What is Meant by Loving the Lord and Loving the Neighbor

Selection from Divine Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
EVERY GOOD USE IS IN FORM A MAN

So far as man is in the love of use, so far is he in the Lord, so far he loves the Lord and loves the neighbor, and so far he is a man.

From the love of uses we are taught what is meant by loving the Lord and loving the neighbor, also what is meant by being in the Lord and being a man.

To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake.

To love the neighbor means to do uses to the church, to one's country, to human society, and to the fellow-citizen.

To be in the Lord means to be a use.

To be a man means to perform uses to the neighbor from the Lord for the Lord's sake.

To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake, for the reason that all the good uses that man does are from the Lord.

Good uses are goods, and it is well known that these are from the Lord.

Loving these is doing them, for what a man loves he does. No one can love the Lord in any other way; for uses, which are goods, are from the Lord, and consequently are Divine, yea they are the Lord Himself with man. These are the things that the Lord can love.

The Lord cannot be conjoined by love to any man, and consequently cannot enable man to love Him, except through His own Divine things — for man from himself cannot love the Lord — the Lord Himself must draw him and conjoin him to Himself.  Therefore, loving the Lord as a Person, and not loving uses, is loving the Lord from oneself, which is not loving. He that performs uses or goods from the Lord performs them also for the Lord's sake. These things may be illustrated by the celestial love in which the angels of the third heaven are. These angels are in love to the Lord more than the angels in the other heavens are, and they have no idea that loving the Lord is anything else than doing goods which are uses, and they say that uses are the Lord with them. By uses they understand the uses and good works of ministry, administration, and employment, as well with priests and magistrates as with merchants and workmen. The good works that are not connected with their occupation they do not call uses; they call them alms, benefactions, and gratuities.

Loving the neighbor means performing uses to the church, one's country, society, and the fellow-citizen, because these are the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense; neither can these be loved otherwise than by the uses that belong to each one's office.

A priest loves the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if he teaches and leads his hearers from zeal for their salvation.

Magistrates and officers love the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if they discharge their respective functions from zeal for the common good.

Judges, if from zeal for justice

Merchants, if from zeal for sincerity

Workmen, if from rectitude

Servants, if from faithfulness

and so forth.

When with all these there is faithfulness, rectitude, sincerity, justice, and zeal, there is the love of use from the Lord; and from Him they have love to the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense; for who that in heart is faithful, upright, sincere and just, does not love the church, the country, and his fellow-citizen?

From what has now been said it is plain that loving the Lord is performing uses from Him, and loving the neighbor is performing uses to him, and the object on account of whom uses are performed is the neighbor, use, and the Lord; and that love thus returns to Him from whom it is. For every love as source through love for its object returns to love as source, which return constitutes its reciprocal. And love continually goes forth and returns through deeds, which are uses, since to love is to do. For love, unless it becomes deed, ceases to be love, since deed is the effect of love's end, and is that in which it exists.

So far as man is in the love of use, so far is he in the Lord because so far is he in the Church, and so far in heaven. The Church and heaven from the Lord are as one man. The forms of which (called higher or lower organic forms, also interior and exterior) are made up of all who love uses by doing them; and the uses themselves are what compose that Man, because it is a Spiritual Man, that does not consist of persons, but of the uses with them. Yet all those are there who receive from the Lord the love of uses — these are they who do them for the neighbor's sake, for use's sake, and for the Lord's sake — and since this Man is the Divine that proceeds from the Lord, and the Divine proceeding is the Lord in the Church and in heaven, it follows that they all are in the Lord.

These are a Man, because every use that in any way promotes the general good or serves the public, is a man, beautiful and perfect according to the quality of the use, and at the same time the quality of its affection. The reason of this is, that in each single part of the human body there is, from its use, an idea of the whole — for the part looks to the whole as its source, and the whole sees the part in itself, as its agent. It is from this idea of the whole in each part that each use therein is a man, in small as well as in greater parts. There are organic forms in the part as well as in the whole.  In fact, the parts of parts, which are interior, are men more than the composite parts, because all perfection increases toward the interiors. For all organic forms in man are composed of interior forms, and these of forms still more interior, even to inmosts, by means of which communication is given with every affection and thought of man's mind. For man's mind, in all its particulars, extends into all things of his body; its range is into all things of the body — for it is the very form of life. Unless the mind had such a field, there would be neither mind nor man. From this it is that the choice and decision of man's will are determined instantly, and produce and determine actions, just as if thought and will were themselves in the things of the body, and not above them.

