Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 18

254. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he observes the religious conditions in various nations and notes that some people are totally ignorant of G.o.d, some wors.h.i.+p the sun and moon, and some wors.h.i.+p idols and graven images._ Those who argue from these facts against divine providence are ignorant of the arcana of heaven; these arcana are innumerable and man is acquainted with hardly any of them. Among them is this: man is not taught from heaven directly but mediately (this may be seen treated above, nn. 154-174). Because he is taught mediately, and the Gospel could not through the medium of missionaries reach all who dwell in the world, but religion could be spread in various ways to inhabitants of the remote corners of the earth, this has been effected by divine providence. For a knowledge of religion does not come to a man from himself, but through another who has either learned it from the Word or by tradition from others who have learned it, for instance that G.o.d is, heaven and h.e.l.l exist, there is a life after death, and G.o.d must be wors.h.i.+ped for man to be blessed.

[2] See in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture_ (nn.

101-103) that religion spread throughout the world from the Ancient Word and afterwards from the Israelitish Word, and (nn. 114-118) that unless there had been a Word no one could have known about G.o.d, heaven and h.e.l.l, life after death, and still less about the Lord. Once a religion is established in a nation the Lord leads that nation according to the precepts and tenets of its own religion, and He has provided that there should be precepts in every religion like those in the Decalog, that G.o.d should be wors.h.i.+ped, His name not be profaned, a holy day be observed, that parents be honored, murder, adultery and theft not be committed, and false witness not be spoken. A nation that regards these precepts as divine and lives according to them in religion's name is saved, as was just said (n. 253). Most nations remote from Christendom regard these laws not as civil but as divine, and hold them sacred. See in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem [about Life] from the Precepts of the Decalog,_ from beginning to end, that a man is saved by a life according to these precepts.

[3] Also among the arcana of heaven is this: in the Lord's sight the angelic heaven is like one man whose soul and life is the Lord. In each particular of his form this divine man is man, not only as to the external members and organs but as to the more numerous internal members and organs, also as to the skins, membranes, cartilages and bones; but in that man all these, both external and internal, are not material but spiritual. Further, the Lord has provided that those who cannot be reached by the Gospel but only by some form of religion shall also have a place in this divine man, that is, in heaven, by const.i.tuting the parts called skins, membranes, cartilages and bones, and like others should be in heavenly joy. For it does not matter whether their joy is that of the angels of the highest heaven or of the lowest heaven, for everyone entering heaven comes into the highest joy of his own heart; joy higher still he does not endure; he would suffocate in it.

[4] A peasant and a king may serve for comparison. A peasant may reach the height of joy when he steps out in a new suit of homespun wool or seats himself at a table with pork, a piece of beef, cheese, beer and fiery wine on it. He would feel constricted at heart if he was clothed like a king in purple, silk, gold and silver, or if a table was set for him on which were delicacies and costly viands of many kinds with n.o.ble wine. It is plain from this that the last as well as the first find heavenly happiness, each in his measure, those outside Christendom also, therefore, provided they shun evils as sins against G.o.d because these are contrary to religion.

[5] Few are entirely ignorant of G.o.d. If they have lived a moral life they are instructed after death by angels and receive what is spiritual in their moral life (see _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_ n. 116). The same is true of those who wors.h.i.+p sun and moon, believing that G.o.d is there. They know no better, therefore it is not imputed to them as a sin, for the Lord says,

If you were blind (that is, if you did not know), you would have no sin (Jn 9:41).

But there are many who wors.h.i.+p idols and graven images even in the Christian world. This, to be sure, is idolatrous, yet not with all. There are those for whom graven images serve as a means of exciting thought about G.o.d, for by an influx from heaven one who acknowledges G.o.d desires to see Him, and these, unable to raise the mind above the sensuous as those do who are inwardly spiritual, rouse it by means of statue or image. Those who do so and do not wors.h.i.+p the image itself as G.o.d are saved if they also live by the precepts of the Decalog from religious principle.

[6] It is plain, then, that as the Lord desires the salvation of all, He has also provided that everyone who lives well may have a place in heaven. See in the work _Heaven and h.e.l.l,_ published at London, 1758 (nn.

59-102 ), in _Arcana Caelestia_ (nn. 5552-5569) and above (nn. 201-204) that heaven in the Lord's sight is like one man; that heaven accordingly corresponds to each and all things in man; and that there are also those who represent skin, membranes, cartilages and bones.

255. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he sees the Mohammedan religion accepted by so many empires and kingdoms._ The fact that this form of religion is accepted by more kingdoms than Christianity is may be a stumbling-block to those who give thought to divine providence and at the same time believe that no one can be saved unless he has been born a Christian, thus where the Word is, by which the Lord is known. That form of religion is no stumbling-block, however, to those who believe that all things are of divine providence.

These ask in what the providence consists and find it is in this, that Mohammedanism, acknowledges the Lord as Son of G.o.d, the wisest of men and a very great prophet who came into the world to teach men; most Mohammedans consider Him to be greater than Mohammed.

[2] That form of religion was called forth in the divine providence to destroy the idolatries of many nations. To make this fully known we will pursue some order; first, something on the origin of idolatries.

Previously to that form of religion the wors.h.i.+p of idols was general in the world. This was because the churches before the Lord's advent were all representative churches. The Israelitish church was of this character. In it the tabernacle, Aaron's garments, the sacrifices, all things of the temple in Jerusalem, the statutes also, were representative. Moreover, the ancients had a knowledge of correspondences, which is the knowledge of representations--it was the chief knowledge of their wise men. This knowledge was cultivated especially in Egypt and was the origin of Egyptian hieroglyphics. By that knowledge the ancients knew what animals of every kind signified and what trees of every kind signified, as they did what mountains, hills, rivers and fountains signified, as well as sun, moon and stars. As all their wors.h.i.+p was representative, consisting of sheer correspondences, they wors.h.i.+ped on mountains and hills and in groves and gardens, regarded fountains as sacred, and in adoration of G.o.d faced the rising sun.

Furthermore, they made graven images of horses, oxen, calves and lambs, and of birds, fish and serpents, and placed them in their houses and elsewhere, arranged according to the spiritual things of the church to which they corresponded or which they represented. They placed similar objects in their temples, too, to put them in mind of the holy things they signified.

[3] Later, when the knowledge of correspondences had been lost, their posterity began to wors.h.i.+p the graven images themselves, as holy in themselves, not knowing that their forefathers had seen no holiness in them, but only that they represented holy things by correspondences and thus signified them. So arose the idolatries which filled the whole world, Africa and Europe as well as Asia with its adjacent islands. In order that all these idolatries might be uprooted, of the Lord's divine providence it was brought about that a new religion, adapted to the genius of Orientals, should start up, in which there would be something from each Testament of the Word, and which would teach that the Lord had come into the world and was a very great prophet, wisest of all, and Son of G.o.d. This was done through Mohammed, from whom the religion is called the Mohammedan religion.

[4] Of the Lord's divine providence this religion was raised up and, as we said, adapted to the genius of Orientals, in order that it might destroy the idolatries of so many peoples and give them some knowledge of the Lord before they pa.s.sed into the spiritual world. This religion would not have been accepted by so many kingdoms or had the power to uproot idolatries, had it not suited and met the ideas and thinking of them all.

It did not acknowledge the Lord as G.o.d of heaven and earth, for the Orientals acknowledged G.o.d the Creator of the universe, but could not comprehend that He came into the world and a.s.sumed human nature, quite as Christians do not comprehend this, who therefore separate His divine from His humanity in their thinking and place His divine near the Father in heaven and His humanity they know not where.

[5] Hence it may be seen that the Mohammedan religion arose under the Lord's divine providence and that all adherents of it who acknowledge the Lord as Son of G.o.d and live according to the precepts of the Decalog, which they also have, shunning evils as sins, come into a heaven called the Mohammedan heaven. This heaven, like others, is divided into three, the highest, middle and lowest. Those who acknowledge the Lord to be one with the Father and thus the one G.o.d are in the highest heaven; in the next heaven are those who renounce a plurality of wives and live with one; and in the lowest are those who are being initiated. More about this religion may be seen in _Continuation about the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World_ (nn. 68-72), where the Mohammedans and Mohammed are treated of.

256. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he sees that the Christian religion exists only in a small part of the habitable world, called Europe, and there is divided._ The Christian religion exists only in the small part of the habitable world called Europe because it was not adapted to the genius of Orientals as was a mixed one like the Mohammedan religion, as was just shown; and an unadapted religion is not received. For example, a religion which ordains that it is unlawful to take more than one wife is not received but rejected by those who for ages have been polygamists. This is true of other ordinances of the Christian religion.

