The One That Conquers Rules

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

A follow up to Article - Gold Is Still Gold
Whether It Flashes Before The Fire or
Has Its Surface Blackened By The Smoke

WHEN THIS TAKES PLACE
A CONFLICT ARISES BETWEEN THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL MAN
AND THEN THE ONE THAT CONQUERS RULES OVER THE OTHER.

A conflict then arises because the internal man is reformed by means of truths; and from truths he sees what is evil and false, which evil and falsity are still in the external or natural man; consequently disagreement first springs up between the new will, which is above, and the old will, which is below; and as the disagreement is between the two wills, it is also between their delights; for the flesh, it is well known, is opposed to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh, and the flesh with its lusts must be subdued before the spirit can act and man become new. After this disagreement of the two wills a conflict arises; and this is called spiritual temptation. This temptation or conflict does not take place between goods and evils, but between the truths of good and the falsities of evil. For good cannot fight from itself but fights by means of truths; nor can evil fight from itself but by means of its falsities; just as the will cannot fight from itself but by means of the understanding where its truths reside.

Man is not sensible of that conflict except as in himself, and as remorse of conscience; and yet it is the Lord and the devil (that is, hell) that are fighting in man, and they are fighting for dominion over him, or to determine who shall possess him. The devil or hell attacks man and calls out his evils, while the Lord protects him and calls out his goods. Although that conflict takes place in the spiritual world, still it takes place in man between the truths of good and the falsities of evil that are in him; therefore man must fight wholly as if of himself, for he has the freedom of choice to act for the Lord, and also to act for the devil; he is for the Lord, if he abides in truths from good, and for the devil, if he abides in falsities from evil. From this it follows that whichever conquers, the internal man or the external, that one rules over the other; precisely like two hostile powers contending as to which shall be master of the other's kingdom-the conqueror takes possession of the kingdom, and places all in it under obedience to himself. In this case, therefore, if the internal man conquers, he obtains dominion and subjugates all the evils of the external man, and regeneration then goes on; but if the external man conquers, he obtains the dominion, and dissipates all the goods of the internal man, and regeneration perishes.

(True Christian Religion 596)

Gold Is Still Gold, Whether It Flashes Before The Fire Or Has Its Surface Blackened By The Smoke

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In every created thing in the world, whether living or dead, there is an internal and an external; one never exists without the other, as there is no effect without a cause; and every created thing is esteemed according to its internal goodness, or is deemed base if internally malignant, as external goodness is when within it there is internal malignity. Every wise man in the world and every angel in heaven so judges. But the nature of the unregenerate man and of the regenerate, may be illustrated by comparisons.

The unregenerate man who simulates a moral citizen or a Christian, may be likened to a corpse wrapped in aromatics, which nevertheless exhales a putrid odor that infects the aromatics, insinuates itself into the nostrils, and injures the brain. He may also be likened to a mummy, gilded or placed in a silver coffin, upon looking beneath the covering of which a hideously black body comes to view.

Again, he may be likened to bones or skeletons in a sepulchre that is adorned with lapis lazuli and other gems; also to the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, but whose internal was nevertheless infernal (Luke 16:19). Still again he may be likened to sweet-tasting poison, to a poison hemlock in flower, to fruit with a bright skin, but inwardly worm-eaten, and also to an ulcer covered first with a plaster and then with a thin skin, but with nothing within but foul matter. In the world only those who have no internal goodness, and who therefore judge by the appearance, can estimate the internal by the external; but in heaven it is otherwise. For when the body which is moveable about the spirit and easily directed from evil to good, is separated by death, the internal remains, for this constitutes the man's spirit; and then at a distance he looks like a serpent that has shed his skin, or like rotten wood stripped of its bark or covering in which it looked so well.

