to conjoin man with Himself and Himself with man, in order to be able to
bestow the felicities of eternal life on him, which can be done only so
far as evils with their lusts have been removed._ It was shown above
(nn. 27-45) that it is the unceasing effort of the Lord in His divine
providence to conjoin man to Himself and Himself to man; that this
conjunction is what is called reformation and regeneration; and that by
it man has salvation. Who does not see that conjunction with God is life
eternal and salvation? Everyone sees this who believes that men by
creation are images and likenesses of God (Ge 1:26, 27) and
who knows what an image and likeness of God is. [2] What man of sound
reason, thinking from his rationality and wanting to think in freedom,
can believe that there are three Gods equal in essence and that divine
being or essence can be divided? One can conceive and comprehend a Trine
in the one God, however, just as soul, body and outgoing life in angel
and man are comprehensible. As this Trine in One exists only in the Lord,
conjunction must be with Him. Use your power of reason together with your
liberty of thought, and you will see this truth in its own light; but
admit first that God is, and heaven, and eternal life.
[3] As, then, God is one, and the human being was made by creation an
image and likeness of Him, and inasmuch as by infernal love and its lusts
and enjoyments man has come into a love of all evils and thus destroyed
the image and likeness of God in him, it follows that it is the
continuous effort of the Lord's divine providence to conjoin man to
Himself and Himself to man and thus make him an image of Himself. It also
follows that this is to the end that the Lord may be able to bestow on
him the felicities of eternal life, for such is divine love.
[4] He cannot bestow them, however, nor make man an image of Himself,
unless man removes sins in the external man as of himself, because the
Lord is not only divine love but also divine wisdom, and divine love does
nothing except by its divine wisdom and in consonance with it. It is
according to divine wisdom that man cannot be conjoined to the Lord and
thus reformed, regenerated and saved unless he is allowed to act in
freedom according to reason, for so man is man. Whatever is according to
the Lord's divine wisdom is also of His divine providence.
124. To this let me append two arcana of angelic wisdom showing further
what divine providence is like. One is that the Lord never acts on one
thing by itself in man, but on all things at the same time, and the
other is that He acts at once from inmosts and outmosts. He never acts
on some one thing by itself but on all things together because all
things in man are in such connection and from this in such form that
they act not as a number but as one. We know that there is such
connectedness and by it such organization in man's body. The human mind
is in similar form as a result of the connection of all things, for the
mind is the spiritual man and truly the man. Hence man's spirit or the
mind in the body in its entire form is man. Consequently man is man
after death equally as he was in the world with the sole difference that
he has thrown off the clothing which made up his body in the world.
[2] As the human form, then, is such that all its parts form a community
which acts as a whole, some one thing cannot be moved out of place or
altered in state except with adaptation of the rest, for if it were, the
form which acts as a whole would suffer. Hence it is plain that the Lord
never acts on any one thing without acting on all. So He acts on the
total angelic heaven since in His view it is like one man; so He acts on
each angel, for each angel is heaven in least form; so He acts also on
each man, most nearly on all things of man's mind and by these on all
things of his body; for man's mind is his spirit and in the measure of
conjunction with the Lord is an angel, and the body is obedience.
[3] It is to be well noted, however, that the Lord does act on each
particular thing in man singly, singularly so, when acting on all things
in man's organization; even so He does not alter the state of any part or
of any one thing except suitably to the whole form. But more will be said
of this in following numbers where we shall show that divine providence
is general because it extends to particulars, and particular because it
is general.
[4] The Lord acts from inmosts and outmosts at the same time because only
in this way are all things held in connection, for the intermediate
things depend one upon another from inmosts to outmosts and are assembled
in outmosts (it was shown in Part III of the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom_ that all things from the inmost onward are present simultaneously
in what is outmost ). For this reason the Lord from eternity or Jehovah
came into the world and assumed and bore human nature in outmosts. He
could thus be at once from firsts in lasts, and from firsts by lasts
govern the whole world and so save whom He could save according to the
laws of His divine providence, which are also the laws of His divine
wisdom. For it is true, as Christendom knows, that no mortal could have
been saved had the Lord not come into the world (see _Doctrine for the
New Jerusalem on Faith,_ n. 35). For the same reason the Lord is called
"The First and the Last."
125. These angelic arcana have been premised in order that it may be
comprehended how the Lord's divine providence operates to unite man to
Him and Himself to man. It does not act upon a particular thing by itself
in man, but on all things together and from man's inmost and outmosts
simultaneously. Man's inmost is his life's love; the outmosts are in the
external of thought; what is intermediate is in the internal of thought
(what external and internal are like with the wicked was shown earlier);
from which it is plain again that the Lord cannot act by inmosts and
outmosts simultaneously except together with man, for in the outmosts man
and the Lord are together. Wherefore, as the man acts in outmosts, which
are in his determination, being within the range of his freedom, so the
Lord acts from man's inmosts and in what follows from them to the
outmosts. Man does not know at all what is in the inmosts and in what
follows to the outmosts, therefore is unaware of how the Lord acts there
or what He effects there. But as all these things cohere as one with the
outmosts, man does not need to know more than that he should shun evils
as sins and look to the Lord. Only so can his life's love, which by birth
is infernal, be removed by the Lord and a heavenly life's love be
implanted in its place.
126. When a heavenly life's love has been implanted by the Lord in place
of an infernal life's love, affections of good and truth are implanted in
place of lusts of evil and falsity; enjoyments of affections of good are
implanted instead of enjoyments of lusts of evil and falsity, and goods
of heavenly love in place of evils of infernal love; prudence is
implanted in place of cunning, wise thinking in place of malevolent. So a
man is born again and becomes a new man. What goods replace evils you may
see in _Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem,_ nn. 67-73, 74-79, 80-86,
87-91; likewise that so far as man shuns and is averse to evils as sins
so far he loves truths of wisdom, nn. 32-41, and has faith and is
spiritual, nn. 42-52.
127. From the exhortations read aloud in all Christian churches before
Holy Communion we showed that it is the common religion of all
Christendom that a man should examine himself, see his sins, avow them,
confess them before God, and desist from them; and that this is
repentance, remission of sins and hence salvation. This is also evident
from the Creed named after Athanasius and received throughout Christendom
which concludes with the words:
The Lord will come to judge the living and the dead; at whose coming
those who have done good will enter into life eternal, and those who have
done evil, into everlasting fire.
128. Who does not know from the Word that everyone is allotted a life
after death according to his deeds? Open the Word, read it, and you will
see this clearly, but the while remove the thoughts from faith and
justification by faith alone. The few passages following are testimony
that the Lord teaches so everywhere in His Word:
Every tree which does not yield good fruit shall be cut down and cast
into the fire. By their fruits therefore shall you know them (Mt 7:19,
20).
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord . . . have we not prophesied in
your name, . . . and in your name done many mighty things? But I shall
confess to them then, I know you not, depart from Me, you who work
iniquity (Mt 7:22, 23).
Everyone who hears my words and does them I shall liken to a prudent man
who built a house on a rock: . . . but everyone who hears my words but
does not do them shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house on
the ground without a foundation (Mt 7:24, 26; Lu 6:46-49).
[2] The Son of man will come in the glory of His Father .. . and render
then to everyone according to his deeds (Mt 16:27).
The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a people
bringing forth its fruits (Mt 21:43).
Jesus said, These are My mother and brothers who hear the Word of God and
do it (Lu 8:21).
Then shall you begin to stand . . . and knock at the door, saying, Lord,
. . . open to us, but replying He will say to them, I know not whence you
are; depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity (Lu 13:25-27).
Those who have done good shall go out into the resurrection of life, but
those who have done evil into the resurrection of judgment (Jn 5:29).
[3] We know . . . that God does not hear sinners, but if a man worships
God and does His will, him He hears (Jn 9:31).
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them (13:17).
He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me, ... and
I will love him, . . . and I will come to him, and make an abode with him
(14:15, 21-24).
You are My friends, if you do whatsoever I command you... . I have chosen
you . . . that you may bear fruit and that your fruit may remain (15:14,
16).
[4] The Lord said to John, Write to the angel of the Ephesian church, I
know your works: . . . I have against you that you have left an earlier
charity; . . . repent, and do the former works; else . . . I shall remove
your candlestick from its place (Apoc 2:1, 2, 4, 5).
To the angel of the church of the Smyrneans write, I know your works
(2:8, 9).
To the angel of the church in Pergamos write, . . . I know your works,
repent (2:12, 13, 16).
To the angel of the church in Thyatira write, . . . I know your works and
charity, . . . and your later works are more than the first (2:18, 19).
To the angel of the church in Sardis write, . . . I know your works, that
you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead; . . . I have not
found your works perfect before God; . . . repent (3:1-3).
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, I know your works (3:7,
8).
To the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, I know your works;
. . . repent (3:14, 15, 19).
I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord from now on; ... their works follow them (14:13).
A book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged,
... all according to their works (20:12, 13).
Lo, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone
according to his work (22:12).
These are passages in the New Testament;
[5] there are still more in the Old, from which I shall quote only this
one:
Stand in the gate . . . of Jehovah, and proclaim this word there: Thus
says Jehovah Zebaoth the God of Israel, Make your ways good, and your
works; . . . put not your trust in lying words, saying, The temple, the
temple, the temple of Jehovah is this. . . . Thieving and killing and
committing adultery and swearing falsely . . . will you then come to
stand before Me in this house which is called by My name and say, We are
delivered? When you do those abominable things? Has not this house been
made a den of robbers? Even I, lo, I have seen it, is the word of Jehovah
(Je 7:2-4, 9-11).
VII. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL NOT BE COMPELLED BY
EXTERNAL MEANS TO THINK AND WILL, THUS TO BELIEVE AND LOVE WHAT PERTAINS
TO RELIGION, BUT BRING HIMSELF AND AT TIMES COMPEL HIMSELF TO DO SO
129. This law of divine providence follows from the preceding two,
namely: man is to act in freedom according to reason (nn. 71-99); and is
to do this of himself and yet from the Lord, thus as of himself (nn.
100-128). Inasmuch as being compelled is not to act in freedom according
to reason and also not to act of oneself, but to act from what is not
freedom and from someone else, this law of divine providence follows in
due order on the first two. Everyone knows that no one can be forced to
think what he is unwilling to think or to will what he decides not to
will, thus to believe what he does not believe, least of all what he
wills not to believe, or to love what he does not love and still less
what he wills not to love. For the spirit or mind of man enjoys complete
freedom in thinking, willing, believing and loving. It does so by influx
which is not coercive from the spiritual world (for the human spirit or
mind is in that world); and not by influx from the natural world,
received only when the two agree.
[2] A man can be driven to say that he thinks and wills, believes and
loves what is religious, but if this is not a matter of his affection and
reasoning or does not become so, he does not think, will, believe or love
it. A man may also be compelled to speak in favor of religion and to act
according to it, but he cannot be compelled to think in its favor from
any faith or to will in its favor out of love for it. In countries in
which justice and judgment are guarded, one is indeed compelled not to
speak or act against religion, but still no one can be compelled to think
and will in its favor. For everyone has freedom to think and to will
along with, and in favor of, hell or along with, and in favor of, heaven.
Reason, however, teaches what either course is like and what lot awaits
it, and by reason the will has the choice and decision.
[3] Plainly, then, what is external cannot coerce what is internal;
nevertheless it happens sometimes, but that it works harm will be shown
in this order:
i. No one is reformed by miracles and signs, for they coerce.
ii. No one is reformed by visions and communication with the dead, for
they coerce.
iii. No one is reformed by threats and penalties, as these coerce.
iv. No one is reformed in states of no rationality or no freedom.
v. Self-compulsion is not contrary to rationality and freedom.
vi. The external man is to be reformed through the internal, and not the
other way about.
130. (i) _No one is reformed by miracles and signs, for they coerce._ We
have shown above that man has an internal and an external of thought, and
that the Lord acts into the external by the internal in man and so
teaches and leads him; also that it is of the Lord's divine providence
that man is to act in freedom according to reason. Either action would
perish in man if miracles were done and he were driven by them to
believe. That this is so can be seen rationally in this way: undeniably
miracles induce belief and powerfully persuade a person that what the
miracle-doer says and teaches is true, and at first this engages man's
external of thought, virtually holding it spellbound. But one is deprived
by this of the two faculties called rationality and liberty, thus cannot
act in freedom according to reason, nor can the Lord then inflow into the
external of man's thought through the internal save only to leave man to
confirm from his rationality what has been made a matter of his belief by
the miracle.
[2] The state of man's thought is such that from the internal of thought
he can see a piece in the external of his thought as in a mirror--for as
was said above, one can behold one's own thought, which is possible only
from more interior thought. Beholding the item as in a mirror he can turn
it this way and that and shape it to look attractive to him. If there is
truth in it, it may be likened to an attractive and animated maiden or
youth. But if a man cannot turn it this way and that and shape it, but
only believe it persuaded of it by a miracle, then if there is truth in
it, it may be likened to a maiden or youth carved in stone or wood, in
which is nothing alive. It may also be compared to an object which is
constantly in view and looked at alone, keeps one from seeing what is to
either side and behind it. It can also be compared to a continual sound
in the ear, which does away with perceiving the harmony of many sounds.
Such are the blindness and deafness induced on the mind by miracles. It
is the same with anything confirmed but not regarded from rationality
before it is confirmed.
131. Plain it is from this that a faith induced by miracles is not faith,
but persuasion. For it has nothing rational in it, still less anything
spiritual, as it is only external without an internal. This is true of
everything a man does from such persuasive faith, whether he is
acknowledging God, worshiping Him at home or in church, or doing good
deeds. When only a miracle leads a person to acknowledgment of God and to
adoration and piety, he acts from the natural and not the spiritual man.
For a miracle infuses belief by an external and not an internal way, thus
from the world and not from heaven. The Lord enters man by an internal
way, by the Word and by doctrine and preaching from it. As miracles close
this way, no miracles are done today.
132. That miracles are of this nature can be clearly established from
those performed in the presence of the people of Judah and Israel.
Although they beheld many miracles in the land of Egypt and later at the
Red Sea and others in the Wilderness and particularly on Mt. Sinai when
the Law was promulgated, nevertheless, in a month's time while Moses
tarried on that mountain, they made themselves a golden calf and hailed
it as Jehovah who had led them out of the land of Egypt (Ex 32:4-6).
Again, it is plain from the miracles done later in the land of Canaan;
nevertheless the people fell away time and again from the prescribed
worship. It is equally plain from the miracles which the Lord did before
their eyes when He was in the world; yet they crucified Him.
[2] Miracles were done among the Jews and Israelites because they were
altogether external men and had been brought into the land of Canaan
merely to represent a church and its eternal verities by the
externalities of worship--something a bad man as well as a good man can
do. For the externals are rituals which with that people signified
spiritual and celestial things. Indeed Aaron, although he made the golden
calf and ordered worship of it (Ex 32:2-5, 35 ), could still represent
the Lord and His work of salvation. As the people could not be brought by
the internal things of worship to represent them, they were brought to do
so by miracles--in fact, were driven and forced to it.
[3] They could not be led by internals of worship because they did not
acknowledge the Lord although the entire Word which they had treats of
Him alone. One who does not acknowledge the Lord cannot receive anything
internal in worship. But miracles ceased after the Lord had manifested
Himself and was received and acknowledged as eternal God in the churches.
133. The effect of miracles on the good and on the evil differs, however.
The good do not desire miracles, but believe those in the Word. If they
hear of some miracle, they regard it only as a slight indication
confirming their faith; for they draw their thought from the Word and
thus from the Lord, and not from a miracle. It is different with the
evil. They can be driven and compelled, of course, to belief, to worship,
too, and to piety, but only for a little while. For their evils are
enclosed, and the lusts of those evils and the enjoyments of the lusts
continually press against the outward worship and piety; and in order
that the evils may come out of their confinement and burst forth, the
wicked ponder the miracle, finally call it ridiculous and a ruse or a
natural phenomenon, and so return to their evils. One who returns to his
evils after having worshiped profanes the truths and goods of worship,
and the lot of profaners after death is the worst of all fates. They are
meant by the Lord's words in Matthew (12:43-45) about those whose last
state is worse than the first. Besides, if miracles were to be done for
those who have no faith from the miracles in the Word, they would have to
be done constantly and before their eyes. It may be plain from all this
why miracles are not done at this day.
134. (ii) No one is reformed by visions or by communication with the
dead, for they coerce. Visions are of two kinds, divine and diabolic.
Divine visions are effected by representations in heaven; diabolic by
magic in hell. There are also phantasmal visions, which are illusions of
an estranged mind. Divine visions, produced as we said by representative
things in heaven, are such as the prophets had who at the time were not
in the body but in the spirit, for visions cannot appear to anyone in
bodily wakefulness. When these came to the prophets, therefore, it is
remarked that they were "in the spirit," as is plain from the following:
Ezekiel said, The Spirit picked me up and carried me to Chaldea to the
captivity in a vision of God, in the spirit of God; so the vision rose
over me which I saw (11:1, 24).
Again that the Spirit bore him between earth and heaven and brought him
to Jerusalem in visions of God (8:3, 4).
He was likewise in visions of God or in the spirit when he saw four
beasts which were cherubim (1 and 10).
So, too, when he saw a new temple and a new earth, and an angel measuring
them (40-48 ).
That he was in "visions of God" then, he says at 40:2, 26, and that he
was "in the spirit" at 43:5.
[2] Zechariah was in a similar state when he saw
a horseman among myrtle trees (1:8 ff)
four horns (1:18) and a man with a measuring line in his hand (2:1-3 ff )
a candlestick and two olive trees (4:1 ff)
a flying roll and an ephah (5:1, 6)
four chariots coming out between two mountains, and horses (8:1 ff).
In a like state was Daniel when he saw
four beasts coming up from the sea (7:1 ff )
a combat between a ram and a he-goat (8:1 ff).
That he saw these things "in the vision of his spirit" is stated at 7:1,
2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7, 8, and that the angel Gabriel was seen by him in
a "vision" at 9:21.
[3] John was also in the vision of the spirit when he beheld what he has
described in the Apocalypse, as when he saw
seven candlesticks and the Son of man in the midst of them (1:12-16)
a throne in heaven, and One sitting on the throne, and around it four
beasts, which were cherubim (4)
the book of life taken by the Lamb (5)
horses coming out from the book (6)
seven angels with trumpets (8)
the pit of the abyss opened, and locusts coming out a dragon, and its
battle with Michael (12)
two beasts, rising, one from the sea and the other from the land (13)
a woman seated on a scarlet beast (17)
Babylon destroyed (18)
a white horse, and One seated on it (19)
a new heaven and a new earth, and the holy Jerusalem descending from
heaven (21)
the river of the water of life (22).
That he saw these "in the vision of the spirit" is said 1:10; 4:2; 5:1;
6:1; 21:1, 2.
[4] Such were the visions which appeared from heaven to the sight of the
spirit of these men, but not to their bodily sight. Such visions do not
occur at this day because if they did, they would not be understood
inasmuch as they are produced by representations the details of which
signify internal things of the church and arcana of heaven. Daniel also
foretold (9:24) that they would cease when the Lord came into the world.
Diabolic visions, however, have occurred at times, incited by fanatical
and visionary spirits who in their delirium called themselves the Holy
Spirit. But those spirits have now been gathered together by the Lord and
cast into a hell separate from the hells of others. There are also
phantasmal visions which are merely the illusions of an estranged mind.
All this makes clear that no one can be reformed by any visions other
than those in the Word.
134 r. The fact that no one is reformed by communication with the dead is
plain from the Lord's words about the rich man in hell and Lazarus in
Abraham's bosom.
For the rich man said, I ask you, father Abraham, to send Lazarus to my
father's house, for I have five brothers, to testify to them lest they
also come into this place of torment. Abraham said to him, They have
Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. But he said, No, father
Abraham, but if some one will go to them from the dead, they will repent.
He replied, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be
persuaded either if one should arise from the dead (Lu 16:27-31).
Communication with the dead would have the same result as miracles (of
which just above), namely, that a man would be influenced and driven into
worship for a short time. But as this deprives a man of rationality and
at the same time shuts his evils in, as was said above, the captivation
or the inward bond is undone, and the imprisoned evils break out, with
blasphemy and profanation; this last occurs, however, only when spirits
introduce something dogmatic from religion, which is never done by a good
spirit, still less by an angel of heaven.