[2] Nor is it material whether a smaller or a larger part of the world has received this religion, as long as there are people with whom the Word is. For those who are outside the church and do not possess the Word still have light from it, as was shown in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_ nn. 104-113. It is a marvel that where the Word is reverently read and the Lord is wors.h.i.+ped from it, He is present with heaven. The reason is that He is the Word and the Word is divine truth which makes heaven. The Lord therefore says:

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt 18:20).

Europeans can bring this about with the Word in many parts of the habitable globe, for they trade the world over and read or teach the Word everywhere. This seems like fiction and yet is true.

[3] The Christian religion is divided because it is from the Word and the Word is written in sheer correspondences and these in large part are appearances of truth in which, nevertheless, genuine truths lie concealed. As a church's doctrine is to be drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word which is of this character, disputes, controversies and dissensions were bound to arise over the understanding of the Word, but not over the Word itself or the Divine itself of the Lord. For it is acknowledged everywhere that the Word is holy and that the Lord possesses the divine, and these two are essentials of the church. Those, therefore, who deny the Divine of the Lord and are called Socinians have been excommunicated from the church, and those who deny the holiness of the Word are not regarded as Christians.

[4] To this let me add a remarkable item about the Word from which one may conclude that inwardly the Word is divine truth itself and inmostly the Lord. When a spirit opens the Word and touches his face or dress with it, just from the contact his face or garment s.h.i.+nes as brightly as the moon or a star, in the sight of all, too, whom he meets. It is evidence that there is nothing holier in the world than the Word.

That the Word is written throughout in correspondences may be seen in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_ nn. 5-26; that the church's doctrine is to be drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word and confirmed thereby, nn. 50-61; that heresies can be wrested from the sense of the letter of the Word, but that it is harmful to confirm them, nn. 91-97; that the church is from the Word and is such as is its understanding of the Word, nn. 76-79.

257. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence because in many kingdoms where the Christian religion is accepted there are those who arrogate divine power to themselves, want to be wors.h.i.+ped as G.o.ds, and also invoke dead men._ To be sure, they say that they have not arrogated divine power to themselves and do not wish to be wors.h.i.+ped as G.o.ds. Yet they say that they can open and close heaven, remit and retain sins, and so save and condemn men, and this is what is divine itself. Divine providence has no other purpose than reformation and hence salvation; this is its unceasing activity with everyone. And salvation can be effected only by acknowledgment of the divine of the Lord and by confidence that He brings salvation as man lives according to His commandments.

[2] Who cannot see that the usurpation of divine power is the Babylon described in the Apocalypse and the Babel spoken of here and there in the Prophets? It is also Lucifer in Isaiah 14, as is plain from verses 4 and 22 of that chapter, where are the words:

You shall speak this parable about the king of Babel (verse 4);

(Then), I will cut off the name and remnant of Babel (verse 22);

it is plain from this that this Babel is Lucifer, of whom it is said:

How you have fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning! ... For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of G.o.d; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, at the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:12-14).

It is well known that the same persons invoke the dead and pray to them for help. We make the a.s.sertion because such invocation was established by a papal bull, confirming the decree of the Council of Trent, in which it is openly said that the dead are to be invoked. Yet who does not know that only G.o.d is to be invoked, and not any dead person?

[3] It shall be told now why the Lord has permitted such things. Can one deny that He has done so for the sake of the end in view, namely salvation? For men know that there is no salvation without the Lord.

Therefore it was necessary that the Lord should be preached from the Word and that the Christian Church should be established by this means. This could be done, however, only by leaders who would act with zeal and no others offered than those who burned with zeal out of self-love. At first this fire aroused them to preach the Lord and teach the Word. From this their first state Lucifer is called "the son of the morning" (14:12).

But as they saw that they could dominate by means of the sanct.i.ties of the Word and the church, the self-love by which they were first aroused to preach the Lord broke out from within and finally exalted itself to such a height that they transferred all the Lord's divine power to themselves, leaving Him none.

