Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Everything confirmed by the will and also by the understanding remains to eternity, because everyone is his own love, and his love belongs to his will; also because every man is his own good or his own evil, for everything that is called good, and likewise evil, belongs to the love.As man is his own love, he is also a form of his love and may be called the organ of his life's love.
The affections of the love and consequent thoughts of man are changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances of his mind. What these changes and variations are and their nature shall now be explained.
Some idea of them may be gathered from the heart and lungs, where there are alternate [expansions] and [compressions] or [dilations] and [contractions], which in the heart are called [systole] and [diastole] and in the lungs [respirations]; these are a reciprocal [distension] and [retraction] or [reciprocal stretching apart] and [closing together of their lobes]. Such are the changes and variations of the state of the heart and lungs. There are like changes in the other viscera of the body, and changes more similar in their parts, by which the blood and the animal juice are received and carried onward.
Like things are to be found in the organic forms of the mind, which are the subjects of man's affections and thoughts with the difference that their [expansions] and [compressions], or [reciprocations], are relatively in such higher perfection as cannot be expressed in the words of natural language, but only in those of spiritual language, and these can be defined in no other way than that they are vortex-like circlings inward and outward, after the manner of perpetual and incurving spirals wonderfully bundled together into forms receptive of life.
The nature of these purely organic substances and forms in the evil and in the good shall now be stated.
In the good, these spiral forms are turned forward, but in the evil, backward
• the spiral forms turning forward are turned towards the Lord and receive influx from Him
• those turning backward are turned towards hell and receive influx therefrom.
It is to be known that so far as they are turned backward they are open behind and closed in front; and on the other hand, so far as they are turned forward they are opened in front and closed behind.
From all this it is evident what kind of a form or organ an evil man is, and what kind of a form or organ a good man is, namely:
• that they are turned in contrary directions
• the turning when once fixed cannot be reversed
• such as man is when he dies such he remains to eternity.It is the love of man's will that makes the turning, that is, that converts and inverts, for, as has been said above, every man is his own love. It is from this that every man after death goes the way of his own love — he that is in a good love to heaven, and he that is in an evil love to hell; he finds rest only in that society where his reigning love is; and what is wonderful, everyone knows the way, it is like following a scent with the nose.
(Divine Providence 319)
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Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. (Exodus 6:1)It was believed from the law Divine, that it would come to pass that those who are of the spiritual church would be immediately liberated from infestations; when yet it is according to order that the evil who infest should be removed by degrees, and that they who are of the spiritual church should be liberated by degrees; for such is the Divine order; and therefore such is the law Divine; for all law Divine is of order, insomuch that whether we say, the law Divine, or the law of Divine order, it is the same.
Concerning this law, they who are of the spiritual church are now instructed, and that it is from this law that they are certain to be liberated when the time and state according to order arrives. That Moses (by whom is here represented the law Divine, such as it is with those of the spiritual church when they are in a state of infestations) believed from the law Divine that it would come to pass that they would be immediately liberated from infestations, is plain from what he said at the close of the preceding chapter, namely,
Wherefore hast Thou done evil unto this people? Why is this that Thou hast sent me? And liberating Thou hast not liberated Thy people. (Exodus 5:22-23)by which words is signified that they were too much infested by falsities, when yet the law proceeding from the Divine seems to say otherwise, and that in this way they have not been released from a state of infestations.
That those who are of the spiritual church, and who are in the lower earth, would be gradually liberated from infestations, and not immediately, is because the evils and falsities that cling to them cannot otherwise be removed, and goods and truths be instilled in their place.
This is effected by many changes of state, thus successively by degrees.They who believe that man can be immediately introduced into heaven, and that this is solely of the Lord's mercy, are very much mistaken. If this were possible, all whatsoever who are in hell would be raised into heaven, for the Lord's mercy extends to all. But it is according to order that everyone carries with him his life which he had lived in the world, and his state in the other life is according to this, and that the mercy of the Lord flows in with all, but is diversely received, and by those who are in evil, is rejected.
As in the world they have imbued themselves with evil, they also retain it in the other life, nor is amendment possible in the other life, for the tree lies where it has fallen.From all this it is evident that it is according to order that those who have lived in good, and with whom there are also gross and impure things which pertain to the love of the world and the love of self, cannot be associated with those who are in the heavens until these things have been removed. From all this it is evident that liberation from infestations is effected successively by degrees.
(from Arcana Coelestia 7186)