limited. Eternal things, however, are all that are proper to the Lord and from Him seemingly proper to man. What is proper to the Lord is all of it infinite and eternal, thus timeless, endless and without limit; what is seemingly proper to man thence is also infinite and eternal; but nothing of this is actually proper to man, but the Lord's alone in him.
[2] Second: _The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and from the Lord only the eternal._ Man, we said, is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal. Since only what is in a person can proceed from him, nothing can proceed from man except what is temporal, and nothing from the Lord except what is eternal. For the infinite cannot proceed from the finite; that it can is a contradiction. The infinite, however, can proceed from the finite, still not from the finite but from the infinite by the finite. In turn, what is finite cannot proceed from the infinite; this is also a contradiction; it can be produced from the infinite and this is creation and not proceeding. On this subject see _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ from beginning to end. If then the finite proceeds from the Lord, as it does in many ways with man, it proceeds not from the Lord but from man, and can be said to do so from the Lord by man, because it so appears.
[3] This may be clarified by these words of the Lord:
Let your communication be, Yea, yea, Nay, nay, what is more than these comes of evil (Mt 5:37).
Such is the speech of all in the third heaven. For they never reason about divine things whether a thing is so or not, but see in themselves from the Lord whether or not it is. To reason about divine things whether they are so or not comes from the reasoner's not seeing them from the Lord, but wanting to see them from himself, and what one sees from oneself is evil. But still the Lord desires man to think and speak about things divine, also to reason about them, in order that he may see whether or not they are so. Such thought, speech and reasoning may be said to be from the Lord in man provided the end is to see the truth, although they are from the man until he sees and acknowledges the truth. Meanwhile it is from the Lord alone that he can think, speak and reason; for he does so from the two faculties, called liberty and rationality, which are his from the Lord alone.
[4] Third: _Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves._ That temporal things separate eternal things from themselves means that man, who is temporal, does so from the temporal in himself; and that eternal things join temporal things to themselves means that the Lord, who is eternal, does so from what is eternal in Himself, as was said above. In what precedes we showed that there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a conjunction in turn of man with the Lord, but the reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord is not man's doing but the Lord's; also that man's will goes counter to the Lord's will or, what is the same, man's own prudence goes counter to divine providence. From these circumstances it follows that man puts the eternal things of the Lord aside by force of the temporal things in him, but the Lord joins His eternal things to man's temporal, that is, Himself to man and man to Him. As these points have been treated many times in what precedes, there is no need to confirm them further.
[5] Fourth: _The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances._ For it is an appearance that of himself man loves the neighbor, does good, and speaks truth. Unless this appeared to man to be so, he would not love the neighbor, do good, or speak truth, and therefore would not be conjoined with the Lord. Since love, good and truth are from the Lord, plainly the Lord joins man to Himself by means of the appearance. This appearance, and the Lord's conjunction with man and man's with the Lord, have been treated above at length.
[6] Fifth: _The Lord unites man to Himself by means of correspondences._ He does this by means of the Word, the sense of the letter of which consists wholly of correspondences. In _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_ from beginning to end, it was shown that by means of that sense there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord.
(iv) _The conjunction of the temporal and the eternal in man is the Lord's divine providence._ As this cannot come at once to the perception of the understanding or before being reduced to order and then unfolded and demonstrated according to that order, let this be the order in considering it:
1. It is by divine providence that man puts off the natural and temporal through death and puts on the spiritual and eternal. 2. Through His divine providence the Lord joins Himself with natural things by means of spiritual and to temporal by means of eternal in accordance with uses. 3. The Lord joins Himself to uses by means of correspondences, and so by means of appearances according as man confirms these. 4. This conjunction of temporal and eternal is divine providence.
All this will be placed in clearer light by explanation.
[2] First: _It is of divine providence that man puts off the natural and temporal through death and puts on the spiritual and eternal._ Natural and temporal things are the outermost and lowest things which man first enters, as he does on being born, to the end that he may be introduced then into interior and higher things; for the outmost and lowest things are containants, and these are in the natural world. For this reason no angel or spirit was created such at once, but all were born as men first and then were introduced into interior and higher things. Thus they have an outmost and lowest which in itself is fixed and stable, within and by which the interiors can be held in connection.
[3] Man first puts on the grosser substances of nature; his body consists of them; but he puts these off by death, retaining the purer substances of nature nearest to the spiritual, which then are his containants. Moreover, all interior or higher things are together in the outmost and lowermost, as was shown earlier in passages on the subject. Every activity of the Lord is therefore from topmost and outmost simultaneously and so is in fullness. But as the farthest and outmost things of nature as they are in themselves cannot receive the spiritual and eternal things for which the human mind was formed, and yet man was born to become spiritual and live forever, man puts them off and retains only those interior natural things which suit and harmonize with the spiritual and celestial and serve to contain them. This is effected by the rejection of the temporal and natural outmosts, which is the death of the body.
[4] Second: _Through His divine providence the Lord joins Himself with natural things by means of spiritual things and to temporal by means of eternal in accordance with uses._ Natural and temporal things are not only those proper to nature, but also those proper to men in the natural world. At death man puts off both of these and puts on the spiritual and eternal things corresponding to them. That he puts these on according to uses has been shown in much that precedes. The natural things proper to nature relate in general to time and space and in particular to things visible on earth. These man leaves behind at death and instead receives spiritual things which are similar in outward aspect or appearance but not in their inward aspect and actual essence. This also was considered above.
[5] Temporal things proper to men in the natural world in general are related to distinction and wealth and in particular to human needs such as food, clothing and habitation. These are also put off at death and left behind; things are put on and received that are similar in outward aspect or appearance but not in their internal aspect and essence. All these get their inward aspect and essence from the uses made of temporal things in the world. Uses are the goods which are called goods of charity. It is evident, then, that the Lord through His divine providence unites spiritual and eternal things to natural and temporal things according to uses.
[6] Third: _The Lord joins Himself to uses by means of correspondences, and thus by means of appearances according as man confirms these._ As this must seem obscure to those who have not yet acquired a clear idea of correspondence and appearance, what these are must be illustrated by examples and explained. All the sayings of the Word are outright correspondences of spiritual and celestial things, and being correspondences are also appearances, that is, are all divine goods of divine love and divine truths of divine wisdom which in themselves are naked, but are clothed upon by the Word's literal meaning. They therefore appear as a man would clothed, if his clothing corresponded to the state of his love and wisdom. Obviously, then, if one confirms appearances in himself, he mistakes the clothing for the man, whereupon appearance becomes fallacy. It is otherwise if he seeks truths and sees them in the appearances.
[7] Inasmuch as all uses or truths and goods of charity, which a man renders to the neighbor may be rendered either according to the appearance or according to the verities of the Word, he is in fallacies if he renders them according to the appearances he has confirmed, but renders them as he should if he does so in accord with the verities. This may make plain what is meant when the Lord is said to join Himself to uses through correspondences and thus through appearances according to the confirmation of these by man.
[8] Fourth: _This conjunction of temporal and eternal is divine providence._ This is to be illustrated by two instances in order to bring it before the understanding in some light. The one instance is that of eminence and standing, and the other that of riches and wealth. These are all natural and temporal in outward form but spiritual and eternal in inward form. Distinction with its standing is natural and temporal when a man has regard in them only to himself personally and not to the common welfare and to the uses. For he is bound then to think inwardly that the community exists for his sake and not he for its sake. It is like a king's thinking that the kingdom and all its members exist for his sake, and not he for the sake of kingdom and people.
