Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine WisdomSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom
Swedenborg, Emanuel
God (Christianity) -- Love; God (Christianity) -- Wisdom
338. (1) What is meant by evil uses on the earth. By evil uses on earth
are meant all noxious things in both the animal and vegetable kingdom,
also in the mineral kingdom. It is needless to enumerate all the noxious
things in these kingdoms, for to do so would merely heap up names, and
doing this without indicating the noxious effect that each kind produces
would not contribute to the object which this work has in view. For the
sake of information a few examples will suffice:-In the animal kingdom
there are poisonous serpents, scorpions, crocodiles, great snakes, horned
owls, screech owls, mice, locusts, frogs, spiders; also flies, drones,
moths, lice, mites; in a word, creatures that destroy grasses, leaves,
fruits, seed, food, and drink, and are harmful to beast and man. In the
vegetable kingdom there are all hurtful, virulent, and poisonous herbs,
with leguminous plants and shrubs of like character; and in the mineral
kingdom all poisonous earths. From these few examples it can be seen what
is meant by evil uses on earth; for evil uses are all things that are
opposite to good uses (of which, in the preceding paragraph, n. 336).
339. (2) All things that are evil uses are in hell, and all things that
are good uses are in heaven. Before it can be seen that all evil uses
that take form on earth are not from the Lord but from hell, something
must be premised concerning heaven and hell, without a knowledge of which
evil uses as well as good may be attributed to the Lord, and it may be
believed that they are together from creation; or they may be attributed
to nature, and their origin to the sun of nature. From these two errors
man cannot be delivered, unless he knows that nothing whatever takes form
in the natural world that does not derive its cause and therefore its
origin from the spiritual world, and that good is from the Lord, and evil
from the devil, that is, from hell. By the spiritual world is meant both
heaven and hell. In heaven are to be seen all those things that are good
uses (of which in a preceding article, n. 336). In hell are to be seen all
those that are evil uses (see just above, n. 338, where they are
enumerated). These are wild creatures of every kind, as serpents,
scorpions, great snakes, crocodiles, tigers, wolves, foxes, swine, owls
of different kinds, bats, rats, and mice, frogs, locusts, spiders, and
noxious insects of many kinds; also hemlocks and aconites, and all kinds
of poisons, both of herbs and of earths; in a word, everything hurtful
and deadly to man. Such things appear in the hells to the life precisely
like those on and in the earth. They are said to appear there; yet they
are not there as on earth, for they are mere correspondences of lusts
that swarm out of their evil loves, and present themselves in such forms
before others. Because there are such things in the hells, these abound
in foul smells, cadaverous, stercoraceous, urinous, and putrid, wherein
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