Purity Of Actions and Thoughts: From “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

Let us continue with Chapter 6 of “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), which discusses the importance of having Heavenly Love in both our internal and external self.

Chapter 6 It is a law of Divine Providence that man shall remove evils as sins in the external man of himself, and only so can the Lord remove the evils in the internal man and at the same time in the external.

“Sometimes the external of thought seems to be different in itself from the internal. This is because the life’s love with its internals about it sets a vicar under it called the love of means, and directs it to watch and guard against anything of its lusts appearing. This vicar, with the cunning of its chief, the life’s love, therefore speaks and acts in accordance with the laws of a kingdom, the ethical demands of reason, and the spiritual requirements of the church, so cunningly, too, and cleverly that no one sees that persons are other than they say and act, and finally the persons themselves, so disguised, scarcely know otherwise. Such are all hypocrites. […]

With those in a heavenly love, however, internal and external of thought or internal and external man make one when they speak, and they are aware of no difference. Their life’s love, with its affections of good and the perceptions of truth from these, is like a soul in what they think and then say and do. […]

As lusts together with slynesses make the internal of thought with evil persons, and the enjoyments of the lusts together with scheming make the external of thought in them, and the two are joined into one, it follows that the internal cannot be purified from the lusts as long as the evils in the external man are not removed. […]

Only with man’s participation can evils in the external man be removed by the Lord. In all Christian churches, it is an accepted point of doctrine that before coming to the Holy Communion, a person should examine himself, see and confess his sins, and do penitence, desisting from his sins and rejecting them because they are from the devil; and that otherwise the sins are not forgiven him, and he is damned. […]”