That every least thing in man, from its use, is a man, does not fall into the natural idea as it does into the spiritual — in the spiritual idea man is not a person, but a use; for the spiritual idea is apart from an idea of person, as it is apart from an idea of matter, space, and time. Therefore when one sees another in heaven, he sees him indeed as a man, but he thinks of him as a use. An angel also appears in face according to the use in which he is, and affection for the use makes the life of the face. From all this it can be seen that every good use is in form a man.

(Divine Love XIII)

Men, Only Recipients of Life

Selection from Divine Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
THE LORD ALONE IS LOVE ITSELF, BECAUSE HE IS LIFE ITSELF
MEN AND ANGELS ARE RECIPIENTS ONLY

The Lord, because He is God of the universe, is uncreated and infinite; whereas men and angels are created and finite. That which is uncreated and infinite is the very Divine in Itself. It is not possible for man to be formed of this, for he would then be the Divine in Itself; but he can be formed of things created and finite, in which the Divine can be and to which He can communicate His life, and this, by means of heat and light from Himself as a Sun, thus from His Divine Love; it is comparatively like germinations on the earth, which cannot be formed of the essence itself of the world's sun, but of the created things of which the soil consists, in which, by means of its heat and light, the sun can be, and to which it can communicate its life. From this it is evident that men and angels, in themselves, are not life, but only recipients of life.

From the above it follows also that the conception of a human being by a father is not a conceiving of life, but only a conceiving of the first and purest form able to receive life. To this form, as a first thread or beginning, substances and matters adjoin themselves one after another in the womb, adapted into forms for receiving life in its order and in its degree, down to an ultimate form suited to the modes of the world's nature.

(Divine Love II)

The Immortality of Man

Selection from Last Judgment ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

That every man after the life in the world lives to eternity, is evident from this:  man is then spiritual, and no longer natural; the spiritual man, separated from the natural, remains such as he is to eternity - for man's state cannot be changed after death.

Moreover, the spiritual of every man is in conjunction with the Divine, since it can think of the Divine, and also love the Divine, and be affected with all things which are from the Divine, such as those which the church teaches, and therefore it can be conjoined to the Divine by thought and will, which are the two faculties of the spiritual man, and constitute his life. That which can thus be conjoined to the Divine, can never die, for the Divine is with it, and conjoins it to Himself.

Man is also created to the form of heaven as to his mind, and the form of heaven is from the Divine itself, as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, where it has been shown: -

That the Divine of the Lord makes and forms Heaven (n. 7-12, and n. 78-86).

That Man is created to be a Heaven in the least form (n. 57).

That Heaven in the whole complex, has reference to one Man (n. 59-66).

That hence an Angel is in a perfect human Form (n. 73-77); an angel is a man as to his spiritual.

On this subject moreover, I have often spoken with the angels, who wondered exceedingly, that of those who are called intelligent in the Christian world, and who also are believed by others to be intelligent, there are very many who utterly reject the belief in their own immortality, believing that the soul of man is dissipated at death, just as the soul of a beast is, not perceiving the distinction between the life of a man and the life of a beast — that man has the power of thinking above himself, of God, of heaven, of love, of faith, of good, spiritual and moral, of truths, and the like, and that thus he may be elevated to the Divine itself, and he conjoined by all those things to Him. But that beasts cannot be elevated above their own natural, to think of such things, and consequently that their spiritual cannot be separated from their natural after death, so as to live by itself, as man's spiritual can: whence also it is, that the life of a beast ceases on the dissipation of its natural life.

