Desiring and Longing to Change

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Any one may confirm himself in favor of the Divine from things visible in nature, when he sees larvae - from the delight of some impulse, desiring and longing to change their terrestrial state to a certain likeness of the heavenly state, and for this purpose creeping into corners, and putting themselves as it were into a womb in order to be born again, and there becoming chrysalises, aurelias, caterpillars, nymphs, and at length butterflies; and having undergone this metamorphosis, and each after its kind been decked with beautiful wings, they ascend into the air as into their heaven, and there disport themselves joyfully, form marriage unions, lay eggs, and provide for themselves a posterity, nourished meanwhile with pleasant and sweet food from flowers.

Who that confirms himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things in nature can help seeing a kind of image of man's earthly state in these as larvae, and in them as butterflies an image of the heavenly state? Those who confirm themselves in favor of nature see the same things, but because in heart they have rejected the heavenly state of man they call them merely natural instincts.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 354)

Doing Uses From the Lord

Excerpt from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The essence of spiritual love is doing good to others, not for the sake of self but for the sake of others; infinitely more is this the essence of Divine Love. It is like the love of parents for their children, in that parents do good to their children from love, not for their own sake but for their children's sake. This is especially manifest in a mothers love for her offspring.

Because the Lord is to be adored, worshiped and glorified, He is supposed to love adoration, worship, and glory for His own sake; but He loves these for man's sake, because by means of them man comes into a state in which the Divine can flow in and be perceived; since by means of them man puts away that which is his own, which hinders influx and reception, for what is man's own, which is self-love, hardens the heart and shuts it up.

This is removed by man's acknowledging that from himself comes nothing but evil and from the Lord nothing but good; from this acknowledgment there is a softening of the heart and humiliation, out of which flow forth adoration and worship.

From all this it follows, that the use which the Lord performs for Himself through man is that man may be able to do good from love, and since this is the Lord's love, its reception is the enjoyment of His love. Therefore, let no one believe that the Lord is with those who merely worship Him; He is with those who do His commandments, thus who perform uses; with such He has His abode, but not with the former.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 335)

By Abusing Rationality and Freedom

From Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The origin of evil is from the abuse of the capacities proper to man - rationality and freedom.
By rationality is meant the capacity to understand what is true and thereby what is false, also to understand what is good and thereby what is evil; and by freedom is meant the capacity to think, will and do these things freely. ... every man from creation, consequently from birth, has these two capacities, and that they are from the Lord; that they are not taken away from man; that from them is the appearance that man thinks, speaks, wills, and acts as from himself; that the Lord dwells in these capacities in every man, that man by virtue of that conjunction lives to eternity; that man by means of these capacities can be reformed and regenerated, but not without them; finally, that by them man is distinguished from beasts.
...
(1) A bad man equally with a good man enjoys these two capacities.
(2) A bad man abuses these capacities to confirm evils and falsities, but a good man uses them to confirm goods and truths.
(3) Evils and falsities confirmed in man are permanent, and come to be of his love, consequently of his life.
(4) Such things as have come to be of the love and life are engendered in offspring.
(5) All evils, both engendered and acquired, have their seat in the natural mind.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 264,265)