Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The internal cannot be cleansed from the lusts of evil so long as the evils in the external man are not put away, since these obstruct.
This follows from the preceding statement, that the external of man's thought is in itself of the same character as its internal; and that the two cohere like things that are not only one within the other but also one from the other; consequently one cannot be set aside unless the other is also. It is so with every thing external that is from an internal, and with every thing posterior that is from a prior, and with every effect that is from a cause.Since, then, lusts with their subtleties constitute in the evil the internal of thought, and the enjoyments of lusts together with their devices constitute their external of thought, and the latter and the former are joined together as one, it follows that the internal cannot be cleansed from lusts so long as the evils in the external man are not put away. It should be understood that man's internal will is that which is in the lusts, and the internal understanding is that which is in the subtleties, and that the external will is that which is in the enjoyments of the lusts, and the external understanding is that which is in the devices from the subtleties. Anyone can see that lusts and their enjoyments make one, and that the subtleties and devices make one; also that these four are in one series, and together make as it were one bundle; and from this again it is clear that the internal, which consists of lusts, can be cast out only by the putting away of the external, which consists of evils. Lusts through their enjoyments produce evils; but when evils are believed to be allowable, which comes from the agreement of will and understanding, the enjoyments and the evils then make one. It is acknowledged that this agreement is equivalent to doing the thing; and this is what the Lord says:-
Whosoever looketh on another's woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matt. 5:28).It is the same with other evils.
From all this it can now be seen that evils must surely be put away from the external man that man may be cleansed from the lusts of evil; for until this is done there is no possible exit for lusts; and if there is no exit the lusts remain within and breathe out enjoyments from themselves, and so they urge men on to the consent, thus to the doing. Through the external of thought the lusts enter the body; when therefore there is consent in the external of thought the lusts are at once present in the body; and the enjoyment that is felt is there. That as the mind is such is the body, thus the whole man, may be seen in the work on The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom (n. 362-370). This may be made clear by comparisons and also by examples.
• By comparisons: —
Lusts with their enjoyments may be likened to fire; the more a fire is fed the more it burns; and the freer the course given it the further it spreads, until in a city it consumes the houses, and in a forest the trees. In the Word the lusts of evil are likened to fire, and their evils to its burning. Moreover, in the spiritual world, lusts of evil with their enjoyments appear like fires; infernal fire is nothing else. Lusts may also be likened to floods and inundations of water when dikes or dams give way. They may also be likened to gangrenous sores and ulcers, which, if they run their course or are not cured, bring death to the body.
• By examples: —
It is made clear that unless the evils in the external man are put away the lusts and their enjoyments grow and multiply. The more a thief steals the more he loves to steal, till at last he cannot refrain; so with the defrauder, the more he defrauds. The same is true of hatred and revenge, of luxury and intemperance, of whoredom and blasphemy, and the like. Every one knows that the love of ruling from the love of self increases as rein is given to it; equally the love of possessing from love of the world; these seem to be without limit or end. All this makes clear that so far as the evils in the external are not put away their lusts multiply, and that lusts increase to the extent that evils have loose rein.
Man is not able to perceive the lusts of his evil; he does perceive their enjoyments, although he does not think much about them; for the enjoyments divert the thoughts and banish reflection.
Consequently, unless one knew from some other source that his lusts are evils he would call them good, and from freedom in accordance with the reason of his thought he would give expression to them; and when he does that he appropriates them to himself. So far as he confirms evils as allowable he enlarges the court of the ruling love, which is his life's love. Lusts are what constitute its court; for they are like its ministers and attendants, through which it governs the exteriors that constitute its kingdom. But as is the king such are the ministers and attendants, and such the kingdom. When a king is a devil his ministers and attendants are insanities, and the people of his kingdom are falsities of every kind, which his ministers (whom they call wise although they are insane), cause, by means of reasoning from fallacies and by means of illusions, to appear as truths, and cause to be acknowledged as truths. Can such a state in man be changed except by putting away the evils in the external man? For thereby the lusts that cling to the evils are put away. Otherwise no exit is open for the lusts; for they are shut in like a besieged city, or like a closed ulcer.
The evils in the external man can be put away by the Lord only through man's instrumentality.