[9] The identical distinction, however, along with the standing it brings, is spiritual and eternal when man considers that he exists for the sake of the common well-being and for uses, and not these for his sake. Doing this, he is in the truth and essence of the distinction and of the standing it brings. But doing as described above, he is in the correspondence and appearance; if then he confirms these, he is in fallacies and has conjunction with the Lord only as those have who are in falsities and evils therefrom, for fallacies are falsities with which evils unite themselves. Such men have indeed done uses and good but from themselves and not from the Lord, thus have put themselves in the Lord's place.
[10] The same is true of riches and wealth; for these also are natural and temporal, and spiritual and eternal. They are natural and temporal with those who have regard only to them and to themselves in them and who find all their pleasure and enjoyment in them. But they are spiritual and eternal with those who regard good uses in them and take an interior pleasure and enjoyment in uses. The outward pleasure and enjoyment in such men also becomes spiritual, and the temporal becomes eternal. They are therefore in heaven after death and in palaces there, the useful designs of which are resplendent with gold and precious stones. They look on these things, however, as the shining and translucent external of inward things, namely, of uses, in which they take a pleasure and enjoyment which are the happiness and joy of heaven. The opposite is the lot of those who have looked on riches and wealth just for the sake of riches and wealth and for their own sake, thus on the externalities and on nothing inward; thus on appearance and not on the essential reality. When they put off the externalities, as they do on dying, they come into their internals, and as these are not spiritual, they cannot but be infernal; they must be one or the other and cannot be spiritual and infernal at the same time. The lot of these men then is poverty instead of riches and wretchedness instead of wealth.
[11] By uses not only the necessities of life are meant, such as food, raiment and habitation for oneself and one's own, but also the good of one's country, community and fellow-citizens. Business is such a good when it is the end-love and money is a mediate, subservient love, as it is only when the businessman shuns and is averse to fraud and bad practices as sin. It is otherwise when money is the end-love and business the mediate, subservient love. For this is avarice, which is a root of evils (on this see Lu 12:15 and the parable on it, verses 16-21).
XII. MAN IS NOT ADMITTED INWARDLY INTO TRUTHS OF FAITH AND GOODS OF CHARITY EXCEPT AS HE CAN BE KEPT IN THEM TO THE CLOSE OF LIFE
It is well known in Christendom that the Lord wills the salvation of all, and also is almighty. From this many conclude that He can save everyone and saves those who implore His mercy, especially those who implore it by the formula of the received faith that God the Father may be merciful for the sake of the Son, particularly if they pray at the same time that they may receive this faith. That it is quite otherwise, however, will be seen in the last chapter of this treatise where it will be explained that the Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His divine providence because that would be acting against His divine love and wisdom, thus against Himself. There, too, it will be seen that such immediate mercy is impossible, for man's salvation is effected by means, and he can be led in accordance with these means only by Him who wills the salvation of all and is at the same time almighty, thus by the Lord. These means are what are called laws of divine providence. Among them is this, that man is not admitted inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love except as he can be kept in them to the close of life. To make this plain to the reason, it is to be explained in this order:
i. Man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed. ii. If he recedes from them afterwards and turns to what is the contrary, he profanes holy things. iii. There are many kinds of profanation, but this kind is the worst of all. iv. The Lord therefore does not admit man interiorly into truths of wisdom and at the same time into goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the very close of life.
(i) _Man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed._ This is because he possesses rationality and liberty; by rationality he can be raised into an almost angelic wisdom, and by liberty into love not unlike angelic love. But such as the love is, such is the wisdom; if the love is celestial and spiritual, the wisdom becomes so, but if the love is diabolical and infernal, the wisdom is likewise. Outwardly, and so to others, it may seem to be celestial and spiritual, but in inward form, namely in its essence, it is diabolical and infernal; not as manifested, but as it is within one. That it is of this nature men do not see, for they are natural, see and hear naturally, and the outward form is natural; but angels do see it, for they are spiritual, see and hear spiritually, and the inward form is spiritual.
[2] From this it is plain that man can be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and also into love of them and still not be reformed; he is admitted only into a natural love of them, not into a spiritual. This is for the reason that man can admit himself into a natural love, but the Lord alone can admit him into a spiritual love, and those admitted into this are reformed, but those admitted only into the natural love are not. For the most part the latter are hypocrites, and many are of the Order of Jesuits who inwardly do not believe in the divine at all, but play outwardly with divine things like actors.
It has been granted me by much experience in the spiritual world to know that man possesses in himself the faculty of apprehending arcana of wisdom like the angels themselves. For I have seen fiery devils who not only understood arcana of wisdom when they heard them, but who spoke them, too, out of their rationality. But the moment they returned to their diabolical love they did not understand them, but in place of them the contrary, which was insanity, and this they called wisdom. In fact, I was allowed to hear them laugh at their insanity when they were in a state of wisdom, and at wisdom when they were in an insane state. One who has been of this character in the world, on becoming a spirit after death is usually brought into states of wisdom and insanity by turns, for him to distinguish the one from the other. But although such men see from the wisdom that they are insane, when the choice is given them, as it is to each, they betake themselves into the state of insanity, love it and feel hatred for the state of wisdom. The reason is that their inward nature has been diabolical and their outward seemingly divine. They are meant by devils who affect to be angels of light, and by the man in the house of the nuptials who was not dressed in a wedding garment and was cast into outer darkness (Mt 22:11-13).
Who cannot see that it is the internal from which the external exists and that consequently the external has its essence from the internal? And who does not know by experience that the external can appear out of accord with the essence it has from the internal? It does so obviously with hypocrites, flatterers and dissemblers. That a person can outwardly feign to be other than himself is manifest from actors and mimics. They know how to represent kings, emperors and even angels in tone of voice, speech, face and gesture as though they were really such, when they are nevertheless only actors. We allude to this because man can similarly act the deceiver in spiritual things as well as civil and moral, and that many do is well known.
[2] When the internal in its essence is infernal, and the external in its form appears to be spiritual and yet has its essence, as we said, from the internal, the question arises where in the external that essence is hidden. It does not show in gesture, voice, speech or face, yet is interiorly hidden in all four. That it is, is plain from the same in the spiritual world. For when man passes from the natural world to the spiritual, as he does at death, he leaves his externals behind along with his body and retains his internals, which he has stored up in his spirit. If his internal was infernal, he then appears as a devil, such as he was as to his spirit during life in the world. Who does not acknowledge that everyone leaves external things behind with the body and enters into internal things on becoming a spirit?
[3] To this I will add that in the spiritual world there is a communication of affections and of thoughts from them, which results in no one's being able to speak except as he thinks; likewise, everyone changes facial expression and reflects his affection, and thus shows in his face what he is. Hypocrites are allowed sometimes to speak otherwise than they think, but the tone of the voice sounds utterly out of harmony with their interior thoughts, and they are recognized by the discord. It may be evident from this that the internal lies hidden in the tone of voice, the speech, the face and gesture of the external, and that it is not perceived by men in the world, but plainly by angels in the spiritual world.
It is plain from this that while he lives in the natural world man may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and into love of them also, and that this happens or can happen with the merely natural as well as with those who are spiritual, with this difference, however, that the latter are reformed by these means and the former are not. It may seem, also, that the former love wisdom, but they do so only as an adulterer loves a noble woman, that is, as mistress, speaking caressingly to her and giving her beautiful garments, but saying of her privately to himself, "She is only a vile harlot whom I will make believe that I love because she gratifies my lust; if she should not, I would cast her away." The internal man of the unreformed lover of wisdom is this adulterer; his external man is the woman.
