Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg (best book reader txt) 📕

325. (ii) Of divine providence, therefore, every man can be saved, and those are saved who acknowledge God and live rightly. It is plain from what has been demonstrated above that every human being can be saved. Some persons suppose that the Lord's church is to be found only in Christendom, because only there is the Lord known and the Word possessed. Still many believe that the Lord's church is general, that is, extends and is scattered throughout the world, existing thus with those who do not know the Lord or possess the Word. They say that those men are not in fault and are without means to overcome their ignorance. They believe that it is contrary to God's love and mercy that any should be born for hell who are equally human beings.

[2] Inasmuch as many Christians, if not all, have faith that the church is common to many—it is in fact called a communion—there must be some very widely shared things of the church that enter all religions and that constitute this communion. These most widely shared factors are acknowledgment of God and good of life, as will be seen in this order:

1. Acknowledgment of God effects a conjunction of God and man; denial of God causes disjunction. 2. Each one acknowledges God and is conjoined with Him in accord with the goodness of his life. 3. Goodness of life, or living rightly, is shunning evils because they are contrary to religion, thus to God. 4. These are factors common to all religions, and by them anyone can be saved.

326. To clarify and demonstrate these propositions one by one. First: Acknowledgment of God brings conjunction of God and man; denial of God results in disjunction. Some may think that those who do not acknowledge God can be saved equally with those who do, if they lead a moral life. They ask, "What does acknowledgment accomplish? Is it not merely a thought? Can I not 'acknowledge God when I learn for certain that God there is? I have heard of Him but not seen Him. Let me see Him and I will believe." Such is the language of many who deny God when they have an opportunity to argue with one who acknowledges God. But that an acknowledgment of God conjoins and denial disjoins will be clarified by some things made known to me in the spiritual world. In that world when anyone thinks of another and desires to speak with him, the other is at once present. The explanation is that there is no distance in the spiritual world such as there is in the natural, but only an appearance of distance.

[2] A second phenomenon: as thought from some acquaintance with another causes his presence, love from affection for another causes conjunction with him. So spirits move about, converse as friends, dwell together in one house or in one community, meet often, and render one another services. The opposite happens, also; one who does not love another and still more one who hates another does not see or encounter him; the distance between them is according to the degree in which love is wanting or hatred is present. Indeed, one who is present and recalls his hatred, vanishes.

[3] From these few particulars it may be evident whence presence and conjunction come in the spiritual world. Presence comes with the recollection of another with a desire to see him, and conjunction comes of an affection which springs from love. This is true also of all things in the human mind. There are countless things in the mind, and its least parts are associated and conjoined in accord with affections or as one thing attracts another.

[4] This is spiritual conjunction and it is the same in things large and things small. It has its origin in the conjunction of the Lord with the spiritual world and the natural world in general and in detail. It is manifest from this that in the measure in which one knows the Lord and thinks of Him from knowledge of Him, in that measure the Lord is present, and in the measure in which one acknowledges Him from an affection of love, in that measure the Lord is united with him. On the other hand, in the measure of one's ignorance of the Lord, in that measure He is absent; and so far as one denies Him, so far is He separated from one.

[5] The result of conjunction is that the Lord turns man's face towards Himself and thereupon leads him; the disjunction results in hell's turning man's face to it and it leads him. Therefore all the angels of heaven turn their faces towards the Lord as the Sun, and all the spirits of hell avert their faces from the Lord. It is plain from this what the acknowledgment of God and the denial of God each accomplish. Those who deny God in the world deny Him after death also; they have become organized as described above (n. 319); the organization induced in the world remains to eternity.

[6] Second: Everyone acknowledges God and is conjoined with Him according to the goodness of his life. All who know something of religion can know God; from information or from the memory they can also speak about God, and some may also think about Him from the understanding. But this only brings about presence if a man does not live rightly, for despite it all he can turn away from God and towards hell, and this takes place if he lives wickedly. Only those who live rightly can acknowledge God with the heart, and these the Lord turns away from hell and towards Himself according to the goodness of their life. For these alone love God; for in doing what comes from Him they love what is divine. The precepts of His law are divine things from Him. They are God because He is His own proceeding divine. As this is to love God, the Lord says:

He who keeps my commandments is he who loves me . . . But he who does not keep my commandments does not love me (Jn 14: 21, 24).