The reason why many of the so-called intelligent in the Christian world, have no belief in the immortality of their own lives, the angels declared to be this, that in heart they deny the Divine, and acknowledge nature instead of the Divine. They who think from such principles, are not able to think of any eternity by conjunction with the Divine, nor consequently, of the state of man as dissimilar to that of beasts, for in rejecting the Divine from thought, they also reject eternity. They declared moreover, that with every man there is an inmost or supreme degree of life, or an inmost or supreme something into which the Divine of the Lord proximately inflows, and from which He disposes all the remaining interiors belonging to the spiritual and natural man, which are successive in both according to the degrees of order. This inmost or supreme they called the Lord's entrance into man, and His veriest dwelling place with him; and they said, that by this inmost or supreme, man is man, and is distinguished from brute animals which do not have it; and that hence it is, that men, as regards the interiors which are of the mind and disposition, unlike animals, can be elevated by the Lord to Himself, can have faith in Him, be affected by love to Him, and can receive intelligence and wisdom, and speak from reason.

When I asked them concerning those who deny the Divine, and the Divine truths, by which the conjunction of the life of man with the Divine itself is effected, and who yet live to eternity, they replied, that these also have the faculty of thinking and of willing, and therefore of believing and loving the things which are from the Divine, as well as those who acknowledge the Divine, and that by this faculty, they too live to eternity. They added, that this faculty is from that inmost or supreme which is in every man, of which mention was made above. Even those who are in hell have that faculty, and that they derive from it the power of reasoning and speaking against Divine truths, has been shown in many places. Hence it is, that every man lives to eternity, whatever be his quality. Because every man after death lives to eternity, no angel or spirit ever thinks of death; indeed they do not at all know what it is to die; wherefore, when "death" is mentioned in the Word, the angels understand by it either damnation, which is death in the spiritual sense, or the continuation of life and the resurrection. These things have been said in confirmation that all the men who have ever been born, and have died, from the beginning of creation, are alive, some in heaven, and some in hell.

(from Last Judgment 25)

Man's Capacity to Understand Truth

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Every man is born into a capacity to understand truths even to the inmost degree in which the angels of the third heaven are; for the human understanding, rising up by continuity around the two higher degrees, receives the light of their wisdom: —

for his understanding can be elevated even to that extent, and enlightened according to its elevation. But this enlightenment of the natural mind does not ascend by discrete degrees, but increases in a continuous degree, and as it increases, that mind is enlightened from within by the light of the two higher degrees.

How this occurs can be comprehended from a perception of degrees of height, as being one above another, while the natural degree, which is the lowest, is a kind of general covering to the two higher degrees. Then, as the natural degree is raised up towards a degree of the higher kind, the higher acts from within upon the outer natural and illuminates it. This illumination is effected, indeed, from within, by the light of the higher degrees, but the natural degree which envelops and surrounds the higher receives it by continuity, thus more lucidly and purely in proportion to its ascent, that is, from within, by the light of the higher degrees, the natural degree is enlightened discretely, but in itself is enlightened continuously.

From this it is evident that so long as man lives in the world, and is thereby in the natural degree, he cannot be elevated into very wisdom, such as the angels have, but only into higher light, even up to angels, and can receive enlightenment from their light that flows in from within and illuminates. But these things cannot as yet be more clearly described; they can be better comprehended from effects; for effects present causes in themselves in clear light, and thus illustrate them, when there is some previous knowledge of causes.

(from Divine Love and Wisdom 256)

Therefore man has the ability to become rational according to his elevation; if raised to the third degree he becomes rational from that degree, if raised to the second degree he becomes rational from that degree, if not raised he is rational in the first degree.

It is said that he becomes rational from those degrees, because the natural degree is the general receptacle of their light. The reason why man does not become rational to the height that he might is, that love, which is of the will, cannot be raised in the same manner as wisdom, which is of the understanding.

Love, which is of the will, is raised only by fleeing from evils as sins, and then by goods of charity, which are uses, which the man thereafter performs from the Lord.

Consequently, when love, which is of the will, is not at the same time raised, wisdom, which is of the understanding, however it may have ascended, falls back again down to its own love. Therefore, if man's love is not at the same time raised into the spiritual degree, he is rational only in the lowest degree.

From all this it can be seen that man's rational is in appearance as if it were of three degrees, a rational from the celestial, a rational from the spiritual, and a rational from the natural; also that rationality, which is the capacity whereby man is elevated, is still in man whether he be elevated or not.

