The Universal Law of Correspondences

From Concerning The Divine Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All things of the body, both internal and external, are correspondences.

What correspondence is has not hitherto been known in the world, for the reason that it has not been known what the spiritual is, and that there is a correspondence between what is natural and what is spiritual. When anything from the spiritual as the origin and cause becomes visible and perceptible before the senses, there is a correspondence between them. There is such a correspondence between spiritual and natural things with man

Spiritual things are all things pertaining to his love and wisdom, consequently to his will and understanding.

Natural things are all things pertaining to his body.

Because these have existed and perpetually exist, that is, subsist from spiritual things, they are correspondences; and therefore the two act as one, like end, cause, and effect. Thus the face acts as one with the affections of the mind, the speech with the thought, and the actions of all the members with the will; and the same is true of other things.

It is a universal law of correspondences that the spiritual fits itself to use, which is its end, and actuates and modifies the use by means of heat and light, and clothes it by provided means, until there results a form subservient to the end; and in this form the spiritual acts as the end, use as cause, and natural as effect; although in the spiritual world the substantial takes the place of the natural.

All things that are in such forms.

(Divine Wisdom II:3)

Reading the Word

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

That the Word is the medium of conjunction, because it is from the Lord and thus is the Lord. The Word is the medium of the Lord's conjunction with man, and of man's with the Lord, for the reason that in its essence it is Divine truth united with Divine good, and Divine good united with Divine truth.

this unition is in each and all things of the Word, in its celestial and its spiritual sense

From which it follows that the Word is the perfect marriage of good and truth; and because it is from the Lord, and what is from Him also is Himself, it results that -

when a man reads the Word, and takes truths therefrom, the Lord adjoins good.

For man does not see the goods that affect, because he reads it from the understanding, and the understanding takes from it nothing but its own things, which are truths. That good is adjoined to these by the Lord the understanding feels, from the delight that flows in when it is enlightened. But this does not take place interiorly with others than -

those who read it to the end that they may become wise; and the end of becoming wise is with those who wish to learn more of genuine truths there; and by means of them to form the church within themselves.

But they who read it only for the glory of erudition, and they who read it from an opinion that the mere reading or hearing of it inspires faith and conduces to salvation, do not receive any good from the Lord; because the end of these is to save themselves by the mere words, wherein is nothing of truth; and the end of those is to become eminent for learning, with which end there is no spiritual good conjoined, but only the natural delight that comes of worldly glory. Because the Word is the medium of conjunction it is called the covenant - Old and New - a covenant signifies conjunction.

(Conjugial Love 128)

What is from Order and According to Order

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Religion with man consists in a life according to the Divine commandments, which are contained in a summary in the Decalogue. He that does not live according to these can have no religion, since he does not fear God, still less does he love God; nor does he fear man, still less does he love him.

Can one who steals, commits adultery, kills, bears false witness, fear God or man? Nevertheless everyone is able to live according to these commandments; and he who is wise does so live as a civil man, as a moral man, and as a natural man.

And yet he who does not live according to them as a spiritual man cannot he saved; since to live according to them as a spiritual man means to so live for the sake of the Divine that is in them, while to live according to them as a civil man means for the sake of justice and to escape punishments in the world; and to live according to them as a moral man means for the sake of honesty, and to escape the loss of reputation and honor; while to live according to them as a natural man means for the sake of what is human, and to escape the repute of having an unsound mind.

All laws, civil, moral, and natural, prescribe that one must not steal, must not commit adultery, must not kill, must not bear false witness; and yet a man is not saved by shunning these evils from these laws alone, unless he also shuns them from spiritual law, thus unless he shuns them as sins.

For with such a man there is religion, and a belief that there is a God, a heaven and a hell, and a life after death; with such a man there is a civil life, a moral life, and a natural life; a civil life because there is justice, a moral life because there is honesty, and a natural life because there is manhood. But he who does not live according to these commandments as a spiritual man is neither a civil man, nor a moral man, nor a natural man; for he is destitute of justice, of honesty, and even of manhood, since the Divine is not in these.

For there can be nothing good in and from itself, but only from God; so there can be nothing just, nothing truly honest or truly human in itself and from itself, but only from God, and only when the Divine is in it.

Consider whether anyone that has hell in him, or who is a devil, can do what is just from justice or for the sake of justice; in like manner what is honest, or what is truly human.

The truly human is what is from order and according to order, and what is from sound reason; and God is order, and sound reason is from God.

In a word, he who does not shun evils as sins is not a man. Everyone who makes these commandments the principles of his religion becomes a citizen and an inhabitant of heaven; but he who does not make them the principles of his religion, although in externals he may live according to them from natural, moral, and civil law, becomes a citizen and an inhabitant of the world, but not of heaven.

Most nations know these commandments, and make them the principles of their religion, and live according to them because God so wills and has commanded. Through this they have communication with heaven and conjunction with God, consequently they also are saved.

But most in the Christian world at this day do not make them the principles of their religion, but only of their civil and moral life; and they do this that they may not appear in external form to act fraudulently and make unlawful gains, commit adulteries, manifestly pursue others from deadly hatred and revenge, and bear false witness, and do not refrain from these things because they are sins and against God, but because they have fears for their life, their reputation, their office, their business, their possessions, their honor and gain, and their pleasure; consequently if they were not restrained by these bonds they would do these things.

Because, therefore, such form for themselves no communication with heaven or conjunction with the Lord, but only with the world and with self, they cannot be saved. Consider in respect to yourself, when these external bonds have been taken away, as is done with every man after death, if there are no internal bonds, which are from fear and love of God, thus from religion, to restrain and hold you back, whether you would not rush, like a devil, into thefts, adulteries, murders, false witnesses, and lusts of every kind, from a love of these thus from a delight in them. That this is the case I have both seen and heard.

(Apocalypse Explained 948:4,5)