Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
How A Man Can Be More Nearly Conjoined With The Lord
How The Conjunction Appears More And More Near
This is effected not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life conjoined with these.
Man's life is his love, and love is manifold. In general, there is a love of evil and a love of good. The love of evil is a love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding, blaspheming, depriving others of their goods. In thinking about these things and in doing them the love of evil has a sense of pleasure and delight. The derivatives of this love, which are its affections, are as many as are the evils into which it has determined itself; and the perceptions and thoughts of this love are as many as are the falsities that favor these evils and confirm them. These falsities make one with the evils, as the understanding makes one with the will; they are not separated from each other, for one is of the other.
Since, then, the Lord flows into the life's love of every one, and through its affections into the perceptions and thoughts, and not the reverse, as has been said above, it follows that the Lord can conjoin Himself more nearly only so far as the love of evil with its affections, which are lusts, has been set aside. And as these have their seat in the natural man, and as whatever a man does from the natural man is felt as if done from himself, so man ought as if from himself to put away the evils of that love; and so far as this is done by man, the Lord draws nearer and conjoins Himself with him. Any one can see from reason that lusts with their enjoyments block the way and close the doors before the Lord, and that these can not be cast out by the Lord so long as man himself holds the doors closed, and by pressing and pushing from without prevents their being opened. That man himself ought to open them is clear from the Lord's words in the Apocalypse:-
Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any one hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me (3: 20).From this it is evident that so far as one shuns evils as diabolical and as obstacles to the Lord's entrance, he is more and more nearly conjoined with the Lord, and he the most nearly who abominates them as so many dusky and fiery devils; since evil and the devil are one, and the falsity of evil and Satan are one. For as the Lord's influx is into the love of good and into its affections, and through these affections into the perceptions and thoughts (and these are all truths by derivation from the good in which the man is), so the influx of the devil, that is, of hell, is into the love of evil and into its affections, which are lusts, and through these into the perceptions and thoughts (and these are all falsities by derivation from the evil in which the man is).
How that conjunction appears more and more near:-
The more fully evils in the natural man are put aside by shunning them and turning away from them, the more nearly is man conjoined with the Lord.
And as love and wisdom, which are the Lord Himself, are not in space (since affection, which belongs to love, and thought, which belongs to wisdom, have nothing in common with space), so the Lord appears to be nearer in the measure of the conjunction by love and wisdom; and on the other hand, more remote in the measure of the rejection of love and wisdom. In the spiritual world there is no space, but there distance and presence are appearances in accordance with similarities and dissimilarities of affections; for the reason, as has been said before, that affections, which belong to love, and thoughts, which belong to wisdom, and which in themselves are spiritual, are not in space.
The Lord's conjunction with a man in whom evils have been put away, is meant by these words of the Lord:-
The pure in heart shall see God (Matt. 5. 8);and by these:-
He that hath My commandments and doeth them, I will make My abode with him (John 14: 21, 23)."To have the commandments" is to know, and "to do them" is to love; for it is also there said: "He that doeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me."
(Divine Providence 33)