It has been said that every man is born into that capacity, namely, rationality, but by this is meant every man whose externals have not been injured by some accident, either in the womb, or by some disease after birth, or by a wound inflicted on the head, or in consequence of some insane love bursting forth, and breaking down restraints. In such the rational cannot be elevated; for life, which is of the will and understanding, has in such no bounds in which it can terminate, so disposed that it can produce outmost acts according to order; for life acts in accordance with outmost determinations, though not from them. That there can be no rationality with infants and children.*

(from Divine Love and Wisdom 258-259)

*[As to the capacity to understand, called rationality, this man does not have until his natural mind reaches maturity; until then it is like seed in unripe fruit, which cannot be opened in the soil and grow up into a shrub.]

What the Spiritual Man is and What the Natural

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(1) What the natural man is, and what the spiritual man.

Man is not man from face and body, but from understanding and will; therefore by the natural man and the spiritual man is meant that man's understanding and will are either natural or spiritual.

The natural man in respect to his understanding and will is like the natural world, and may be called a world or microcosm; and the spiritual man in respect to his understanding and will is like the spiritual world, and may be called a spiritual world or heaven. From which it is evident that as the natural man is in a kind of image a natural world, so he loves those things which are of the natural world; and that as the spiritual man is in a kind of image a spiritual world, so he loves those things which are of that world, or of heaven. The spiritual man indeed loves the natural world also but not otherwise than as a master loves his servant through whom he performs uses. Moreover, according to uses the natural man becomes like the spiritual, which is the case when the natural man feels from the spiritual the delight of use — such a natural man may be called spiritual-natural.

The spiritual man loves spiritual truths; he not only loves to know and understand them, but also wills them; while the natural man loves to speak of those truths and also do them. Doing truths is performing uses. This subordination is from the conjunction of the spiritual world and the natural world; for whatever appears and is done in the natural world derives its cause from the spiritual world.

From all this it can be seen that the spiritual man is altogether distinct from the natural, and that there is no other communication between them than such as there is between cause and effect.

(2) The character of the natural man in whom the spiritual degree is opened.

This is obvious from what has been said above; to which it may be added, that a natural man is a complete man when the spiritual degree is opened in him, for he is then consociated with angels in heaven and at the same time with men in the world, and in regard to both, lives under the Lord's guidance. For the spiritual man imbibes commands from the Lord through the Word, and executes them through the natural man.

The natural man who has the spiritual degree opened does not know that he thinks and acts from his spiritual man, for it seems as if he did this from himself, when yet he does not do it from himself but from the Lord. Nor does the natural man whose spiritual degree has been opened know that by means of his spiritual man he is in heaven, when yet his spiritual man is in the midst of angels of heaven, and sometimes is even visible to them; but because he draws himself back to his natural man, after a brief stay there he disappears. Nor does the natural man in whom the spiritual degree has been opened know that his spiritual mind is being filled by the Lord with thousands of arcana of wisdom, and with thousands of delights of love, and that he is to come into these after death, when he becomes an angel. The natural man does not know these things because communication between the natural man and the spiritual man is effected by correspondences; and communication by correspondences is perceived in the understanding only by the fact that truths are seen in light, and is perceived in the will only by the fact that uses are performed from affection.

(3) The character of the natural man in whom
the spiritual degree is not opened, and yet not closed.

The spiritual degree is not opened, and yet not closed, in the case of those who have led somewhat of a life of charity and yet have known little of genuine truth. The reason is, that this degree is opened by conjunction of love and wisdom, or of heat with light; love alone or spiritual heat alone not opening it, nor wisdom alone or spiritual light alone, but both in conjunction. Consequently, when genuine truths, out of which wisdom or light arises, are unknown, love is inadequate to open that degree; it only keeps it in the possibility of being opened; this is what is meant by its not being closed.  Something like this is seen in the vegetable kingdom, in that heat alone does not cause seeds and trees to vegetate, but heat in conjunction with light effects this.

It is to be known that all truths are of spiritual light and all goods are of spiritual heat, and that good opens the spiritual degree by means of truths; for good, by means of truths, effects use, and uses are goods of love, which derive their essence from a conjunction of good and truth.

