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Today we are pleased to present excerpts from Chapter 6 of “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), which discusses the interconnection between faith and repentance, that all good and truth come from the Lord, and that negative attributes in the external man need man’s cooperation to be removed. Chapter 6 Divine Providence “Think about this also with some degree of understanding; if you have religion, you will see that repentance of one’s sins is the way to Heaven, that faith apart from repentance is not faith, and that those in no faith for lack of repenting are on the way to hell. […] Proposition that a man ought to remove evils from the external man of himself, is substantiated then. Further explanation may be seen in ‘Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem’ under three propositions: 1. No one can flee evils as sins so as to be averse to them inwardly except by combats against them; 2. A man ought to shun evils as sins and fight against them as of himself; and 3. If he shuns evils for any other reason than that they are sins, he does not shun them, but only keeps them from appearing to the world. The Lord then purifies man from the lusts of evil in the internal man and from the evils themselves in the external. The Lord purifies man from the lusts of evil only when man, as of himself, removes the evils because He cannot do so before. For the evils are in the external man and the lusts in the internal man, and they cling together like roots and a trunk. Unless the evils are removed, therefore, no outlet offers; they block the way and shut the door, which the Lord can open only with a man’s participation, as was shown just above. When the man, as of himself, opens the door, the Lord then roots out the lusts. A second reason why the Lord cannot do so sooner is that He acts upon man’s inmost and by that on all that follows even to outmosts where man himself is. While outmosts, therefore, are kept closed by man, no purification can take place, but only that activity of the Lord in interiors which is His activity in hell, of which the man who is in lusts and at the same time in evils is a form an activity which is solely provision lest one thing destroy another and lest good and truth be violated. It is plain from the words of the Lord in the Apocalypse that He constantly urges and prompts man to open the door to Him: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me.”
