Angelic Wisdom about Divine ProvidenceSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Providence and government of God -- Christianity
163. We shall say briefly how the Lord leads and teaches everyone from
the angelic heaven. In the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom_ and above in
the present treatise, also in the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in
London in the year 1758, it has been made known from things seen and
heard that the angelic heaven appears before the Lord as one man, and
each society of heaven likewise, and it is from this that each angel or
spirit is a human being in complete form. It was also shown in the
treatises mentioned that heaven is not heaven from anything belonging to
the angels but from their reception of divine love and wisdom from the
Lord. Hence it may be evident that the Lord rules the whole angelic
heaven as one man, and since heaven is itself man, it is the very image
and likeness of the Lord and the Lord rules it as the soul rules its
body. Since all mankind is ruled by the Lord, it is ruled by the Lord not
through heaven, but from heaven, consequently by Him, for He is heaven,
as we have said.
164. This is an arcanum of angelic wisdom, however, and therefore cannot
be comprehended by man unless his spiritual mind has been opened; for
such a man, who is united with the Lord, is an angel. From what has
preceded he can comprehend the following:
1. Men as well as angels are in the Lord and the Lord in them according
to their conjunction with Him, or, what is the same, according to their
reception of love and wisdom from Him.
2. Each of them has a place allotted to him in the Lord, thus in heaven,
according to the nature of the conjunction or the reception of Him.
3. Each in his place has a state of his own distinct from that of others
and draws his portion from what is had in common according to his
situation, function and need, quite as each part does in the human body.
4. Everyone is brought into his place by the Lord according to his life.
5. Every human being is introduced from infancy into this divine man
whose soul and life is the Lord, and within it and not outside of it is
led and taught from His divine love according to His divine wisdom; but
as a man is not deprived of freedom, he can be led and taught only in the
measure of his receptiveness as of himself.
6. Those who are receptive are conducted to their places through an
infinite maze by winding paths, much as the chyle is carried through the
mesentery and the lacteal vessels there to its cistern, and from this
into the blood by the thoracic duct, and so to its place.
7. Those who are not receptive are parted from those within the divine
man, as excrement and urine are removed from man.
These are arcana of angelic wisdom which man can comprehend to some
extent; there are many more which he cannot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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