But with the regenerate man it is different. His internal is good, and his external resembles the external of the other. And yet his external differs from that of the unregenerate as heaven differs from hell, since the soul of good is in it, and it matters not to him whether he is a great man, who dwells in a palace, and goes surrounded by attendants, or lives in a cottage and is waited upon by a boy; or even whether he is a primate clad in a purple robe and wearing the cap of his rank, or the shepherd of a few sheep in a wood, clothed in a loose rustic frock and wearing a little cap on his head.

Gold is still gold, whether it flashes before the fire or has its surface blackened by the smoke; whether it is melted into a beautiful form like that of an infant, or into an ugly one like that of a mouse. Mice made of gold and placed beside the ark, were acceptable and pleasing (1 Sam. 6:3-5); for gold signifies internal good. Diamonds and rubies obtained from whatever matrix, lime or clay, are in like manner esteemed according to their internal goodness, the same as those in the necklace of a queen; and so on. From all this it is clear that the external is estimated from the internal, and not the reverse.

(True Christian Religion 595)

Profaning What Is Holy

Excerpt from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... it is the inner level from which the outer level arises and that the outer level therefore derives its essence from the inner level ...

When our inner nature is essentially hellish ... and our outer nature seems spiritual in its form, though ... the outer derives its essence from the inner, you may ask where that essence is hiding in the outer. It is not in our gestures, our tone of voice, our language, or our expression. However, it is still hidden in all four of these. What is hidden shows through them very clearly in the spiritual world, because when we move from this physical world into the spiritual world, which happens when we die, then we leave behind those outward appearances along with our bodies, but keep the inner qualities that were hidden away in our spirits. Then if that inner nature was hellish, we look like demons just as we were in spirit while we were living in this world. Surely everyone realizes that we all leave those outward things behind along with our bodies and become engaged with deeper things when we become spirits.

... in the spiritual world there is a sharing of feelings and consequent thoughts, which means that none of us can say anything except what we are actually thinking. Also, our faces change there and become images of our feelings, so others can see from our faces what we are really like. Hypocrites are sometimes allowed to say what they are not thinking, but their tone of voice sounds discordant because of their deeper thoughts, and they can be recognized by this discord. So we can tell that the inner nature is hidden within the tone, the language, the expression, and the gestures of the outer, and that while people in the physical world are not sensitive to this, it is obvious to angels in the spiritual world.

We can see from this that as long as we are living in this physical world, we can be let into wisdom about spiritual matters and even into a love for them, and that this does and can happen both to people who are completely earthly-minded as well as to people who are spiritual. The difference is, though, that the latter are reformed when this happens, while the former are not. It may seem as though they love wisdom, but they love it only the way an adulterer loves a fine woman--like a prostitute. He talks soothingly to her and gives her beautiful clothes, but privately he is thinking, "She is nothing but a worthless whore. I will get her to believe that I love her, because she takes my fancy, but if she does not take to me, then I will discard her." The inner self is the adulterer, and the outer self is the woman.

If we then backslide from wisdom and love and go against them, we profane what is holy. There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy ... This is the worst of all, though, because people who commit this kind of profanation are no longer human after death. They are alive, but they are trapped in their wild hallucinations. ....

In this world, people do not know that this is what happens after death to individuals who commit profanation; and they do not know this because they do not understand the reason for it. The real reason is that if we acknowledge divine things and believe them at first and then backslide and deny them, we mix what is holy with what is profane; and once they have been mixed together, the only way they can be separated results in complete destruction.

(a) Everything we willingly think and say and do becomes part of us and remains so, whether it is good or evil.

(b) The Lord is constantly using his divine providence to make provisions and arrangements so that what is evil will be by itself and what is good by itself, and so that they can be kept separate.

(c) However, this cannot be accomplished if we first acknowledge the truths that faith discloses and live by them and afterwards backslide and deny them.

(d) Then we mingle what is good and what is evil so completely that they cannot be separated.

(e) Since what is good and what is evil need to be separated in each one of us, and since they cannot be separated in people like this, everything truly human about them is destroyed.

(Divine Providence 224 - 226)