TEN LAWS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Selections from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[Interspersed Series Between Numbers 1135 - 1194 From The Apocalypse Explained]

Lesson 2
 

From all this it is evident that the Lord can lead man to heaven only by means of these laws, although he has Divine love from which He wills, and Divine wisdom from which He knows all things, and Divine power, which is omnipotence, from which He can do what He wills. For these laws that are called laws of providence are laws of order respecting reformation and regeneration, thus respecting the salvation of man, and against these the Lord cannot act, since to act against them would be to act against His own wisdom and against His own love, thus against Himself. In respect to the first law, which is, That from sense and perception man cannot know otherwise than that life is in him; and yet he should acknowledge that the goods and truths which belong to love and faith which he thinks, wills, speaks, and acts, are not from him but are from the Lord. This law presupposes the second, namely, That man has freedom, and that this freedom also appears to be his, and yet he should acknowledge that it is not his, but is the Lord's in him.

This law follows from the former because freedom makes one with life, for without freedom man cannot feel and perceive that life is as if it were in him; it is from freedom that he feels this and perceives this, for it is from freedom that everything that the life effects appears to man to be his own [proprium et suum], for freedom is the power to think, will, speak, and do from oneself, here as if from oneself. And it especially belongs to the will, for a man says, I have power to do what I will, and I will that which I have power to do; in other words, I am in freedom. Again, who cannot think from freedom that one thing is good and another evil, or that one thing is true and another false? Therefore freedom was given to man together with his life, nor is it ever taken away from him; for so far as it is taken away or lessened so far man feels and perceives that he does not live, but that another lives in him, and so far the delight of all things of his life is taken away or lessened, for he becomes a slave.

That from sense and perception man knows no otherwise than that life is in him, thus that it is as if it were his own, has need of no other proof than experience itself. Who has any other feeling or perception than that he thinks from himself when he thinks, that he wills from himself when he wills, that he speaks and acts from himself when he speaks and acts? But it is from a law of the Divine providence that man should know no otherwise, since without such a feeling and such a perception he cannot receive anything to himself, appropriate anything to himself, or bring forth anything from himself; thus he would be neither a recipient of life from the Lord nor an agent of life from the Lord, but would be like an automaton, or like an upright image, without understanding or will, with the hands hanging down, awaiting influx that could not be given. For if life were not received and not appropriated as if by man, it would not be retained, but would flow through, and in consequence man from being alive would become like one dead, and from being a rational soul would become not rational, thus either a brute or a stock; for he would have no delight of life, that is, the delight that everyone has from receiving as if from himself, from appropriating and from bringing forth as if from himself, since delight and life act as one, and when you take away all the delight of life you grow cold and die.

If it were not according to a law of the Divine providence that man should feel and perceive as if life and everything pertaining to it were in him, and should be left to acknowledge simply that good and truth are not from him but are from the Lord, nothing could be imputed to man, neither good nor truth, and thus neither love nor faith; and if nothing could be imputed, the Lord would not have commanded in the Word that man must do good and shun evil, and if he did good heaven would be his inheritance, and if he did evil hell would be his portion; nor even would there be any heaven or hell, for without that perception man would not be a man, thus would not be a dwelling place of the Lord. For the Lord wills to be loved by man as if by him; thus it is that the Lord dwells with man in what is His own, and this he has given him in order that He may be loved reciprocally; for the Divine love consists in this, that it wishes what is its own to be man's, and this could not be unless man felt and perceived what is from the Lord to be as if it were his own.

If it were not according to the Divine law that man cannot from sense and perception know otherwise than that life is in him, no end for the sake of which man could act would be possible; this is possible to man because the end from which he acts seems to be in him. The end from which he acts is his love, which is his life, and the end for the sake of which he acts is the delight of his love or life, and the effect in which the end presents itself is use. The end for the sake of which he acts, which is the delight of his life's love, is felt and perceived in man, because the end from which he acts enables him to feel and perceive it; and that end is, as has been said, the love which is life. But to the man who acknowledges that all things of his life are from the Lord, the Lord gives the delight and blessedness of His love, so far as the man acknowledges this and performs uses. Thus when man by acknowledgment and by faith from love, as if from himself, ascribes to the Lord all things of his life, the Lord in turn ascribes to man the good of His life, which carries with it every happiness and every blessedness, and also enables him to feel and perceive interiorly and exquisitely this good to be in himself as if it were his own, and the more exquisitely in proportion as man from the heart wills that which he acknowledges by faith. The perception is then reciprocal, for the perception that He is in man and man is in Him is grateful to the Lord, and the perception that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him is gratifying to man. Such is the union of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord by means of love.

Man has a feeling and perception that life is in him, because the life of the Lord is in him as the light and heat of the sun are in a subject. This light and heat belong not to the subject but to the sun in the subject, for they withdraw with the sun, but when they are in the subject they in appearance wholly belong to it; from light the subject has color as if it were in it, and from heat it has vegetative life as if it were in it. But this is much more true of the light and heat from the sun of the spiritual world, which is the Lord, whose light is the light of life and whose heat is the heat of life, for the sun from which these proceed is the Lord's Divine love, while man is the recipient subject. This light and heat never withdraw from the recipient, which is man, and when they are in man they are in appearance wholly his own. From the light he has the ability to understand, and from the heat the ability to will. From this, that the light and heat, although they are not his own, are seemingly wholly in the recipient, and from this that they never withdraw, also from this that they affect his inmosts, which are remote from the sight of his understanding and from the feeling of his will, there must needs be the appearance that they are innate, that is, they seem to be in him, and thus what they effect seems to be from him. From this it is that man does not know otherwise than that he thinks from himself and that he wills from himself; and yet he does not in the least do this from himself, for it is impossible for this light and heat to be so united to the recipient as to be his own, precisely as it is impossible for the light of the sun to be united to an earthly subject and become material as the subject is. The same is true of heat. But the light of life and the heat of life move and fill their recipient in the exact measure of the quality of his acknowledgment that they are not his but are the Lord's, and the quality of acknowledgment is in exact accord with the quality of love in doing the commandments, which are uses.