The lot, after death, of those in whom the spiritual degree is not opened and yet not closed, is that since they are still natural and not spiritual, they are in the lowest parts of heaven, where they sometimes suffer hard times; or they are in the outskirts in some higher heaven, where they are as it were in the light of evening; for in heaven and in every society there the light decreases from the middle to the outskirts, and those who above others are in Divine truths are in the middle, while those who are in few truths are in the outskirts. Those are in few truths who from religion know only that there is a God, and that the Lord suffered for them, and that charity and faith are essentials of the church, not troubling themselves to know what faith is or what charity is; when yet faith in its essence is truth, and truth is manifold, and charity is all the work of his calling which man does from the Lord; he does this from the Lord when he flees from evils as sins.

The end is the all of the cause, and the effect the all of the end by means of the cause; the end is charity or good, the cause is faith or truth, and effects are good works or uses; from which it is plain that from charity no more can be carried into works than the measure in which charity is conjoined with the truths which are called truths of faith. By means of these truths charity enters into works and qualifies them.

(4) The character of the natural man in whom the spiritual degree is entirely closed.

The spiritual degree is closed in those who are in evils as to life, and still more in those who from evils are in falsities. It is the same as with the fibril of a nerve, which contracts at the slightest touch of any thing heterogeneous; so every motive fiber of a muscle, yea, the muscle itself, and even the whole body shrinks from the touch of whatever is hard or cold. So also the substances or forms of the spiritual degree in man shrink from evils and their falsities, because these are heterogeneous. For the spiritual degree, being in the form of heaven, admits nothing but goods, and truths that are from good; these are homogeneous to it; but evils, and falsities that are from evil, are heterogeneous to it. This degree is contracted, and by contraction closed, especially in those who in the world are in love of ruling from love of self, because this love is opposed to love to the Lord.

It is also closed, but not so much, in those who from love of the world are in the insane greed of possessing the goods of others. These loves shut the spiritual degree, because they are the origins of evils. The contraction or closing of this degree is like the twisting back of a spiral in the opposite direction; for which reason, that degree after it is closed, turns back the light of heaven; consequently there is thick darkness there instead of heavenly light, and truth which is in the light of heaven, becomes nauseous. In such persons, not only does the spiritual degree itself become closed, but also the higher region of the natural degree which is called the rational, until at last the lowest region of the natural degree, which is called the sensual, alone stands open; this being nearest to the world and to the outward senses of the body, from which such a man afterwards thinks, speaks, and reasons. The natural man who has become sensual through evils and their falsities, in the spiritual world in the light of heaven does not appear as a man but as a monster, even with nose drawn back (the nose is drawn in because the nose corresponds to the perception of truth); moreover, he cannot bear a ray of heavenly light. Such have in their caverns no other light than what resembles the light from live coals or from burning charcoal. From all this it is evident who and of what character are those in whom the spiritual degree is closed.

(5) The nature of the difference between the life of a natural man and the life of a beast.

The difference is that man has three degrees of mind, that is, three degrees of understanding and will, which degrees can be opened successively; and as these are transparent, man can be raised as to his understanding into the light of heaven and see truths, not only civil and moral, but also spiritual, and from many truths seen can form conclusions about truths in their order, and thus perfect the understanding to eternity.

But beasts do not have the two higher degrees, but only the natural degrees, and these apart from the higher degrees have no capacity to think on any subject, civil, moral, or spiritual. And since the natural degrees of beasts are incapable of being opened, and thereby raised into higher light, they are unable to think in successive order, but only in simultaneous order, which is not thinking, but acting from a knowledge corresponding to their love. And because they are unable to think analytically, and to view a lower thought from any higher thought, they are unable to speak, but are able only to utter sounds in accordance with the knowledge pertaining to their love. Yet the sensual man, who is in the lowest sense natural, differs from the beast only in this, that he can fill his memory with knowledges, and think and speak therefrom; this power he gets from a capacity proper to every man, of being able to understand truth if he chooses; it is this capacity that makes the difference. Nevertheless many, by abuse of this capacity, have made themselves lower than beasts.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 251-255)

The Dissension of the Internal and the External Man

Selection from The New Evangelic & Apostolic Word ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The understanding of the Word, or what is the same, the understanding of the truth, is destroyed when there is no good with man, that is, when there is no love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor — for good with man, or what is the same, love with him, is the fire of his life, and truth with him, or the faith of truth, is the light therefrom.  Consequently, such as the good is, or such as the love is in man, such is truth, or such the faith of truth in him.

