Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Charity and Good Works (pt. 54)
v Doctrinal Series v
Charity and Good Works (pt. 54)
v Doctrinal Series v
XVII. THE FRIENDSHIP OF LOVE AMONG THE EVIL IS INTESTINE HATRED OF EACH OTHER
It has been shown [in the previous articles] that every man has an internal and an external, and that his internal is called the internal man and his external the external man. To this may be added, that the internal man is in the spiritual world, and the external in the natural world.
Man was so created in order that he might be associated with spirits and angels in their world, and might thereby be able to think analytically, and after death be transferred from his own world to another.
By the spiritual world both heaven and hell are meant. As the internal man is in company with spirits and angels in their world, and the external man with men, it is evident that man can be affiliated both with the spirits of hell and with the angels of heaven. By this capacity and power man is distinguished from beasts.
Man is essentially [in se] such as he is in his internal man, not such as he is in his external — for the internal man is his spirit, and this acts through the external. The material body with which his spirit is clothed in the natural world, is an accessory for the sake of procreation and for the sake of the formation of the internal man; for the internal man is formed in the natural body as a tree in the soil, or as seed in fruit.
(True Christian Religion 454)
To be continued . . .