April 8, 2020

It is Slavery to be Led by the Devil, and Freedom to be Led by the Lord

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Romans 6:16-18
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and [going about to establish their own righteousness], have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Romans 10:3
He who is in interior truth knows that all truth and good are from the Lord, and also that all freedom from his own, or from the man himself, is infernal; for when a man thinks or does anything from his own freedom, he thinks and does nothing but evil. In consequence he is a servant of the devil, for all evil flows in from hell. He also feels delight in such freedom, because it agrees with the evil in which he is, and into which he was born. Wherefore this freedom from one's own must be put off, and heavenly freedom must be put on instead, which consists in willing what is good and thence doing it, and in desiring what is true and thence thinking it. When a man receives this freedom he is a servant of the Lord, and is then in freedom itself, and not in the bondage in which he was before, and which appeared like freedom.
(from Arcana Coelestia 5763)