[4] This could not be prevented by the Lord's divine providence, for if it had been they would have declared that the Lord is not G.o.d and that the Word is not sacred and would have made themselves Socinians and Arians, so would have destroyed the whole church. But, whatever its rulers are, the church continues among the people submissive to them. For all in this religion who approach the Lord and shun evils as sins are saved; therefore many heavenly societies are formed from them in the spiritual world. It has also been provided that there should be a nation among them that has not bowed to the yoke of such domination and that regards the Word as holy; this n.o.ble nation is the French nation.

[5] But what was done? When self-love exalted its dominion even to the Lord's throne, removing Him and setting itself on it, that love, which is Lucifer, could not but have profaned all things of the Word and the church. Lest this should happen, the Lord in His divine providence took care that they should recede from wors.h.i.+p of Him, invoke the dead, pray to graven images of the dead, kiss their bones and kneel at their tombs, should ban the reading of the Word, appoint holy wors.h.i.+p in ma.s.ses not understood by the common people, and sell salvation for money. For if they had not done this, they would have profaned the sanct.i.ties of the Word and the church. For, as was shown in the preceding section, only those profane holy things who know them.

[6] Lest, too, they should profane the most Holy Supper it is of the Lord's divine providence that they divide it, giving the bread to the people and drinking the wine themselves. For the wine of the Supper signifies holy truth and the bread holy good; but divided the wine signifies truth profaned and the bread good adulterated. It is also of the Lord's divine providence that they should render the Holy Supper corporeal and material and give it the prime place in religion. Anyone who gives these particulars his attention and reflects on them in some enlightenment of his mind can see the amazing action of divine providence for the protection of the sanct.i.ties of the church and for the salvation of all who can be saved and are ready to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the fire, so to speak, from which they must be s.n.a.t.c.hed.

258. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence because some among those who profess the Christian religion place salvation in certain phrases which they are to think and speak and not at all in good works which they are to do._ We showed in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith_ that these are such as make faith alone saving and not the life of charity, thus such as separate faith from charity. It was also shown that these are meant in the Word by "Philistines,"

"dragon" and "goats."

[2] That such doctrine has been permitted is also of divine providence lest the divine of the Lord and the sanct.i.ty of the Word should be profaned. The divine of the Lord is not profaned when salvation is placed in these words: That G.o.d the Father may have mercy for the sake of the Son, who suffered the Cross and made satisfaction for us. For men do not then address the divine of the Lord but have in mind His human nature, which they do not acknowledge to be divine. Nor do they profane the Word, for they do not attend to the pa.s.sages in which love, charity, deeds and works are mentioned. All this, they say, is involved in the faith expressed in the saying quoted. Those who confirm this tell themselves, "The law does not condemn me, neither then does evil, and good does not save because good done by me is not good." They are therefore like those who do not know any truth from the Word and consequently cannot profane it. Only those confirm the faith expressed in that saying who from self-love are in the pride of their own intelligence. Nor are these Christians at heart; they only desire to be looked on as such.

[3] It shall now be shown that the Lord's divine providence is nevertheless acting constantly to save those with whom faith separated from charity has become an article of religion. Although this faith has become an article of their religion, by the Lord's divine providence each knows that it is not faith that saves, but a life of charity with which faith makes one. For all churches in which that religion is accepted also teach that there is no salvation unless man examines himself, sees and acknowledges his sins, repents, desists from them, and begins a new life.

This is read out with much zeal in the presence of all who come to the Holy Supper. In addition they are told that unless they do so, they mingle the holy with the profane and cast themselves into eternal condemnation. Indeed, in England they are told that unless they do so the devil will enter them as he did Judas and destroy them soul and body. It is plain, then, that everyone in the churches in which faith alone is accepted is nevertheless taught that evils are to be shunned as sins.

[4] Furthermore, everyone who is born a Christian is aware that evils are to be shunned as sins because the Decalog is put into the hands of every boy and girl and is taught by parents and teachers. The citizens of a kingdom and especially the common people are examined by the priest on the Decalog alone, which is recited from memory, for what they know of the Christian religion, and are also admonished to do what is commanded in it. At such times they are not told by the priest that they are not under the yoke of that law, or that they cannot do what is commanded because they cannot do anything good of themselves. Again, the Athanasian Creed has been accepted throughout the Christian world and what is said at its close is also acknowledged, namely, that the Lord will come to judge the living and the dead, and then those who have done good will enter everlasting life and those who have done evil will enter everlasting fire.