In all Christian churches the doctrine has been accepted that before man approaches the holy communion he shall examine himself, shall see and acknowledge his sins, and shall do the work of repentance by refraining from evils and by rejecting them because they are from the devil; and otherwise his sins are not forgiven, and he is damned. The English hold the doctrine of faith alone, and yet in their exhortation to the holy communion they plainly teach self-examination, acknowledgment, confession of sins, repentance, and renewal of life; and those who fail to do this are threatened in these words that unless they repent the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas, and will fill them with all iniquity, and destroy both body and soul. The Germans, the Swedes, and the Danes, who also hold the doctrine of faith alone, have the same teaching in their exhortation to the holy communion, threatening also that all such will be subject to infernal punishments and to eternal damnation for mixing the holy and the profane. This is read by the priest with a loud voice before those who are about to come to the Holy Supper, and is listened to by them with full acknowledgment that it is so.And yet when these same persons listen on the same day to the preaching of faith alone, and at the same time that the law does not condemn them because the Lord fulfilled it for them, and that they are not able from themselves to do any good except what is meritorious, and thus works have nothing saving in them, but faith only, they return home entirely forgetful of their former confession, and discarding it so far as they give their thought to the preaching about faith alone. Which of these, then, is true; this or that? For two things contrary to each other cannot both be true, as on the one hand, that without self-examination, recognition, acknowledgment, confession, and renunciation of sins, thus without repentance, there is no forgiveness of sins, thus no salvation, but eternal damnation; and on the other hand that such things contribute nothing to salvation, because the Lord by the passion of the cross has made full satisfaction for all the sins of men, for those who have faith; and that those who have faith only, with confidence that it is true, and with a trust in the imputation of the Lord's merit, are without sins, and appear before God like those with washed and bright faces.
From all this it is clear that it is the common religion of all the churches in the Christian world that man should examine himself, should see and acknowledge his sins, and afterwards refrain from them; and that otherwise there is not salvation, but damnation.
Moreover, that this is the veritable Divine truth is evident from the passages in the Word, where man is commanded to repent; as the following:-
John said, Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. Even now is the axe laid unto the root of the tree; every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire (Luke 3:8, 9).
Jesus said, Except ye repent ye shall all perish (Luke 13:3, 5).
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Repent ye and believe the gospel (Mark 1:14, 15).
Jesus sent forth His disciples, and they went out and preached that men should repent (Mark 6:12).
Jesus said to the apostles that repentance and remission of sins should be preached unto all nations (Luke 24:47).
John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3)Think of this with some understanding; and if you have religion you will see that repentance from sins is the way to heaven, that faith separate from repentance is not faith, and that those who are not in faith because they do not repent are in the way to hell.
Those who are in faith separate from charity, and have confirmed themselves in it from Paul's saying to the Romans, That a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Rom. 3:28), adore this saying like men who adore the sun; and they become like those who fix their eyes steadily on the sun, by which the sight is so blurred that they can see nothing in ordinary light. For they do not see that "the works of the law" there mean, not the commandments of the Decalogue, but the rituals described by Moses in his books, which are there always called "the law." Lest, therefore, it should be thought that the commandments are meant Paul explains by saying, Do we then make void the law through faith; God forbid; yea, we establish the law (verse 31 of the same chapter).
Those who have confirmed themselves by this saying in faith separate from charity, from gazing at this passage as at the sun, fail to see where Paul enumerates the laws of faith as being the very works of charity; and what is faith without its laws? Nor do they notice where he enumerates evil works, and declares that those who do them cannot enter into heaven. This shows clearly how great is the blindness that has been induced by a wrong understanding of this single passage.
Evils in the external man can be put away only by man's instrumentality, because it is of the Lord's Divine providence that whatever man hears, sees, thinks, wills, speaks, and does, seems to him to be wholly his OWN. Without this appearance, there could be in man no reception of Divine truth, no determination towards doing good, no appropriation of love and wisdom or of charity and faith, and therefore no conjunction with the Lord, consequently no reformation and regeneration and thus salvation. Without this appearance repentance from sins, and faith even, are evidently impossible. It is also evident that without this appearance a man would not be a man, but would be devoid of natural life like a beast. Let any one who will consult his reason and see, when a man thinks about good and truth, spiritual, moral, or civil, whether there is any other appearance than that he thinks from himself; let him then accept this doctrinal, that everything good and true is from the Lord and nothing from man; and will he not acknowledge this consequence, that man must do good and think truth as if of himself, and yet must acknowledge that he does it from the Lord; and furthermore, that man must put away evils as if of himself and yet must acknowledge that he does it from the Lord?
