Angelic Wisdom about Divine ProvidenceSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Providence and government of God -- Christianity
[3] A third kind of profanation is committed by those who apply the sense
of the letter of the Word to confirm evil loves and false principles.
This is because the confirmation of falsity is the denial of truth, and
the confirmation of evil is a rejection of good. In its bosom the Word is
nothing but divine truth and good. But this does not appear in the lowest
sense or sense of the letter in genuine truths, except where the Lord and
the very way of salvation are taught, but in clothed truths, called
appearances of truth.
That sense can therefore be seized upon to confirm heresies of many
kinds. But one who confirms evil loves does violence to divine goods, and
one who confirms false principles does violence to divine truths. The
latter violence is called falsification of truth and the former
adulteration of good; both are meant by "bloods"* in the Word. For a
spiritual holiness, which is also the spirit of truth proceeding from the
Lord, is in every particular of the sense of the letter of the Word. This
holiness is injured when the Word is falsified and adulterated. It is
plain that this is profanation.
* Plural in the Hebrew, especially of blood that has been shed. "Both" is
emphatic here, and for the significance of the plural see Arcana
Caelestia, n. 374e and Apocalypse Explained, n. 329(27).
[4] A fourth kind of profanation is committed by those who utter pious
and holy things and also counterfeit affections of a love for them in
tone and manner, and yet at heart do not believe and love them. Most of
these are hypocrites and Pharisees who are deprived after death of all
truth and good and thereupon are sent into outer darkness. Those who have
confirmed themselves by this kind of profanation against the Divine and
against the Word and thus against the spiritual things of the Word, sit
in outer darkness dumb, unable to speak, wanting to babble pious and holy
things as they did in the world, but unable to do so. For in the
spiritual world everyone is compelled to speak as he thinks. A hypocrite,
however, wants to speak otherwise than he thinks, but there is impediment
in the tongue as a result of which he can only mumble. Hypocrisies are
lighter or more grave in the measure of the confirmation against God and
of the outward rationalizing in favor of God.
[5] A fifth kind of profanation is committed by those who ascribe to
themselves what is divine. These are meant by Lucifer in Isaiah 14; and
by Lucifer Babylon is meant, as is plain from verses 4 and 24 of that
chapter, where the fate, too, of such profaners is described. The same
profaners are also meant and described in the Apocalypse (chapter 17)
under the harlot seated on the scarlet beast. Babylon and Chaldea are
mentioned at many places in the Word; by Babylon profanation of good is
meant and by Chaldea profanation of truth; the one and the other
committed by those who ascribe to themselves what is divine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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