(ii) _If man recedes from these later and turns to what is contrary, he profanes holy things._ There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy, of which in the following section, but this is the gravest of all. Those who profane in this way become no longer human beings after death; they live indeed, but are continually in wild fantasies. They seem to themselves to soar aloft and while they remain there they sport with fantasies which they see as realities. No longer human, they are referred to not as "he" or "she" but "it." In fact, when they come to view in heaven's light they look like skeletons, some like skeletons of the color of bone, others like fiery skeletons, and still others like charred ones. The world does not know that profaners of this kind become like this after death, and the reason is that the cause is unknown. The real cause is that when man first acknowledges and believes divine things and then lapses and denies them, he mixes the holy with the profane. Once they are mixed, they cannot be separated without destroying the whole. That these things may be perceived more clearly, they are to be disclosed in due order as follows: 1. Whatever a man thinks, speaks and does from the will, whether good or evil, is appropriated to him and remains. 2. The Lord in His divine providence constantly foresees and disposes that evil shall be by itself and good by itself, and thus may be separated. 3. This cannot be done, however, if man first acknowledges and lives according to truths of faith and afterwards recedes and denies them. 4. Then he mixes good and evil to the point that they cannot be separated. 5. Since good and evil in anyone must be separated, and in such a person cannot be, he is destroyed in all that is truly human.
These are the causes that lead to such enormity, but as they are obscure as a result of ignorance of them, they are to be explained so that they will be plain to the understanding. 1. _Whatever man thinks, speaks and does from the will, whether good or evil, is appropriated to him and remains._ This was explained above (nn. 78-81); for man has an external or natural memory and an internal or spiritual memory. On the latter memory are written each and all things that he thought, spoke or did from his will in the world, so fully that nothing is lacking. This memory is his book of life, which is opened after death and according to which he is judged. Much more about this memory is reported from experience in the work _Heaven and Hell_ (nn. 461-465).
[2] 2. _The Lord in His divine providence constantly foresees and disposes that evil shall be by itself and good by itself, and thus may be separated._ Everyone is both in evil and in good, for he is in evil from himself and in good from the Lord; he cannot live without being in both. If he were in himself alone and thus in evil alone, he would not possess anything living; nor would he if he were in the Lord alone and thus in good alone. In the latter case he would be like one suffocated and gasping for breath or like one dying in agony; in the former case he would be devoid of life, for evil apart from good is dead. Therefore everyone is in both, with the difference that in the one instance he is inwardly in the Lord and outwardly as if in himself, and in the other inwardly in himself and outwardly as if in the Lord. The latter man is in evil, the former in good, and yet each is in good and evil both. The wicked man is in both because he is in the good of civil and moral life and outwardly, in some measure, in the good of spiritual life, too, besides being kept by the Lord in rationality and liberty, making it possible for him to be in good. This is the good by means of which everyone, even a wicked man, is led by the Lord. It may then be seen that the Lord keeps evil and good apart, so that one is interior and the other exterior, and thus provides against their being mingled.
[3] 3. _This cannot be done, however, if man first acknowledges and lives according to truths of faith and then later recedes and denies them._ This is plain from what has just been said, that all which a man thinks, speaks and does from the will is appropriated to him and remains; and that the Lord in His divine providence constantly foresees and disposes that good shall be by itself and evil by itself, and so can be separated. They are also separated by the Lord after death. Those who are inwardly evil and outwardly good are deprived of the good and left to their evil. The reverse occurs with the inwardly good who outwardly like other men have acquired wealth, sought distinction, delighted in the mundane, and indulged some lusts. Good and evil have not been commingled by them, however, but are separate, like internal and external; they have resembled the evil in many ways outwardly but not inwardly. Evil is separate from good in the evil, too, who have appeared outwardly like the good for piety, worship, speech and deeds, although wicked inwardly. With those, however, who have first acknowledged and lived by truths of faith and then lived contrary to them and rejected them and particularly if they have denied them, good and evil are no longer separate, but mixed. Such a person has appropriated both good and evil to himself, and thus combined and mixed them.
[4] 4. _He then mixes good and evil to a point where they cannot be separated._ This follows from what has just been said. And if evil cannot be separated from good and good from evil, a person can be neither in heaven nor in hell. Everyone must be in one or the other; he cannot be in both; for so he would be now in heaven and now in hell; and in heaven he would act in hell's favor and in hell act in heaven's favor. He would thus destroy the life of all around him, heavenly life among the angels and infernal life among the devils; as a result everyone's life would perish. For everyone must live his own life; no one lives a life foreign to his own, still less one opposed to it. Hence, in every man after death, when he becomes a spirit or a spiritual being, the Lord separates good from evil and evil from good, good from evil in those who are inwardly in evil, and evil from good in those inwardly in good. This accords with His own words:
To every one who has, shall be given, that he may abound, and from him who has not, shall even what he has be taken away (Mt 13:12; 25:29; Mk 4:25; Lu 8:18; 19:26).
[5] Fifth: _Since good and evil in anyone must be separated and in such a person cannot be, he is destroyed in all that is truly human._ As was shown earlier, everyone has what is truly human from rationality, in that he can see and know what is true and good if he wishes, and from liberty, enabling him to will, think, speak and do it. But this liberty has been destroyed along with their rationality in those who have commingled good and evil in themselves, for they cannot from good see evil, nor from evil recognize good; the two make one in them. Hence they no longer possess rationality in any efficacy or power, nor any liberty. For this reason they are like the sheerest wild fantasies, as we said above, and no longer look like men but like bones covered with skin, and therefore when mentioned are referred to not as "he" or "she" but "it." Such is the lot of those who have commingled sacred and profane in the manner we have described. There are several kinds of profanation which are not of this character, however; of them in a later section.
No one can profane holy things in the way described who is ignorant of them. For one who is ignorant of them cannot acknowledge them and then deny them. Those, therefore, who are outside Christendom and know nothing of the Lord or of redemption and salvation at His hands do not profane the holiness of this in not accepting it or even by speaking against it. The Jews do not profane its sanctity, for from infancy they have no desire to receive and acknowledge it. It would be otherwise if they received and acknowledged it and afterwards denied it. This seldom occurs, however; for many among them acknowledge it outwardly but deny it inwardly and are like hypocrites. But those who first accept and acknowledge and later lapse and deny, are the ones who profane holy things by mingling them with profane.
[2] It is beside the point here that holy things are accepted and acknowledged in infancy and childhood, as they are by every Christian. For what pertains to faith and charity is not accepted and acknowledged at that age from any rationality and liberty, that is, in the understanding from the will, but only by the memory and from confidence in the teacher; and if the life is in accord it is so by blind obedience. If, however, on coming into the exercise of his rationality and freedom, which one does gradually in growing up to youth and manhood, a man acknowledges truths and lives by them only later to deny them, he does mingle the holy with the profane and (as was said above) from being human becomes a monster. On the other hand, if a man is in evil after attaining rationality and freedom, that is, after becoming his own master, even in his early manhood, but later acknowledges truths of faith and lives by them and remains in them also to the close of life, he does not commingle the holy and the profane. The Lord then severs the evils of his earlier life from the good of his later life, as is done with all who repent. Of this more will be said in what follows.
(iii) _There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy, but this kind is the worst of all._ In the widest sense by profanation all impiety is meant, and by profaners, therefore, all the impious who at heart deny God, the holiness of the Word, and consequently the spiritual things of the church which are essentially holy, and who also speak of them impiously. We are not now treating of such profaners but of those who profess God, uphold the holiness of the Word, and acknowledge the spiritual things of the church (yet most persons do so with the lips only). These commit profanation for the reason that holiness from the Word is in them and with them, and this which is in them, part of their understanding and will, they profane. But in the impious who deny the Divine and divine things, there is nothing holy which they can profane; they are profaners, of course, but still not profane as the others are.