Many are not aware that they are in evils, inasmuch as they do not do them outwardly because they fear the civil laws and the loss of reputation, and thus from custom and habit fall into the way of shunning evils as detrimental to their honor and profit. But when evils are not shunned from a religious principle, on the ground that they are sins and antagonistic to God, the lusts of evil with their enjoyments still remain, like impure waters confined and stagnant. Let such examine their thoughts and intentions, and they will find these lusts, provided they know what sins are.
This is the state of many who have confirmed themselves in faith separate from charity, who, believing that the law does not condemn them, do not even think about sins; and some question whether there are any sins in them, or if there are, whether they are sins before God, since they have been pardoned. In a like state also are natural moralists, who believe that civil and moral life with its prudence accomplishes everything and Divine providence nothing. Such also are those who strive with great eagerness after a reputation and name for honesty and sincerity for the sake of honor or gain. But those who are of this character, and who have also despised religion, become after death spirits of lusts, appearing to themselves as if they were men, but to others at a distance like treacherous forms (priapi); and like birds of night they see in the dark and not in the light.
Therefore man ought as if of himself to put away evils from the external man.
Explained in three articles in the Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem: —First, That no one can shun evils as sins, so as to turn away from them interiorly, except by combats against them (n. 92-100)
Secondly, That man ought to shun evils as sins and fight against them as if of himself (n. 101-107);
Thirdly, That if one shuns evils for any reasons whatever except that they are sins he does not shun them, but only prevents their appearing before the world (n. 108-113).
Then the Lord cleanses man from the lusts [of evil] in the internal man, and from the evils themselves in the external.
Another reason is, that the Lord acts into man's inmost, and from the inmost into consequent things even to outmosts; while man is simultaneously in outmosts. Therefore so long as man from himself holds the outmosts closed there can be no cleansing, but only such operation by the Lord in man's interiors as the Lord carries on in hell (the man who is both in lusts and in evils being a form of hell) and this operation is only an arrangement to prevent one thing from destroying another, and to prevent the violation of good and truth. The Lord continually solicits and urges man to open the door to Him, as is clear from His 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).Of the interior state of his mind or of his internal man, man knows nothing whatever. Although there are infinite things there, not one of them comes to man's cognizance. For the internal of man's thought, or his internal man, is his spirit itself; and in it there are things as infinite and numberless as there are in his body, and even more innumerable; for man's spirit is a man in its form, and all things belonging to it correspond with all things of man in the body. And just as man has no knowledge from any sensation of the manner in which his mind or his soul operates in all things of the body, conjointly and severally, so neither does he know in what manner the Lord operates in all things of his mind or soul, that is, in all things of his spirit. The operation is unceasing; in it man has no part, and yet the Lord can cleanse man from no lust of evil in his spirit or internal man so long as man holds his external closed. Man holds his external closed by means of evils, every one of which seems to him as a single thing, and yet in every one there are infinite things; and when man puts away an evil as a single thing the Lord puts away the infinite things in it. This is what is meant by the Lord's then cleansing man from the lusts of evil in the internal man, and from evils themselves in the external.
• Many believe that man is cleansed from evils by merely believing what the church teaches;
• others by his doing good;
• others by his knowing, talking about, and teaching the things of the church;
• others by his reading the Word and pious books;
• others by his attending churches, listening to sermons, and especially by coming to the Holy Supper;
• others by his renouncing the world and devoting himself to piety;
• others by his confessing himself guilty of all sins; and so on.
Yet none of these cleanse man in the least unless he examines himself, sees his sins, acknowledges them, condemns himself for them, and repents by refraining from them; and all this he must do as if of himself, but with acknowledgment from the heart that he does it from the Lord.
Until this is done the things that have been mentioned above do not help at all, for they are either meritorious or hypocritical; and those who do them appear in heaven before angels like beautiful harlots, smelling badly from their corruption, or like ill-favored women so painted as to appear handsome, or like masked actors and mimics on the stage, or like apes in human clothing. But when evils have been put away the things enumerated above belong to the love of those who do them; and such appear in heaven before the angels as beautiful human beings, and partners and companions of the angels.
But it must be well understood that when a man wishes to repent he must look to the Lord alone; if he looks to God the Father only he cannot be cleansed; nor if he looks to the Father for the sake of the Son, nor if he looks to the Son as merely a man. For there is one God, and that one is the Lord, His Divine and Human being one person, as shown in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord. In order that man in repenting might look to the Lord alone He instituted the Holy Supper, which confirms the remission of sins in those who repent. It confirms this because in that Supper or communion every one is kept looking to the Lord alone.
(Divine Providence 111-122)