THE LAWS OF PERMISSION
ARE ALSO
LAWS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE
(CONTINUATION)
nos.262-264
Selection from
ANGELIC WISDOM
CONCERNING
THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE
Translated from the Latin of
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
• A doubt may arise in opposition to the Divine providence from the fact that the
whole Christian world worships one God under three persons, which is to worship
three Gods, not knowing hitherto that God is one in person and essence, in whom
is a trinity, and that the Lord is that God.
One who reasons about the Divine
providence may ask, Are not three persons three Gods when each person by Himself
is God? Who can think otherwise? Who, indeed, does think otherwise? Athanasius
himself could not; therefore in the creed that has its name from him it is said:-
"Although from Christian verity we ought to acknowledge each person to be God
and Lord, yet from the Christian faith it is not allowable to speak of or to
name three Gods and three Lords."
Nothing else is meant by this than that we
ought to acknowledge three Gods and Lords, but that it is not allowable to speak
of or name three Gods and three Lords.
Who can have any perception of one
God unless He is also one in person? If it is said that such a perception is
possible if the thought is that the three have one essence, is there or can
there be any other perception from this than that they are thus one in mind and
feeling, but nevertheless are three Gods? And if one thinks more deeply he says
to himself, How can the Divine essence, which is infinite, be divided? And how
can the Divine essence from eternity beget another, and still further bring
forth another that proceeds from both? If it is said that this is to be believed
but not thought about, who can help thinking about that which he is told must be
believed? From what other source is that acknowledgment, which is faith in its
essence? Have not Socinianism and Arianism, which reign in more hearts than you
believe, arisen from the thought of God as three persons? Belief in one God, and
that the Lord is the one God, constitutes the church; for the Divine trinity is
in Him. That this is true may be seen in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem
concerning the Lord, from beginning to end.
But what is the thought
respecting the Lord at the present day? Is it not a thought that He is God and
Man, God from Jehovah the Father from whom He was conceived, and Man from the
Virgin Mary of whom He was born? Who thinks that God and Man in Him, or His
Divine and His Human, are one person, and are one as soul and body are one? Does
any one know this? Ask the doctors of the church, and they will say that they
have not known it; and yet it is so stated in the doctrine of the church
accepted throughout the Christian world, which is as follows:-
Our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; and although He be God and Man yet
there are not two, but one Christ; one because the Divine took to itself the
Human; yea, wholly one, for He is one person; for as soul and body make one man
so God and Man is one Christ.
This is from the Faith or Creed of
Athanasius. They have not known this, for the reason that in reading it they
have not thought of the Lord as God, but only as a man.
If such are asked
whether they know from whom He was conceived, whether from God the Father or
from His own Divine, they will answer that He was conceived from God the Father,
for this is according to Scripture. Then are not the Father and Himself one, as
the soul and the body are one? Who can think that He was conceived from two
Divines, and if from His own that that was His Father? If they are asked further
what their idea is of the Lord's Divine and of His Human, they will say that His
Divine is from the essence of the Father and the Human from the essence of the
mother, and that His Divine is with the Father. If you then ask where His Human
is they will make no reply; for they separate in their thought His Divine and
His Human, and make the Divine equal to the Divine of the Father and the Human
like the human of another man, and do not know that they thus separate soul and
body; nor do they see the contradiction that He would thus have been born a
rational man from a mother alone.
From the established idea respecting the
Lord's Human, that it was like the human of another man, it has come to pass
that a Christian can scarcely be led to think of a Divine Human, even when it is
said that the Lord's soul or life from conception was and is Jehovah Himself.
Gather up the reasons, then, and consider, whether there is any other God of the
universe than the Lord alone, in whom the essential Divine, from which are all
things, is that which is called the Father, the Divine Human is that which is
called the Son, and the Divine going forth is called the Holy Spirit; thus that
God is one in person and in essence, and that the Lord is that God.
If you persist in saying
that the Lord Himself mentions three in Matthew:-
Go ye and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit (28: 19),
yet it is clear from the verse
immediately preceding and from that immediately following, that He said this to
make known that in Himself now glorified there is a Divine trinity. In the
preceding verse He says that all power is given to Him in heaven and upon earth;
and in the following verse He says that He would be with them until the end of
the age; thus speaking of Himself alone, and not of three.