The profanation of what is holy is meant in the second precept of the Decalog, "You shall not profane the name of your God," and that it ought not to be profaned is meant in the Lord's Prayer by "Hallowed be Thy name." Hardly anyone in Christendom understands what is meant by God's name. The reason for this is that in the spiritual world names are not what they are in this world; everyone has a name in accord with the character of his love and wisdom. As soon as he enters a society or into fellowship with others he is named according to his character. This can be done in spiritual language, which is such that it can give a name to everything, for each letter in the alphabet signifies some one thing, and the several letters combined in a word, making a person's name, involve the whole state of the subject. This is among the wonders in the spiritual world.
[2] From this it is plain that by "the name of God" in the Word, God with all the divine in Him and proceeding from Him is signified. And as the Word is the divine proceeding, it is God's name, and as all the divine things which are called the spiritual things of the church are from the Word, they, too, are God's name. It may be seen then what is meant in the second commandment of the Decalog by
You shall not profane the name of God (Ex 20:7);
and in the Lord's Prayer by
Hallowed be Thy name (Mt 6:9).
The name of God and of the Lord has a like signification in many passages in the Word of either Testament, as in Mt 7:22; 10:22; 18:5, 20; 19:29; 21:9; 24:9, 10; Jn 1:12; 2:23; 3:17, 18; 12:13, 28; 14:14-16; 16:23, 24, 26, 27; 17:6; 20:31; besides other passages, and in very many in the Old Testament.
[3] One who knows this significance of "name" can know what is signified by these words of the Lord:
Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; whoever receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward . . . and whoever will give one of these little ones to drink a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple . . . shall not lose a reward (Mt 10:41, 42).
One who understands by the name of a prophet, of a righteous man and of a disciple only a prophet, a righteous man and a disciple knows only the sense of the letter in that passage. Nor does he know what is signified by a prophet's reward, a righteous man's reward, or by the reward given a disciple for a cup of cold water, when yet by the name and reward of a prophet the state and happiness of those who are in divine truths is meant; by the name and reward of a righteous man is meant the state and happiness of those in divine goods; by a disciple is meant the state of those who are in a measure of the spiritual things of the church, and by a cup of cold water is meant a measure of truth.
[4] That the nature of a state of love and wisdom or of good and truth is meant by "name" is also made evident by these words of the Lord:
He who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep; the porter opens to him, and the sheep hear his voice; he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out (Jn 10:2, 3).
To "call the sheep by name" is to teach and lead everyone who is in the good of charity according to the state of his love and wisdom; by the "door" the Lord is meant, as verse 9 makes plain:
I am the door; if a man enters by Me, he will be saved (Jn 10:9).
It is clear from this that for one to be saved the Lord Himself is to be approached; one who does so is a "shepherd of the sheep" and one who does not is a "thief"' and a "robber" (so the first verse of the chapter).
Profanation of what is holy is predicated of those who know truths of faith and goods of charity from the Word and also acknowledge them in some measure, not of those who do not know them, nor of those who impiously reject them altogether. Therefore what now follows is said of the former, not of the latter; by the former many kinds of profanation, lighter and graver, are committed, but they may be summed up in the seven following.
A first kind of profanation on their part is making jokes from the Word or about the Word, or of and about the divine things of the church. Some do this from a bad habit, picking names or expressions from the Word and mingling them with unseemly and sometimes filthy speech. This cannot be done without some contempt being added for the Word. Yet the Word in each and all things is divine and holy; every expression in it stores in its bosom something divine and by means of it gives communication with heaven. This kind of profanation is lighter or more grave according to one's acknowledgment of the sacredness of the Word and to the unseemliness of the comment into which it is brought by those who jest about it.
[2] A second kind of profanation by those under discussion is that while they understand and acknowledge divine truths, they live contrary to them. Those who only understand profane more lightly, and those who also acknowledge profane more seriously; for the understanding only teaches quite as a preacher does, but does not of itself unite with the will, but acknowledgment does, for one cannot acknowledge anything without the consent of the will. Still this union with the will varies and the profanation is according to the measure of it in living contrary to acknowledged truths. Thus if one acknowledges that revenge and hatred, adultery and fornication, fraud and deceit, blasphemy and lying are sins against God and yet commits them, he is therefore in the more grievous of this kind of profanation. For the Lord says:
The servant who knows his lord's will and does not do it, shall be beaten with many strokes (Lu 12:47).
And again,
If you were blind, you would not have sin, but you say, We see; therefore your sin remains (In 9:41).
But it is one thing to acknowledge apparent truths and another to acknowledge genuine truths. Those who acknowledge genuine truths and yet do not live by them appear in the spiritual world to be without the light and warmth of life in voice and speech, as though they were so much inertness.
[3] A third kind of profanation is committed by those who apply the sense of the letter of the Word to confirm evil loves and false principles. This is because the confirmation of falsity is the denial of truth, and the confirmation of evil is a rejection of good. In its bosom the Word is nothing but divine truth and good. But this does not appear in the lowest sense or sense of the letter in genuine truths, except where the Lord and the very way of salvation are taught, but in clothed truths, called appearances of truth.
That sense can therefore be seized upon to confirm heresies of many kinds. But one who confirms evil loves does violence to divine goods, and one who confirms false principles does violence to divine truths. The latter violence is called falsification of truth and the former adulteration of good; both are meant by "bloods" 231-1 in the Word. For a spiritual holiness, which is also the spirit of truth proceeding from the Lord, is in every particular of the sense of the letter of the Word. This holiness is injured when the Word is falsified and adulterated. It is plain that this is profanation.
[4] A fourth kind of profanation is committed by those who utter pious and holy things and also counterfeit affections of a love for them in tone and manner, and yet at heart do not believe and love them. Most of these are hypocrites and Pharisees who are deprived after death of all truth and good and thereupon are sent into outer darkness. Those who have confirmed themselves by this kind of profanation against the Divine and against the Word and thus against the spiritual things of the Word, sit in outer darkness dumb, unable to speak, wanting to babble pious and holy things as they did in the world, but unable to do so. For in the spiritual world everyone is compelled to speak as he thinks. A hypocrite, however, wants to speak otherwise than he thinks, but there is impediment in the tongue as a result of which he can only mumble. Hypocrisies are lighter or more grave in the measure of the confirmation against God and of the outward rationalizing in favor of God.
[5] A fifth kind of profanation is committed by those who ascribe to themselves what is divine. These are meant by Lucifer in Isaiah 14; and by Lucifer Babylon is meant, as is plain from verses 4 and 24 of that chapter, where the fate, too, of such profaners is described. The same profaners are also meant and described in the Apocalypse (chapter 17) under the harlot seated on the scarlet beast. Babylon and Chaldea are mentioned at many places in the Word; by Babylon profanation of good is meant and by Chaldea profanation of truth; the one and the other committed by those who ascribe to themselves what is divine.
[6] A sixth kind of profanation is committed by those who acknowledge the Word but deny the divine of the Lord. In the world they are called Socinians and some Arians. The lot of both is that they invoke the Father and not the Lord and keep praying the Father, some of them for the sake of the Son, that they may be admitted to heaven, but in vain, until they lose hope of salvation. They are then sent down to hell among deniers of God. They are meant by those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit and who will not be forgiven in this world or that to come (Mt 12:32). For God is one in person and essence, in Him is the Trinity, and this God is the Lord. Since the Lord is heaven also and thus those in heaven are in the Lord, those who deny the divine of the Lord cannot be admitted to heaven and be in the Lord. It was shown above that the Lord is heaven and that those in heaven are therefore in Him.