From this it can be seen that when evil or an evil love is with man, there can be no truth or faith of truth with him — for the light that goes forth from such fire is the light that those have who are in hell, which is a fatuous light like the light from burning coals, which light, when light from heaven flows in, is turned into mere thick darkness. Such also is the light that with the evil, when they reason against the things of the church, is called natural light [lumen].

That they would falsify and thereby extinguish truths is meant also by the Lord's words in Matthew:

Jesus said to the disciples, The brother shall deliver up the brother, the father the son; children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death (Matt. 10:21).

And in Luke:

Ye shall be delivered up by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death (Luke 21:16).

"Parents," "brethren," "children," ["kinsfolk,"] and "friends," do not mean here parents, brethren, children, kinsfolk, friends, nor do "disciples" mean disciples, but the goods and truths of the church, also evils and falsities; it is also meant that evils would extinguish goods and falsities truths.

(from Apocalypse Explained 366)

He who does not know that by "brethren," "companions," "neighbors," and many other names of relationship are signified the goods and truths of the church and of heaven, and their opposites, which are evils and falsities, cannot know what is involved in many other passages in the Word where these names occur, as in the following:

Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I am not come to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes shall be those of his own household. Whosoever loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whosoever loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whosoever doth not take up his cross and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me (Matt. 10:34-38);

spiritual combats are here treated of, which are temptations to be undergone by those who are to be regenerated, thus the contentions arising in man between the evils and falsities which are with him from hell, and the goods and truths which are with him from the Lord. Because these combats are here described, it is said, "whosoever doth not take up his cross, and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me;" by the "cross" being meant the state of man when in temptations. He who does not know that such things are signified by "man" and "father," by "daughter" and "mother," by "daughter-in-law" and "mother- in-law," must believe that the Lord came into the world in order to take away peace in homes and families, and introduce dissension; and yet He came to give peace and to take away dissensions, according to His own words in John 14:27: Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid and elsewhere.

That the dissension of the internal and the external man is described in this passage, is evident from the signification in the internal sense of "man" and "father," of "daughter" and "mother," and of "daughter-in-law" and "mother-in-law," in which sense - "man" [homo] denotes the good which is from the Lord; "father" denotes the evil which is from man's own; "daughter" denotes the affection of good and truth; "mother" denotes the affection of evil and falsity; "daughter-in-law" denotes the truth of the church adjoined to its good; and "mother-in-law" denotes falsity adjoined to its evil. And because the combat between goods and evils, and between falsities and truths, with man is described, it is also said that "a man's foes shall be those of his own household," for by "those of his own household" is signified the things that appertain to man, thus which are his own; and "foes" in a spiritual sense denote the evils and falsities which assault goods and truths. That such things are signified by "man," "father," "daughter," "mother," "daughter-in-law," and "mother-in-law," has been shown throughout in these explications.

In like manner is it with these words:

The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall give them to death (Matt. 10:21).

If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own soul also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple. So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:26, 27, 33).

Who does not see that these words are to be understood otherwise than according to the letter, at least from the fact of its being said without restriction that father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, are to be hated, in order that it may be possible for a person to be a disciple of the Lord? And yet it is according to the Lord's commandments that no one is to be hated, not even an enemy. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matt. 5:43, 44).

It is evident that things belonging to man, which are evils and falsities in their order, are meant by these names, for it is also said that he must hate his own soul, and that he must renounce all that he hath, that is, the things that belong to him. A state of temptation, that is, of spiritual combat, is also here described, for it is said, "whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." To be a disciple of the Lord is to be led by Him and not by self, thus by the goods and truths which are from the Lord, and not by the evils and falsities which are from man.