Now as regards
Divine providence, why it has permitted Christians to worship one God under
three persons, that is, to worship three Gods, and why they have hitherto not
known that God is one in person and in essence, in whom is the trinity, and that
the Lord is this God. Of this man himself, and not the Lord, is the cause. This
truth the Lord has taught clearly in His Word, as can be seen from all the
passages quoted in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord. He has
also taught it in the doctrine of all the churches, in which it is stated that
His Divine and His Human are not two but one person, united like soul and body.
The first cause of their dividing the Divine and the Human, and making the
Divine equal to the Divine of Jehovah the Father, and the Human equal to the
human of another man, was that the church after its rise degenerated into a
Babylon, which transferred to itself the Lord's Divine power, but lest it be
called Divine power, and not human power, they made the Lord's Human like the
human of another man. Afterwards, when the church was reformed, and faith alone
was accepted as the sole means of salvation - the faith that God the Father has
mercy for the sake of the Son - the Lord's Human could not be regarded
differently, for the reason that no one can go to the Lord and in heart
acknowledge Him to be the God of heaven and earth until he is living according
to His precepts. In the spiritual world, where all are obliged to speak as they
think, no one can even mention the name Jesus unless he has lived in the world
as a Christian. This is of His Divine providence, lest His name be profaned.
• But that all this that has been said may be still more clear, I will add what
has been said at the end of the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the
Lord (n. 60, 61), which is as follows:-
That God and Man in the Lord,
according to the doctrine [of the creed], are not two, but one person, and
wholly one as the soul and the body are one, is clearly evident from many things
that He said, as, That the Father and He are one; That all things of the Father
are His, and all His are the Father's; That He is in the Father, and the Father
in Him; That all things have been given into His hand; That He has all power:
That he is the God of heaven and earth; That whosoever believes in Him has
eternal life; and that whosoever does not believe in Him, upon him the wrath of
God abides; and further, that both the Divine and the Human were taken up into
heaven, and that in respect to both He sits at the right hand of God, that is,
that He is almighty; and many more things that have been cited above in great
abundance from the Word respecting His Divine Human; all of which testify that
God is one both in person and in essence, in whom is a trinity, and that the
Lord is that God.
These things respecting the Lord are now for the
first time published because it has been foretold in the Apocalypse (chapters
21 and 22) that a new church would be instituted at the end of the former
church in which this doctrine would be primary. It is this church that is
there meant by the New Jerusalem, into which none can enter except those that
acknowledge the Lord alone as the God of heaven and earth; and this is why
that church is there called the Lamb's wife. And I am able to announce that
the entire heaven acknowledges the Lord alone, and that whoever does not
acknowledge Him is not admitted into heaven, for heaven is heaven from the
Lord. This acknowledgment itself, from love and faith, causes men to be in the
Lord and the Lord in them, as He Himself teaches in John:-
In that
day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you (14:
20):
again, in the same:-
Abide in Me and I in you. I am the
Vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth
much fruit, for apart from Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me he is
cast forth (15: 46; 17: 22, 23).
This has not been seen from the
Word before, because even if it had been it would not have been accepted, for
the last judgment had not yet been accomplished; and before that the power of
hell prevailed over the power of heaven; and man is midway between heaven and
hell. If, then, this had been seen before, the devil, that is, hell, would have
plucked it out of the hearts of men and would also have profaned it. This state
of the power of hell was wholly broken up by the last judgment, which has now
been accomplished. Since that judgment, that is, now, every man who wishes to be
enlightened and to be wise can be.
• A doubt may arise in opposition to Divine providence from the fact that hitherto
men have not known that there is a spiritual sense in all the particulars of the
Word, and that its holiness is therefrom. For a doubt may arise in opposition to
Divine providence when it is asked why this has now been revealed for the first
time, and why it has been revealed through this man or that, and not through
some primate of the church. But it is of the Lord's good pleasure whether this
is done by a primate or by the servant of a primate; the Lord knows what the one
is and what the other. But that sense of the Word has not been revealed before
(1) because if it had been, the church would have profaned it, and thereby have
profaned the essential holiness of the Word;
(2) because the genuine truths, in
which the spiritual sense of the Word resides, were not revealed by the Lord
until the last judgment had been accomplished, and the new church that is meant
by the Holy Jerusalem was about to be established by the Lord.
But let these be
examined singly.