[7] The seventh kind of profanation is committed by those who first acknowledge and live by divine truths and then recede from them and deny them. This is the worst kind of profanation because holy things are mixed by them with profane to the point where they cannot be separated. Yet they must be separated for one to be either in heaven or in hell, and as this cannot be accomplished with them, all that is human, either of the understanding or of the will, is rooted out, and they become, as we said, no longer human beings. Almost the same occurs with those who acknowledge the divine things of the Word and of the church at heart but immerse them entirely in their proprium, which is a love of ruling over all things, of which much has been said before. After death, when they become spirits, they do not want to be led by the Lord but by themselves. When loose rein is given their love, they want to rule not only over heaven but over the Lord, too; and as they cannot do this, they deny the Lord and become devils. It should be known that the life's love, which is one's reigning love, remains with everyone after death and cannot be taken away.
[8] Profaners of this class are meant by the lukewarm, of whom it is written in the Apocalypse:
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth (3:14, 15, 16).
This manner of profanation is also described by the Lord in Matthew:
When the unclean spirit goes out from a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest but finds none. Then he says, I will return to the house whence I came out. When he returns and finds it empty, swept and garnished for him, he goes and gathers to him seven other spirits worse than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of the man is worse than the first (12:43-45).
The conversion of the man is described by the unclean spirit's going out of him; his reverting to his former evils when things good and true have been cast out, is described by the return of the unclean spirit with seven worse than himself into the house garnished for him; and the profanation of the holy by what is profane is described by the last state of that man being worse than the first. The same is meant by this passage in John,
Jesus said to the man healed in the pool of Bethesda: Sin no more, lest something worse befall you (5:14).
[9] That the Lord provides that man shall not acknowledge truths inwardly and afterwards leave them and become profane, is meant by these words:
He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them (Jn 12:40).
"Lest they should be converted, and I should heal them" signifies lest they should acknowledge truths and then depart from them and thus become profane. For the same reason the Lord spoke in parables, as He Himself says (Mt 13:13). The Jews were forbidden to eat fat and blood (Lev 3:17, 7:13, 25 ); this signifies that they were not to profane holy things, for "fat" signifies divine good and "blood" divine truth. In Matthew the Lord teaches that once converted a man must continue in good and truth to the close of life:
Jesus said: Whosoever perseveres to the end, shall be saved (10:20; similarly Mk 13:13).
(iv) _The Lord therefore does not admit man interiorly into truths of wisdom and at the same time into goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the close of life._ To demonstrate this we must proceed by steps for two reasons; one, because it concerns human salvation, and the other, because a knowledge of the laws of permission (to be considered in the next chapter) depends on a knowledge of this law. It concerns human salvation, because, as has just been said, one who first acknowledges what is divine in Word and church and subsequently departs from them profanes what is holy most grievously. In order, then, that this arcanum of divine providence may be revealed so that the rational man can see it in his own light, it is to be unfolded as follows:
1. Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interior being, consequently neither can the falsity of evil and the truth of good. 2. Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interior being only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed. 3. If good with its truth were introduced there before or further than evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go back to his evil. 4. When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his understanding and kept in memory, and yet not be profaned. 5. But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care that they are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or more largely than man as of himself removes evil in the external man. 6. Should it welcome them sooner or in larger measure, the will would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by mingling them with evils and falsities. 7. The Lord therefore admits man inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love only so far as man can be kept in them to the close of life.
In order, then, that this arcanum of divine providence may be disclosed so that the rational man will see it in his light, the points made will be explained one by one. 1. _Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interior being, consequently neither can the falsity of evil and the truth of good._ By man's interiors the internal of his thought is meant. Of this he knows nothing until he comes into the spiritual world and its light, which happens on death. In the natural world it can be known only by the enjoyment of his love in the external of his thought, and from evils themselves as he examines them in himself. For the internal of thought in man is so closely connected with the external of thought that they cannot be separated (of this more may be seen above). We say "good and truth of good," and "evil and falsity of evil" because good cannot exist apart from its truth nor evil apart from its falsity. They are bedfellows or partners, for the life of good is from its truth and the life of truth is from its good; the same is to be said of evil and its falsity.
[2] The rational man can see without explanation that evil with its falsity and good with its truth cannot exist in man's interiors at the same time. For evil is the opposite of good and good the opposite of evil; two opposites cannot coexist. Implanted in all evil, moreover, is a hatred for good, and implanted in all good the love of protecting itself against evil and removing it from itself. Consequently one cannot be where the other is. If they were together conflict and combat would start and destruction ensue, as the Lord teaches also in these words:
Every kingdom divided against itself is desolated, and every city or house divided against itself does not stand . . . Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me disperses (Mt 25:30);
and in another place,
No one can serve two masters at the same time: for either he will hate the one and love the other . . . (Mt 6:24).
Two opposites are impossible in one substance or form without its being torn apart and destroyed. If one should advance and approach the other, they would keep apart like two enemies, one retiring to his camp or fort, and the other posting himself outside. This happens with evil and good in a hypocrite; he harbors both, but the evil is inside and the good outside and so the two are separate and not mingled. It is plain then that evil with its falsity and good with its truth cannot coexist.
[3] 2. _Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interiors only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed._ This is a necessary consequence from what has preceded, for as evil and good cannot exist together, good cannot be introduced before evil has been removed. We say man's "interiors" and mean by these the internal of thought; and in these, now being considered, either the Lord or the devil must be present. The Lord is there after reformation and the devil before reformation. So far as man suffers himself to be reformed, therefore, the devil is cast out, but so far as he does not suffer himself to be reformed the devil remains. Anyone can see that the Lord cannot enter as long as the devil is there, and he is there as long as man keeps the door closed where man acts together with the Lord. The Lord teaches in the Apocalypse that He enters when that door is opened by man's mediation:
I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me (3:20).
The door is opened by man's removing evil, fleeing and turning away from it as infernal and diabolical. Whether one says "evil" or "the devil," it is one and the same, in turn whether one says "good" or "the Lord," for within all good is the Lord and within all evil is the devil. From these considerations the truth of this proposition is plain.
[4] 3. _If good with its truth were introduced before or further than evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go back to his evil._ This is because evil would be the stronger, and what is stronger conquers, eventually if not then. As long as evil is stronger, good cannot be introduced into the inner chambers but only into the entry hall; for evil and good, as we said, cannot exist together, and what is in the entry hall is removed by its enemy in the chamber. Thus good is receded from and evil is returned to, which is the worst kind of profanation.
[5] Furthermore, it is the enjoyment of man's life to love himself and the world above all else. This enjoyment cannot be removed in a moment, but only gradually. In the measure in which it remains in man, evil is stronger in him and can be removed only as self-love becomes a love of uses, or as the love of ruling is not for its own sake but for the sake of uses. Uses then make the head, and self-love or the love of ruling is at first the body under the head and finally the feet, on which to walk. Who does not see that good should be the head, and that when it is, the Lord is there? Good and use are one. Who does not see that when evil is the head, the devil is there? As civil and moral good and, in its external form, spiritual good, too, are still to be received, who does not see that these then constitute the feet and the soles of the feet, and are trodden on?
[6] Inasmuch, then, as man's state of life is to be inverted so that what is uppermost may be lowermost, and the inversion cannot be instantaneous, for the chief enjoyment of his life, coming of self-love and the love of ruling, can be diminished and turned into a love of uses only gradually, the Lord cannot introduce good sooner or further than this evil is removed; done earlier or further, man would recede from good and return to his evil.
[7] 4. _When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his understanding and kept in memory, and still not be profaned._ This is because the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into the understanding. As the understanding does not flow into the will, many truths can be received by the understanding and held in memory and still not be mingled with the evil in the will, and the holy thus not profaned. Moreover, it is incumbent on everyone to learn truths from the Word or from preaching, to lay them up in the memory and to think about them. For by truths held in the memory and entering into the thought, the understanding is to teach the will, that is, the man, what he should do. This is therefore the chief means of reformation. Truths that are only in the understanding and thence in the memory are not in man but outside him.