[7] Here is the reason why there are two tables of the Decalog, one having reference to God and the other to man. God works unceasingly that man may receive what is in His table, but if man does not do what he is bidden in his own table he does not receive with acknowledgment of heart what is in God's table, and if he does not receive this he is not conjoined. The two tables were joined, therefore, to be one and are called the tables of the covenant; covenant means conjunction. One acknowledges God and is conjoined to Him in accord with the goodness of his life because this good is like the good in the Lord and consequently comes from the Lord. So when man is in the good of life there is conjunction. The contrary takes place with evil of life; it rejects the Lord.

[8] Third: Goodness of life, or living rightly, is shunning evils because they are contrary to religion, thus to God. That this is good of life or living rightly is fully shown in Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, from beginning to end. To this I will only add that if you do good aplenty, build churches for instance, adorn them and fill them with offerings, spend money lavishly on hospitals and hostels, give alms daily, aid widows and orphans, diligently observe the sanctities of worship, indeed think and speak and preach about them as from the heart, and yet do not shun evils as sins against God, all those good deeds are not goodness. They are either hypocritical or done for merit, for evil is still deep in them. Everyone's life pervades all that he does. Goods become good only by the removal of evil from them. Plainly, then, shunning evils because they are contrary to religion and thus to God is living rightly.

[9] Fourth: These are factors common to all religions, and anyone can be saved by them. To acknowledge God, and to refrain from evil because it is contrary to God, are the two acts that make religion to be religion. If one is lacking, it cannot be called religion, for to acknowledge God and to do evil is a contradiction; so it is, too, to do good and yet not acknowledge God; one is impossible apart from the other. The Lord has provided that there should be some religion almost everywhere and that these two elements should be in it, and has also provided that everyone who acknowledges God and refrains from doing evil because it is against God shall have a place in heaven. For heaven as a whole is like one man whose life or soul is the Lord. In that heavenly man are all things to be found in a natural man with the difference which obtains between the heavenly and the natural.

[10] It is a matter of common knowledge that in the human being there are not only forms organized of blood vessels and nerve fibres, but also skins, membranes, tendons, cartilages, bones, nails and teeth. These have a smaller measure of life than those organized forms, which they serve as ligaments, coverings or supports. For all these entities to be in the heavenly humanity, which is heaven, it cannot be made up of human beings all of one religion, but of men of many religions. Therefore all who make these two universals of the church part of their lives have a place in this heavenly man, that is, heaven, and enjoy happiness each in his measure. More on the subject may be seen above (n. 254).

[11] That these two are primary in all religion is evident from the fact that they are the two which the Decalog teaches. The Decalog was the first of the Word, promulgated by Jehovah from Mount Sinai by a living voice, and also inscribed on two tables of stone by the finger of God. Then, placed in the ark, the Decalog was called Jehovah, and it made the holy of holies in the tabernacle and the shrine in the temple of Jerusalem; all things in each were holy only on account of it. Much more about the Decalog in the ark is to be had from the Word, which is cited in Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem (nn. 53-61). To that I will add this. From the Word we know that the ark with the two tables in it on which the Decalog was written was captured by the Philistines and placed in the temple of Dagon in Ashdod; that Dagon fell to the ground before it, and afterward his head, together with the palms of the hands, torn from his body, lay on the temple threshold; that the people of Ashdod and Ekron to the number of many thousands were smitten with hemorrhoids and their land was ravaged by mice; that on the advice of the chiefs of their nation, the Philistines made five golden hemorrhoids, five golden mice and a new cart, and on this placed the ark with the golden hemorrhoids and mice beside it; with two cows that lowed before the cart along the way, they sent the ark back to the children of Israel and by them cows and cart were offered in sacrifice (1 Sa 5 and 6).

[12] To state now what all this signified: the Philistines signified those who are in faith separated from charity; Dagon signified that religiosity; the hemorrhoids by which they were smitten signified natural loves which when severed from spiritual love are unclean, and the mice signified the devastation of the church by falsification of truth. The new cart on which the Philistines sent back the ark signified a new but still natural doctrine (chariot in the Word signifies doctrine from spiritual truths), and the cows signified good natural affections. Hemorrhoids of gold signified natural loves purified and made good, and the golden mice signified an end to the devastation of the church by means of good, for in the Word gold signifies good. The lowing of the kine on the way signified the difficult conversion of the lusts of evil of