First: The spiritual sense of the Word has not been
revealed before, because if it had been the church would have profaned it, and
thereby have profaned the essential holiness of the Word. Not long after the
establishment of the church it was turned into a Babylon, and afterwards into a Philistia; and while Babylon acknowledges the Word it nevertheless despises it,
claiming that they are inspired by the Holy Spirit in their supreme judgment
just as much as the prophets were. They acknowledge the Word for the sake of the
vicarship established by the Lord's words to Peter; and yet they despise the
Word because it does not suit them. For the same reason it is taken away from
the people and hidden in monasteries, where few read it. Consequently if the
spiritual sense of the Word, in which the Lord and all angelic wisdom are
present, had been unveiled, the Word would have been profaned, not alone as it
now is in its outmosts, which are the things contained in the sense of the
letter, but also in its inmosts.
Philistia also, by which is meant faith separate from charity,
would have profaned the spiritual sense of the Word, because it places salvation
in certain words that they may think and talk about, and not in the good works
they should do, as has been shown before; thus making that to be saving that is
not saving, and also separating the understanding from the things that are to be
believed. What have such to do with that light in which the spiritual sense of
the Word is? Would it not be turned into darkness? When the natural sense is
turned into darkness what would not be done with the spiritual sense? Does any
one of such, who has confirmed himself in faith separate from charity and in
justification by that alone, wish to know what good of life is, wish to know
what love to the Lord and towards the neighbor is, what charity is, and what the
goods of charity are, and what good works are, and doing them, or even what
faith is in its essence, or any genuine truth that constitutes it? Such write
volumes confirming only that which they call faith, and claiming that all the
things just mentioned are included in that faith. From all this it is clear that
if the spiritual sense of the Word had been unveiled before, it would have come
to pass according to the Lord's words in Matthew:-
If thine eye be evil
thy whole body shall be darkened. If, therefore, the light that is in thee
becomes darkness, how great is that darkness! (6: 23);
"the eye," in
the spiritual sense of the Word, meaning the understanding.
Secondly: The genuine truths
in which the spiritual sense of the Word resides were not revealed by the Lord
until the last judgment had been accomplished, and the new church that is meant
by "the Holy Jerusalem" was about to be established by the Lord. It was foretold
by the Lord in the Apocalypse that when the last judgment had been accomplished
genuine truths would be unveiled, a new church established, and the spiritual
sense of the Word disclosed. That the last judgment has been accomplished is
shown in the treatise on the Last Judgment, and again in the Continuation of it.
This, too, is what is meant by "the passing away of the heaven and earth" (Apoc.
21: 1). That genuine truths will then be unveiled is foretold in these words in
the Apocalypse:-
And He that sat upon the throne said,
Behold I make all
things new (11: 5; also 19: 17, 18; 21: 18-21; 22: 1, 2).
That the
spiritual sense of the Word is then to be unveiled (19: 11-16), this being
meant by "the white horse," upon which He sat who was called the Word of God,
and was Lord of lords and King of kings (see the treatise on The White Horse).
That the Holy Jerusalem means the new church that would then be established by
the Lord may be seen in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord
(n. 62-65), where this is shown.
From all this it is now clear that the
spiritual sense of the Word was to be revealed for a new church that will
acknowledge and worship the Lord alone, and will hold His Word to be holy, will
love Divine truths, and will reject faith separate from charity. But in regard
to this sense of the Word many things may be seen in the Doctrine of the New
Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 5-26, and the following numbers);
namely, what the spiritual sense is (n. 5-26); that the spiritual sense is in
each thing and in all things of the Word (n. 9-17); that it is from the
spiritual sense that the Word is Divinely inspired, and holy in every word (n.
18, 19); that the spiritual sense has been hitherto unknown, and why it has not
been revealed before (n. 20-25); that hereafter the spiritual sense will be
given only to those who are in genuine truths from the Lord (n. 26).
From
all this it can now be seen that it is of the Lord's Divine providence that the
spiritual sense has been hidden from the world until the present age, and in the
mean while has been preserved in heaven among the angels, who derive their
wisdom from it. That sense was known to the ancients who lived before Moses, and
was carefully studied; but their posterity converted correspondences, of which
alone their Word and their religion therefrom consisted, into idolatries of
various kinds, and the Egyptians converted them into magic, and consequently in
the Lord's Divine providence, the Word was closed up, first with the children of
Israel and afterwards with Christians, for the reasons given above; and now it
is again opened for the Lord's New Church. ... (Continue)
(The Divine Providence 262 - 264)
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