Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg
page 56 of 404 (13%)
page 56 of 404 (13%)
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found elsewhere in man than in the marriage of good and truth. This
marriage the proceeding Divine effects. Men filled by the proceeding Divine, which is called the Holy Spirit, have prophesied, as we know from the Word; men enlightened by it see divine truths in heaven's light; above all, angels sensibly perceive the presence, influx and conjunction, though they are aware that the conjunction is no more than can be termed adjunction. 59. It has not been known that divine providence in all its procedure with man looks to his eternal state. It can look to nothing else because the Divine is infinite and eternal, and the infinite and eternal or the Divine is not in time; therefore all future things are present to it. It follows that there is eternity in all that the Divine does. But those who think from time and space perceive this with difficulty, not only because they love temporal things, but also because they think from what is on hand in the world and not from what is at hand in heaven; this is as remote to them as the ends of the earth. Those, however, who are in the Divine, inasmuch as they think from the Lord, think from what is eternal as well as from what is at present, asking themselves, "What is that which is not eternal? Is not the temporal relatively nothing and does it not become nothing when it is past?" The eternal is not so; it alone _is;_ its _esse_ has no end. To think thus is to think both from the present and the eternal, and when a man not only thinks so but lives so, the proceeding Divine with him or divine providence looks in all its procedure to the state of his eternal life in heaven and guides to it. In what follows it will be seen that the Divine looks to the eternal in everybody, in an evil as well as in a good person. 60. (iv) _An image of the infinite and eternal offers in an angelic heaven._ Among things we need to know about is the angelic heaven. |
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