[5] In Sweden, where the religion of faith alone has been received, it is also plainly taught that faith is impossible apart from charity or good works. This is pointed out in an Appendix on things to be remembered, inserted in all copies of the Psalms, and called "Impediments or Stumbling Blocks of the Impenitent" (Obotferdigas Foerhinder), where are these words,

Those who are rich in good works thereby show that they are rich in faith, because when faith is saving it acts through charity. For justifying faith is never found alone and separate from good works, quite as no good tree is without fruit, nor the sun without light and heat, nor water without moisture.

[6] These items have been adduced to make known that although a religious formula about faith alone has been accepted, nevertheless goods of charity, which are good works, are taught everywhere and that this is by the Lord's divine providence, lest the common people be led astray by the formula. I have heard Luther, with whom I have spoken at times in the spiritual world, execrate faith alone and heard him say that when he established it he was warned by an angel of the Lord not to do it; but that he thought to himself that if he did not reject works, separation from Catholicism would not be accomplished. Therefore, contrary to the warning, he established that faith.

259. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence in that there have been so many heresies in Christendom and still are, such as Quakerism, Moravianism, Anabaptism, and more._ For he may think to himself, If divine providence is universal in the least things and has the salvation of all for its object, it would have seen to it that one true religion should exist on the globe, not one divided and, still less, one torn by heresies. But use reason and think more deeply if you can.

Can man be saved without being reformed first? For he is born into love of self and the world, and as these loves do not have any love of G.o.d and the neighbor in them except for the sake of self, he is also born into evils of every kind. Is there love or mercy in those loves? Does the man make anything of defrauding or defaming or hating another even to death, or of committing adultery with his wife, or of being cruel to him out of revenge, the while having the desire in mind to get the upper hand of all and to possess the goods of all others, thus regarding others in comparison with himself as insignificant and of little worth? To be saved, must he not first be led away from these evils and thus be reformed? As has been shown above in many places, this can be accomplished only in accordance with many laws of divine providence. For the most part these laws are unknown and yet they come of divine wisdom and at the same time of divine love, and the Lord cannot act contrary to them, for to do so would result in destroying man, not in saving him.

[2] Look over the laws which have been set forth, bring them together, and you will see. According to those laws there is no direct influx from heaven but one mediated by the Word, doctrine and preaching; and since the Word, to be divine, had to be composed wholly in correspondences, inevitably there are dissensions and heresies. The tolerance of them is also in accord with the laws of divine providence. Furthermore, when the church itself has taken for essentials what pertains only to the understanding, that is, to doctrine, and not what pertains to the will, that is, to life, and what pertains to life is not made the essentials of a church, then man is in complete darkness for understanding and wanders like one blind, striking against things constantly and falling into pits.

For the will must see in the understanding and not the understanding in the will, or what is the same, the life and its love must lead the understanding to think, speak and act, and not the reverse. Were the reverse true, the understanding might out of an evil and even diabolical love seize on what comes by the senses and demand that the will do it.

What has been said may show whence dissensions and heresies come.

[3] Yet it has been provided that everyone, in whatever heresy he may be intellectually, may still be reformed and saved if he shuns evils as sins and does not confirm heretical falsities in himself. For by shunning evils as sins the will is reformed and through it the understanding is, which emerges for the first time then out of obscurity into light. There are three essentials of the church: acknowledgment of the divine of the Lord, acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life which is called charity. Everyone's faith is according to the life which is charity; from the Word he has a rational perception of what life should be; and from the Lord he has reformation and salvation. Had these three been regarded as the church's essentials, intellectual differences would not have divided it but only varied it as light varies colors in beautiful objects and as various insignia of royalty give beauty to a king's crown.

260. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence in that Judaism still continues._ That is, after all these centuries the Jews have not been converted although they live among Christians and do not, in keeping with prophecies in the Word, confess the Lord and acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, who, as they think, was to lead them back to the land of Canaan; but they steadfastly persist in denying Him and yet it is well with them. Those who take this view, however, and thus call divine providence in question, do not know that by Jews in the Word all who are of the church and acknowledge the Lord are meant, and by the land of Canaan, into which it is said that they are to be led, the Lord's church is meant.

[2] But the Jews persist in denying the Lord because they are such that, if they received and acknowledged the divine of the Lord and the holy things of His church, they would profane them. Therefore the Lord said of them: