Sum up all things you know and submit them to careful inspection, and in
some elevation of spirit search for the universal of all things, and you
cannot conclude otherwise than that it is Love and Wisdom. For these are
the two essentials of all things of man's life; everything of that life,
civil, moral, and spiritual, hinges upon these two, and apart from these
two is nothing. It is the same with all things of the life of the
composite Man, which is, as was said above, a society, larger or smaller,
a kingdom, an empire, a church, and also the angelic heaven. Take away
love and wisdom from these, and consider whether they be anything, and
you will find that apart from love and wisdom as their origin they are
nothing.
29. Love together with wisdom in its very essence is in God. This no one
can deny; for God loves every one from love in Himself, and leads every
one from wisdom in Himself. The created universe, too, viewed in relation
to its order, is so full of wisdom coming forth from love that all things
in the aggregate may be said to be wisdom itself. For things limitless
are in such order, successively and simultaneously, that taken together
they make a one. It is from this, and this alone, that they can be held
together and continually preserved.
30. It is because the Divine Essence itself is Love and Wisdom that man
has two capacities for life; from one of these he has understanding, from
the other will. The capacity from which he has understanding derives
everything it has from the influx of wisdom from God, and the capacity
from which he has will derives everything it has from the influx of love
from God. Man's not being truly wise and not loving rightly does not
take away these capacities, but merely closes them up; and so long as
they are closed up, although the understanding is still called
understanding and the will is called will, they are not such in essence.
If these two capacities, therefore, were to be taken away, all that is
human would perish; for the human is to think and to speak from thought,
and to will and to act from will. From this it is clear that the Divine
has its seat in man in these two capacities, the capacity to be wise and
the capacity to love (that is, that one may be wise and may love). That
in man there is a possibility of loving [and of being wise], even when
he is not wise as he might be and does not love as he might, has been
made known to me from much experience, and will be abundantly shown
elsewhere.
31. It is because the Divine Essence itself is Love and Wisdom, that all
things in the universe have relation to good and truth; for everything
that proceeds from love is called good, and everything that proceeds
from wisdom is called truth. But of this more hereafter.
32. It is because the Divine Essence itself is Love and Wisdom, that the
universe and all things in it, alive and not alive, have unceasing
existence from heat and light; for heat corresponds to love, and light
corresponds to wisdom; and therefore spiritual heat is love and spiritual
light is wisdom. But of this, also, more hereafter.
33. From Divine Love and from Divine Wisdom, which make the very Essence
that is God, all affections and thoughts with man have their
rise-affections from Divine Love, and thoughts from Divine Wisdom; and
each and all things of man are nothing but affection and thought; these
two are like fountains of all things of man's life. All the enjoyments
and pleasantnesses of his life are from these-enjoyments from the
affection of his love, and pleasantnesses from the thought therefrom.
Now since man was created to be a recipient, and is a recipient in the
degree in which he loves God and from love to God is wise, in other
words, in the degree in which he is affected by those things which are
from God and thinks from that affection, it follows that the Divine
Essence, which is the Creator, is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.