[8] Man's memory may be compared to the ruminatory stomach of certain animals in which they put their food; as long as it is there, it is not in but outside their body; as they draw it thence and consume it, it becomes part of their life, and their body is nourished. The food in man's memory is not material but spiritual, namely truths, rightly knowledges; so far as he takes them thence by thinking, which is like ruminating, his spiritual mind is nourished. It is the will's love that has the desire and the appetite, so to speak, and that causes them to be taken thence and to be nourishing. If that love is evil, it desires or has an appetite for what is unclean, but if good, for what is clean, and sets aside, rejects and casts out what is unsuitable; this is done in various ways.
[9] 5. _But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care that truths are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or more largely than man as of himself removes evil in his external man._ For what is from the will enters man, is appropriated to him, and becomes part of his life, and in that life, which is man's from the will, evil and good cannot exist together, for so he would perish. The two may, however, be in the understanding, where they are called falsities of evil and truths of good, and without being mingled; else man could not behold evil from good or know good from evil; but there they are distinguishable and separated like the inner and outer sections of a house. When a wicked man thinks and speaks what is good, he is thinking and speaking externally to himself, but inwardly when he thinks and speaks what is evil; his speech, therefore, when he speaks what is good, comes off a wall, as it were. It can be likened to fruit fair outside but wormy and decayed inside, or to the shell, especially, of a serpent's egg.
[10] 6. _Should the will welcome truths sooner or in larger measure, it would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by mingling them with evils and falsities._ When the will is in evil, it adulterates good in the understanding, and good adulterated in the understanding is evil in the will, for it confirms that evil is good and good is evil. So evil deals with all good, which is its opposite. Evil also falsifies truth, for truth of good is the opposite of the falsity of evil; this is done in the understanding by the will, and not by the understanding alone. Adulterations of good are depicted in the Word by adulteries and falsifications of truth by whoredoms. These adulterations and falsifications are effected by reasonings from the natural man which is in evil, and also by confirmations of appearances in the sense of the letter of the Word.
[11] The love of self, the head of all evils, surpasses other loves in the ability to adulterate goods and falsify truths, and it does this by misuse of the rationality which every man, wicked as well as good, enjoys from the Lord. By confirmations it can in fact make evil look exactly like good and falsity like truth. What can it not do when it can prove by a thousand arguments that nature created itself and then created human beings, animals and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx from within itself nature causes men to live, to think analytically and to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it desires because a certain glamour of varicolored light overlays it. This glamour is the vainglory of that love in being wise and thus also of being eminent and dominant.
[12] And yet, when self-love has proved such things, it becomes so blind that it sees man only as a beast, and that man and beast both think, and if a beast could also speak, conceives it would be man in another form. If it were induced by some manner of persuasion to believe that something of the human being survives death, it then is so blind as to believe that the beast also survives; and that the something which lives after death is only a subtle exhalation of life, like a vapor, constantly falling back to its corpse, or is something vital without sight, hearing or speech, and so is blind, deaf and dumb, soaring about and cogitating. Self-love entertains many other insanities with which nature, in itself dead, inspires its fantasy. Such is the effect of self-love, which regarded in itself is love of the proprium. Man's proprium, in respect of its affections which are all natural, is not unlike the life of a beast, and in respect of its perceptions, inasmuch as they spring from these affections, is not unlike a bird of night. One who constantly immerses his thoughts in his proprium, therefore, cannot be raised out of natural light into spiritual light and see anything of God, heaven or eternal life. Since the love of the proprium is of this nature and yet excels in the ability to confirm whatever it pleases, it has a similar ability to adulterate the goods of the Word and falsify its truths, even while it is constrained by some necessity to confess them.
[13] 7. _The Lord therefore does not admit man inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the close of life._ The Lord does this lest man fall into that most serious kind of profanation of which we have treated in this chapter. In view of that peril the Lord also tolerates evils of life and many heresies in worship, the tolerance of which will be the subject of the following chapter.
XIII. LAWS ON PERMISSION ARE ALSO LAWS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
There are no laws of permission per se or apart from the laws of divine providence; rather they are the same. Hence to say that God permits something does not mean that He wills it, but that He cannot avert it in view of the end, which is salvation. Whatever is done for the sake of that end is in accord with the laws of divine providence. For divine providence, as was said, constantly travels in a different direction from that of man's will and against his will, always intent on its objective. At each moment of its activity or at each step in its progress, as it perceives man straying from that end, it directs, turns and disposes him according to its laws, leading him away from evil and to good. It will be seen in what follows that this cannot be done without the tolerance of evil. Furthermore, nothing can be permitted for no cause, and the cause can only be in some law of divine providence, explaining why it is permitted.
One who does not acknowledge divine providence at all does not acknowledge God at heart, but nature instead of God, and human prudence instead of divine providence. This does not appear to be so because man can think and speak in two ways. He can think and speak in one way from his inner self and in another from his outer self. This capability is like a hinge that lets a door swing either way, in one direction as one enters, in the other as one leaves; or like a sail which can take a ship one way or the other as the skipper spreads it. Those who have confirmed themselves in favor of human prudence to the denial of divine providence see nothing else as long as they are in this way of thinking, no matter what they see, hear or read, nor can they, for they accept nothing from heaven but only from themselves. As they draw their conclusions from appearances and fallacies alone and see nothing else, they can swear that prudence is all. If they also recognize nature only, they become enraged at defenders of divine providence, except that they think when these are priests they are simply pursuing their teaching and office.
We will enumerate now some things that are tolerated and yet are in accord with laws of divine providence, by which, however, the merely natural man confirms himself in favor of nature and against God and in favor of human prudence and against divine providence. For instance he reads in the Word that:
1. Adam, wisest of men, and his wife allowed themselves to be led astray by the serpent, and God did not avert this in His divine providence. 2. Their first son, Cain, killed his brother Abel, and God did not speak to him and dissuade him but only afterwards cursed him. 3. The Israelites worshiped a golden calf in the wilderness and acknowledged it as the god that had brought them out of Egypt, yet Jehovah saw this from Mt. Sinai near by and did not warn against it. 4. David numbered the people and as a consequence a pestilence befell them in which so many thousands of them perished; God sent the prophet Gad to him not before but after the deed and denounced punishment. 5. Solomon was allowed to establish idolatrous worship. 6. After him many kings were allowed to profane the temple and the sacred things of the church. 7. And finally that nation was permitted to crucify the Lord.
One who hails nature and human prudence sees nothing but what contradicts divine providence in these and many other passages of the Word. He can use them as arguments in denial of providence, if not in his outward thought nearest to speech, still in his inner thought, remote from it.
Every worshiper of self and nature confirms himself against divine providence:
1. When he sees such numbers of wicked in the world and so many of their impieties and how some glory in them, and sees the men go unpunished by God. 2. He confirms himself the more against divine providence when he sees plots, schemes and frauds succeed even against the devout, just and sincere, and injustice triumph over justice in the courts and in business. 3. He confirms himself especially on seeing the impious advanced to honors and becoming leaders in the state or in the church, abounding, too, in riches and living in luxury and magnificence, and on the other hand sees worshipers of God despised and poor. 4. He also confirms himself against divine providence when he reflects that wars are permitted and the slaughter of so many in them and the looting of so many cities, nations and families. 5. Furthermore, he reflects that victories are on the side of prudence and not always on the side of justice, and that it is immaterial whether a commander is upright or not.
Besides many other things of the kind, all of which are permissions according to laws of divine providence.
The same natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he observes how religion is circumstanced in various nations.
