The Man Who Does Not, From Natural, Become Spiritual

Selection from True Christian Religion-Appendix ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The order into which every man was created by God, is, that after infancy he may become a man. For, when he is born, he is only an external image or form of a man, and at that time less a man than a new-born beast is a beast; but, so far as he is inwardly perfected in this form, as to his mind, or his spirit, in wisdom and love, he becomes a man.

A man is like a tree, which first grows from a seed into a shoot, and, when it increases in height, puts forth branches, and from these, twigs, and clothes itself continually with leaves; and, when it comes to maturity, which takes place in its middle age, puts forth blossoms, and produces fruits; in every one of which it deposits seeds, which, being cast into the earth, as into a womb, grow up into similar trees, and thus into a garden. And if you will believe it, that same garden remains with the man after death; he dwells in it, and is every day delighted with the sight of it, and with the enjoyment of its fruits. It is such a man who is described in David by these words:

He shall be like a tree planted beside the rivers of waters, which shall yield its fruit in its time, and its leaf shall not fall (Psalm 1:3; and likewise Rev. 22:1, 2).

But it is different with the man born in the Church who, when he has spent his morning and advanced into the first light of day, whereby he has become rational, then stops, and does not produce fruit: such a one is, or acts, like a tree abounding in leaves, but not bearing fruit, which is rooted up out of the garden, its branches cut off, and the trunk cleft in pieces with axe, or saw, and the whole then cast piecemeal into the fire. The light of his Rational becomes like the light of the days of winter, in which the leaves of the trees first grow yellow, then drop off, and lastly decay. His Rational, also, may be compared with a tree whose leaves are consumed by worms in early spring; likewise with a crop that is choked by thorns; and also with vegetation which is laid waste by locusts. The reason is, that his Rational is merely natural, because it takes its ideas solely from the world through the senses, and not from heaven through the affections and the perceptions thence. And since, on this account, there is nothing spiritual inwardly in his Rational, if he then converses on any one of the spiritual things of the Church, his voice is heard by the angels no otherwise than as the voice of a parrot or a goose; for his voice is merely animal because merely natural, and not human because not inwardly spiritual; for it flows forth from the respiration of the body only, and not from any respiration of the spirit. Such is the man who does not, from natural, become spiritual; and no one becomes spiritual, unless, after he has become rational, he brings forth fruits, that is, puts on charity by life.

(True Christian Religion (Coronis) 7)

Man Possesses Power to Obey

From True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(1) God is order itself.

(2) He created man from order, in order, and into order.

(3) He created man's rational mind in accordance with the order of the whole spiritual world, and his body in accordance with the order of the whole natural world; and this is why man was called by the ancients a little heaven and a little cosmos.

(4) Therefore it is a law of order that man from his little heaven or his little spiritual world should govern his little cosmos or little natural world, just as God from His great heaven or spiritual world governs the great cosmos or natural world in each thing and all things of it.

(5) It is a resulting law of order that it is needful for man to lead himself into faith by means of truths from the Word, and into charity by means of good works, and so reform and regenerate himself.

(6) It is a law of order that man by his own exertion and power should purify himself from sins, and not stand still, believing in his own impotency, and expecting God to wash his sins away in a moment.

(7) It is also a law of order that man should love God with his whole soul and with his whole heart, and his neighbor as himself, and should not wait and expect that God will in an instant put these loves into his mind and heart, as bread from a baker may be put into his mouth.

It is ... a law of order that man by his own exertion and power ought to acquire faith by means of truths from the Word, and yet believe that not a grain of truth is from himself, but from God only; moreover, that man by his own exertion and power ought to justify himself, and yet believe that not a single point of justification is from himself, but from God only. Is not man commanded to believe in God, and to love God with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself? Consider and say how this could have been commanded by God if man possessed no power to obey and do it.

(True Christian Religion 71)

Even If You are in Heresies...

From Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The merely natural man confirms himself against the Divine providence by the fact that there have been and still are so many heresies in the Christian world.... For he may think to himself, If the Divine providence were universal in its least particulars, and had the salvation of all as its end, it would have caused one true religion to exist throughout the world, and that one not divided, still less torn into heresies. But make use of your reason, and think more deeply, if you can, whether a man can be saved unless he is previously reformed. For he is born into the love of self and love of the world; and as these loves do not carry in them anything of love to God or of love towards the neighbor except for the sake of self, he has been born also into evils of every kind. What is there of love or mercy in these loves? Does he [from these loves] think anything of defrauding another, defaming him, hating him even to the death, committing adultery with his wife, being cruel to him when moved by revenge, while cherishing in his mind a wish to be highest of all, and to possess the goods of all others, and while regarding others as insignificant and worthless compared with himself? If such a man is to be saved must he not first be led away from these evils, and thus reformed? This can be done only in accordance with many laws which are laws of the Divine providence.... These laws are for the most part unknown; nevertheless, they are laws of the Divine wisdom and at the same time of the Divine love, and the Lord cannot act contrary to them, because to do so would be to destroy man, not to save him.

Let the laws that have been set forth be reviewed and compared, and you will see. And since, then, it is in accordance with these laws that there is no immediate influx from heaven, but only mediate influx through the Word, doctrines, and preaching; also, for the Word to be Divine it must needs be written wholly by correspondences; it follows that discussions and heresies are inevitable, and that permissions of these are also in accord with the laws of the Divine providence. Furthermore, when the church itself has taken as its essentials such things as belong to the understanding alone, that is, to doctrine, and not such as belong to the will, that is, to the life, and the things that belong to the life are not made the essentials of the church, man from his understanding is then in mere darkness, and wanders about like a blind man, everywhere running against something and falling into pits. For the will must see in the understanding, and not the understanding in the will; or what is the same, the life and its love must lead the understanding to think, speak, and act, and not the reverse. If the reverse were true, the understanding, from an evil and even a diabolical love, might seize upon whatever presents itself through the senses, and enjoin the will to do it. From all this the source of dissensions and heresies can be seen.

And yet it has been provided that every one, in whatever heresies he may be in respect to the understanding, can be reformed and saved, if only he shuns evils as sins, and does not confirm heretical falsities in himself; for by shunning evils as sins the will is reformed, and through the will the understanding, which then first emerges from darkness into light. There are three essentials of the church, an acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord, an acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life that is called charity. According to the life which is charity is every one's faith; from the Word comes the knowledge of what the life must be, and from the Lord are reformation and salvation. If the church had held these three as essentials it would not have been divided, but only varied, by intellectual dissensions, as light varies the color in beautiful objects, and as various circlets give beauty in the crown of a king.

(Divine Providence 259)