In like manner is the Word to be understood elsewhere, where these names are mentioned, as in these passages:

They do not attend unto My words; and as for My law, they reject it. Therefore thus said Jehovah, Behold I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people; so that the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them, the neighbor and his companion, and they shall perish (Jer. 6:19, 21).

I will scatter them, a man with his brother, even the fathers and the sons together; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them (Jer. 13:14).

Jehovah hath multiplied those who stumble; yea, they fell a man upon his companion (Jer. 46:16).

I will commingle Egypt with Egypt; and they shall fight a man against his brother, and a man against his companion (Isa. 19:2).

In these passages also similar things are meant by "fathers," "sons," "brothers," and "companions."

(from Arcana Coelestia 10490)

Shunning Evil

THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE
for the
NEW JERUSALEM
FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Emanuel Swedenborg

If any one shuns evils for any other reason than because they are sins, he does not shun them, but merely prevents them from appearing before the world.

There are moral men who keep the commandments of the second table of the Decalogue, not committing fraud, blasphemy, revenge, or adultery;— such of them as confirm themselves in the belief that such things are evils because they are injurious to the public weal, and are therefore contrary to the laws of humane conduct, — practice charity, sincerity, justice, chastity.

But if they do these goods and shun those evils merely because they are evils, and not at the same time because they are sins, they are still merely natural men, and with the merely natural the root of evil remains imbedded and is not dislodged; for which reason the goods they do are not goods, because they are from themselves.

Before men, a natural moral man may appear exactly like a spiritual moral man, but not before the angels. Before the angels in heaven, if he is in goods he appears like an image of wood, if in truths like an image of marble - LIFELESS, and very different from a spiritual moral man. For a natural moral man is an outwardly moral man, and a spiritual moral man is an inwardly moral man, and what is outward without what is inward is lifeless. It does indeed live, but not the life that is called life.

The concupiscences of evil that constitute the interiors of man from his birth can be removed by the Lord alone. For the Lord inflows from what is spiritual into what is natural, but man, of himself, from what is natural into what is spiritual — this influx is contrary to order, and does not operate into the concupiscences and remove them, but shuts them in closer and closer in proportion as it confirms itself. And as the hereditary evil thus lurks there, shut in, after death when the man becomes a spirit it bursts the cover that had hidden it here, and breaks out like the discharge from an ulcer that has been healed only outwardly.

There are various and many causes that make a man moral in the outward form, but unless he is moral in the inward form also, he is nevertheless not moral. For example: if a man abstains from adulteries and whoredom from the fear of the civil law and its penalties; from the fear of losing his good name and esteem; from the fear of the consequent diseases; from the fear of his wife's tongue in his home, and the consequent inquietude of his life; from the fear of the husband's vengeance, or that of some relative; from poverty, or avarice; from disability caused either by disease, abuse, age, or impotence; nay, if he abstains from such things on account of any natural or moral law, and not at the same time on account of the spiritual law, he nevertheless is inwardly an adulterer and whoremonger, for nonetheless does he believe that such things are not sins.

As toward God, therefore, he in his spirit makes them not unlawful, and so in spirit he commits them, although not in the body in the sight of the world; and therefore after death, when he becomes a spirit, he speaks openly in favor of them. From all this it is evident that an ungodly man is able to shun evils as injurious, but only a Christian can shun them as sins.

It is the same with thefts and frauds of every kind, with murders and revengeful acts of every kind, and with false witness and lies of every kind. No one can of himself be cleansed and made pure from such things, for within every concupiscence there are infinite things which the man sees only as one simple thing, whereas the Lord sees the smallest details of the whole series. In a word, a man cannot regenerate himself, that is, form in himself a new heart and a new spirit, but the Lord alone can do this, who Himself is the Reformer and the Regenerator. Therefore if a man wills to make himself new by his own sagacity and intelligence, it is merely like painting an ugly face, or smearing a skin detergent over a part that is infected with inward corruption.

Therefore the Lord says in Matthew:

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and the platter, that the outside may be clean also (Matt. 23:26).

And in Isaiah:

Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your works from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil; and then though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they have been red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isa. 1:16, 18).

(LIFE 108 - 113)