1. Some are totally ignorant of God; some worship the sun and moon; others idols and monstrous graven images, dead men also. 2. He notes especially that the Mohammedan religion is accepted by so many empires and kingdoms. 3. He notes that the Christian religion is found only in a very small part of the habitable globe, called Europe, and is divided there. 4. Also that some in Christendom arrogate divine power to themselves, want to be worshiped as gods, and invoke the dead. 5. And there are those who place salvation in certain phrases which they are to think and speak and not at all in good works which they are to do; likewise there are few who live their religion. 6. Besides there are heretical ideas; these have been many and some exist today, like those of the Quakers, Moravians and Anabaptists, besides others. 7. Judaism also persists.
As a result, one who denies divine providence concludes that religion in itself is nothing, but still is needed to serve as a restraint.
To these more arguments can be added today by which those who think interiorly in favor of nature and of human prudence alone can still further confirm themselves. For example:
1. All Christendom has acknowledged three Gods, not knowing that God is one in essence and in person and that He is the Lord. 2. It has not been known before this that there is a spiritual sense in each particular of the Word from which it derives its holiness. 3. Again, Christians have not known that to avoid evils as sins is the Christian religion itself. 4. It has also been unknown that the human being lives as such after death.
For men may ask themselves and one another, "Why does divine providence, if it exists, reveal such things for the first time now?"
All the points listed in nn. 236-239 have been put forward in order that it may be seen that each and all things which take place in the world are of divine providence; consequently divine providence is in the least of man's thoughts and actions and thereby is universal. But this cannot be seen unless the points are taken up one by one; therefore they will be explained briefly in the order in which they were listed, beginning with n. 236.
_The wisest of human beings, Adam and his wife, allowed themselves to be led astray by the serpent, and God in His divine providence did not avert this._ This is because by Adam and his wife the first human beings created in the world are not meant, but the people of the Most Ancient Church, whose new creation or regeneration is described thus: their creation anew or regeneration in Genesis 1 by the creation of heaven and earth; their wisdom and intelligence by the Garden of Eden; and the end of that church by their eating of the tree of knowledge. For the Word in its bosom is spiritual, containing arcana of divine wisdom, and in order to contain them has been composed throughout in correspondences and representations. It is plain then that the men of that church, who at first were the wisest of men but finally became the worst through pride in their own intelligence, were led astray not by a serpent but by self-love, meant in Genesis by "the serpent's head," which the Seed of the woman, namely, the Lord, was to trample.
[2] Who cannot see from reason that other things are meant than those recorded literally like history? For who can understand that the world could be created as there described? The learned therefore labor over the explanation of the things in the first chapter, finally confessing that they do not understand them. So of the two trees placed in the garden or paradise, one of life and the other of knowledge, the latter as a stumbling-block. Again, that just by eating of this tree they transgressed so greatly that not only they but their posterity--the whole human race--became subject to damnation; further, how any serpent could lead them astray; besides other things, as that the woman was created out of a rib of her husband; that they recognized their nakedness after the fall and covered it with fig leaves; that coats of skin were given them to cover the body; and that cherubim with a flaming sword were stationed to guard the way to the tree of life.
[3] All this is representative, describing the establishment, state, alteration and finally destruction of the Most Ancient Church. The arcana involved, contained in the spiritual sense which fills the details, may be seen explained in _Arcana Caelestia,_ on Genesis and Exodus, published at London. There it may also be seen that by the tree of life the Lord is meant as to His divine providence, and by the tree of knowledge man is meant as to his own prudence.
_Their first son, Cain, killed his brother Abel, and God did not speak to him and dissuade him, but only afterwards cursed him._ As the Most Ancient Church is meant by Adam and his wife, as we have just said, the two essentials of a church, love and wisdom or charity and faith are meant by their first sons, Cain and Abel. Love and charity are meant by Abel, and wisdom and faith and in particular wisdom separate from love, and faith separate from charity, are meant by Cain. Wisdom as well as faith when separate is of such a nature that it not only rejects love and charity, but also destroys them and thus kills its brother. It is well known in Christendom that faith apart from charity does so; see _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith._
[2] The curse on Cain portends the spiritual state into which those come after death who separate faith from charity or wisdom from love. But lest wisdom or faith should perish, a mark was put on Cain lest he be slain, for love cannot exist without wisdom, nor charity without faith. As almost the same thing is represented by this as by eating of the tree of knowledge, it follows next after the account of Adam and his wife. Moreover, those in faith separate from charity are in intelligence of their own; those who are in charity and thence in faith are in intelligence from the Lord, thus in divine providence.
_The Israelites worshiped a golden calf in the wilderness and acknowledged it as the god that had brought them out of Egypt, yet Jehovah saw this from Mt. Sinai near by and did not warn against it._ This occurred in the desert of Sinai near the mountain. It is in accordance with all the laws of divine providence recounted so far and with those to follow that Jehovah did not restrain the Israelites from that atrocious worship. This evil was permitted them that they might not all perish. For the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt to represent the Lord's church; they could not represent it unless the Egyptian idolatry was first rooted out of their hearts. This could not be done unless it was left to them to act upon what was in their hearts and then to remove it on being severely punished. What further is signified by that worship, by the threat that they would be entirely rejected, and by the possibility that a new nation might be raised from Moses, may be seen in _Arcana Caelestia_ on Exodus 32, where these things are spoken of.
_David numbered the people and as a consequence a pestilence befell them in which so many thousands of them perished; God sent the prophet Gad to him not before but after the deed and denounced punishment._ One who confirms himself against divine providence may have various thoughts about this also and ponder especially why David was not admonished first and why the people were so severely punished for the king's transgression. That he was not warned first is in accord with the laws of divine providence already adduced, especially with the two explained at nn. 129-153 and 154-174. The people were so severely punished for the king's transgression and seventy thousand smitten by the pestilence not on account of the king but on account of themselves, for we read
The anger of Jehovah kindled still more against Israel; therefore He incited David against them saying, Go, number Israel and Judah (2 Sa 24:1).
_Solomon was allowed to establish idolatrous forms of worship._ For he was to represent the Lord's kingdom or church in all varieties of religion in the world. For the church established with the Israelitish and Jewish nation was a representative church; all of its judgments and statutes represented the spiritual things of a church, which are its internals. The people represented the church, the king the Lord, David the Lord to come into the world, Solomon the Lord after His coming. As the Lord after the glorification of His humanity had all power over heaven and earth (as He said, Mt 28:18), Solomon as representative of Him appeared in glory and magnificence, was wise beyond all earthly kings, and also built the temple. Moreover, he permitted and set up the forms of worship of many nations, by which the various religions of the world were represented. His wives, who numbered seven hundred and his concubines who numbered three hundred (1 Kgs 11:13), had a similar signification, for "wife" in the Word signifies the church and "concubine" a form of religion. Hence it may be evident why it was granted Solomon to build the temple, by which the Divine Humanity of the Lord (Jn 2:19, 21) is signified and the church, too; and why he was allowed to establish idolatrous forms of worship and to take so many wives. See _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (nn. 43, 44) that in many places in the Word the Lord who was to come into the world is meant by David.
_After Solomon many kings were allowed to profane the temple and the sacred things of the church._ This was because the people represented the church and the king was their head. The Israelitish and Jewish nation was of such a nature that they could not represent the church for long, for at heart they were idolaters; they therefore relapsed gradually from representative worship, perverting all things of the church, even to devastating it finally. This was represented by the profanations of the temple by the kings and by the people's idolatries; the full devastation of the church was represented by the destruction of the temple, the carrying off of Israel, and the captivity of Judah in Babylon. Such was the cause of this toleration; and what is done for some cause is done under divine providence according to one of its laws.
_That nation was permitted to crucify the Lord._ This was because the church with that nation was entirely devastated and had become such that they not only did not know or acknowledge the Lord, but hated Him. Still, all that they did to Him was according to laws of His divine providence. See in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (nn. 12-14) and in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith_ (nn. 34, 35) that the passion of the cross was the last temptation or battle by which the Lord fully conquered the hells and fully glorified His Humanity.
So far the points listed at n. 236 have been explained, involving passages in the Word by which the naturally minded reasoner may confirm himself against divine providence. For, as was said, whatever such a man sees, hears or reads he can make into an argument against providence. Few persons, however, confirm themselves against divine providence from incidents in the Word, but many do so from things before their eyes, listed at n. 237. These are to be explained now in like manner.
_Every worshiper of self and of nature confirms himself against divine providence when he sees so many impious in the world and so many of their impieties and how some glory in them, yet sees the impious go unpunished by God._ All impieties and all gloryings in them are permissions, of which the causes are laws of divine providence. Each human being can freely, indeed very freely, think what he wills, against God as well as in favor of God. One who thinks against God is rarely punished in the natural world, for he is always in a state to be reformed then, but is punished in the spiritual world, which is done after death, for then he can no longer be reformed.
[2] That laws of divine providence are the causes of tolerance is clear from the laws set forth above, if you will recall and examine them. They are: that man shall act in freedom according to reason (of this law above, nn. 71-79); that he shall not be forced by external means to think and will, thus to believe and love what is of religion, but bring himself and sometimes compel himself to do so (nn. 129-153); that there is no such thing as one's own prudence, but there only appears to be and it should so appear, but divine providence is universal from being in the least things (nn. 191-213); divine providence looks to what is eternal, and to the temporal only as this makes one with the eternal (nn. 214-220); man is not admitted inwardly into truths of faith and goods of charity except as he can be kept in them to the close of life (nn. 221-233).
[3] That the laws of divine providence are the causes of tolerance will also be evident from the following, for one thing from this: evils are tolerated because of the end, which is salvation. Again from this: that divine providence is continual with the wicked as well as with the good. And finally from this: the Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His divine providence because to do so would be to act contrary to His divine love and wisdom, thus contrary to Himself. Brought together, these laws can make the causes manifest why impieties are tolerated by the Lord and are not punished while they exist in the thought only and rarely, too, while they exist in intention, thus in the will but not in act. Yet its own punishment follows every evil; it is as if its punishment were inscribed on an evil, and the impious man suffers it after death.
[4] These considerations also explain the next point, listed at n. 237: _The worshiper of self and of nature confirms himself still more against divine providence when he sees plots, schemes and frauds succeed even against the devout, just and sincere, and injustice triumph over justice in the courts and in business._ All the laws of divine providence have requirements; and as they are the causes why such things are permitted, it is plain that for man to live as a human being and be reformed and saved, these things can be removed from him by the Lord only through means. The Word and, in particular, the precepts of the Decalog are the means with those who acknowledge all kinds of murder, adultery, theft and false witness to be sins. With those who do not acknowledge such things as sins, they are removed by means of the civil laws and fear of their penalties and by means also of the moral laws and fear of disrepute and consequent loss of standing and wealth. By the latter means the Lord leads the evil, but only away from doing such things, not from thinking and willing them. But by the former means He leads the good, not only away from doing them, but from thinking and willing them, too.
_The worshiper of self and of nature confirms himself against divine providence on seeing the impious advanced to honors and becoming leaders in the state and in the church, abounding, too, in riches and living in luxury and magnificence, and on the other hand sees worshipers of God despised and poor._ A worshiper of self and of nature believes that standing and riches are the greatest and the one felicity possible, thus felicity itself. If he has some thought of God as a result of worship begun in childhood, he calls them divine blessings, and as long as he is not elated by them he thinks that there is a God and worships Him. But in the worship there lurks a desire, of which he is unaware then, to be advanced by God to still higher standing and to still greater wealth. If he attains them, his worship tends more and more to externalities until it slips away and at last he makes little account of God and denies Him. The same thing occurs if he is cast down from the standing and loses the riches on which he has set his heart. What, then, are standing and riches to the wicked but stumbling blocks?
[2] To the good they are not, for these do not set their heart on them, but on the uses or goods for rendering which standing and wealth serve as means. Hence only a worshiper of self and of nature can confirm himself against divine providence because the impious are advanced to honors and become leaders in the state and in the church. Moreover, what is greater or less standing, or greater or less wealth? Is this not in itself imaginary? Is one person more blessed and happier than another for it? Is a great man's standing, or even a king's or an emperor's, not regarded in a year's time as a commonplace, no longer exalting his heart with joy but quite possibly becoming worthless to him? Have those with standing a larger measure of happiness than those with little standing or even the least standing, like farmers and their hands? May not these enjoy more happiness when it is well with them and they are content with their lot? What is more unquiet at heart, more often provoked, or more violently enraged than self-love? It happens as often as it is not honored to suit the haughtiness of its heart or as something does not succeed at its beck and wish. What, then, is standing except an idea, unless it attaches to the office or the use? Can the idea exist in any other thought than thought about self and the world, and does it not really mean that the world is all and eternity nothing?
[3] Something shall be said now why divine providence permits the impious at heart to be promoted to standing and to acquire wealth. The impious or the evil can render services as well as the pious or good, indeed with more fire, for they regard themselves in the use and their standing as the use. As self-love mounts, therefore, the lust of doing service for one's glory is fired. There is no such fire with the devout or good unless it is kindled incidentally to their standing. Therefore the Lord governs the impious at heart who have standing by their desire for a name and arouses them to perform uses to the community or their country, their society or city, and their fellow citizen or neighbor. With such persons this is the Lord's government which is called divine providence, for the Lord's kingdom is one of uses, and where only a few perform uses for uses' sake providence brings it about that worshipers of self are raised to higher offices, in which each is incited by his love to do good.
[4] Suppose an infernal kingdom in the world (though there is none) where self-love alone rules, which is itself the devil, would not everyone perform uses with the zeal of self-love and for the enhancement of his glory more than in another kingdom? The public good is borne on the lips of them all, but their own benefit in the heart. And as each relies on what rules him in order to become greater, and aspires to be greatest, how can he see that God exists? A smoke like that of a conflagration envelops him through which no spiritual truth can pass with its light. I have seen that smoke around the hells of such men. Light a lamp and inquire how many in present-day kingdoms aspire to eminence who are not loves of self and the world. Will you find fifty in a thousand who are loves of God, among whom, moreover, only a few aspire to eminence? Since so few are loves of God and so many are loves of self and the world and since the latter perform more uses by their ardor, how can one confirm himself against divine providence because the evil surpass the good in eminence and opulence?
[5] This is borne out also by these words of the Lord:
The lord praised the unjust steward because he had acted prudently; for the sons of this age are more prudent in their generation than the sons of light in their generation. So I say to you, Make friends for yourselves of the unjust mammon that when you fail they may receive you into eternal habitations (Lu 16:8, 9).
The meaning in the sense of the letter is plain. But in the spiritual sense by the "mammon of injustice" are meant knowledges of good and truth which the evil possess and employ solely to acquire standing and wealth for themselves. It is of these knowledges that the good or the children of light are to make friends for themselves and it is these knowledges that will conduct them into eternal homes. The Lord also teaches that many are loves of self and the world, and few are loves of God, in these words:
Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, which leads to destruction, and many there be who enter it, but narrow and strait is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it (Mt 7:13, 14).
It may be seen above (n. 217) that eminence and riches are either curses or blessings, and with whom they are the one or the other.
202-1 It is the doctrine of all churches in Christendom that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is infinite, eternal, uncreated and omnipotent, as may be seen in the Athanasian Creed.
231-1 Plural in the Hebrew, especially of blood that has been shed. "Both" is emphatic here, and for the significance of the plural see Arcana Caelestia, n. 374e and Apocalypse Explained, n. 329(27).