The Divine Love and Divine Wisdom—The Continuation of the Last Judgment.
The treatise on the Divine Love and Wisdom, is a book which, when mastered, affords a key to the whole philosophy of the New Church, and to a rational understanding of all the writings of Swedenborg. When we say this, it will be easily understood that it is not a book to be read in a few hours, or hastily glanced over. Every page is pregnant with thought, and many of its paragraphs might be expanded into volumes. It is a book which, full of thought on the deepest subjects, demands an exercise of like thought on the part of its reader; and if he has patience, and a simple love of truth for its own sake, happy will he be when he has made himself familiar with the divine thoughts which, like stars, gem every page of this matchless treatise.
The book is divided into five Parts. The First Part sets forth, in the simplest language, the doctrine of the Divine Nature. The Lord’s essence is shown to be Infinite Love, and its manifestation to be Infinite Wisdom. It is proved that the Divine Love is the only life in the universe, and that in God “all things live, move, and have their being.” The Lord is also proved to be very and essential Man, yet above and independent of all space and time, filling all spaces of the universe without space, and all time without time; and being in the greatest and the least things evermore the same. These statements may appear inconsequential, but in our limited space, we can not explain more fully. We could not give the proofs satisfactorily, without quoting the volume itself. Argument is so linked to argument, that they hardly admit of separation.
The Second Part of the work treats of the sun of heaven, and the sun of our world. It is shown that from the Lord flows a Divine Sphere, which appears in the spiritual world as a sun. From its heat, angels and man have their love, and from its light their wisdom, thus their life. This sun is not God, but it is the first proceeding from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God-Man. By means of this sun the Lord created the universe and all things in it. The sun of the natural world is pure fire, and therefore dead; and since nature derives its origin from that sun, it also is dead. Without two suns, the one living and the other dead, there could be no creation. The end of creation is, that all things may return to the Creator, and conjunction may exist in its ultimates.
Part Third declares that in the spiritual world there are atmospheres, waters and earths, as in the natural world; but that the former are spiritual, whereas the latter are natural. We are then introduced to the doctrine of degrees—a doctrine which must be studied and understood, before any one can with justice speak of Swedenborg; for it is a doctrine which lies at the basis of that peerless spiritual philosophy of which he was the promulgator. All that we can do here in the way of exposition, is to quote the heads of his articles which express the truth far more lucidly than we could do.
“There are three degrees of Love and wisdom, and thence degrees of heat and light, and degrees of atmosphere. Degrees are of two kinds, degrees of altitude and degrees of latitude. The degrees of altitude are homogeneous, and one derived from the other in a series, like end, cause, and effect. The first degree is in all the subsequent degrees. All perfections increase and ascend with degrees, and according to degrees. In successive order the first degree constitutes the highest, and the third the lowest; but in simultaneous order, the first degree constitutes the inmost, and the third the outmost. The ultimate degree is the complex, continent, and basis, of the prior degrees. The degrees of altitude in their ultimate, are in their fullness and power. There are degrees of both kinds in the greatest and least of all created things. There are three infinite and uncreated degrees of altitude in the Lord, and three finite and created degrees in man. These three degrees of altitude are in every man from his birth, and may be opened successively, and as they are opened, a man is in the Lord, and the Lord in him. Spiritual light flows into man by three degrees, but not spiritual heat, except so far as he avoids evils as sins, and looks to the Lord. If the superior or spiritual degree is not opened in a man, he becomes natural and sensual. The natural degree of the human mind, considered in itself, is continuous, but by correspondence with the two superior degrees, while it is elevated, it appears as if it were discrete.
“The natural mind, being the tegument and continent of the higher degrees of the human mind, is a re-agent; and if the superior degrees are not opened, it acts against them, but if they are opened, it acts with them. The abuse of the faculties which are proper to man, called rationality and liberty, is the origin of evil. A bad man may enjoy these two faculties as well as a good man; but a bad man abuses them to confirm evils and falses, while a good man uses them to confirm goods and truths. Evils and falses, when confirmed, remain; and become parts of a man’s love and life. The things which become parts of a man’s love and thence of his life, are communicated hereditarily to his offspring.
“All these evils and consequent falses, both hereditary and acquired, reside in the natural mind. Evils and falses are entirely opposed to goods and truths; because evils and falses are diabolical and infernal, and goods and truths are divine and heavenly. The natural mind, which is in evils and falses, is a form and image of hell, and descends by three degrees. These three degrees of the natural mind, which is an image and form of hell, are opposed to the three degrees of the spiritual mind, which is a form and image of heaven: thus the natural mind which is a hell, is in complete opposition to the spiritual mind which is a heaven. All things of the three degrees of the natural mind, are included in works, which are performed by acts of the body.”
Part Fourth teaches that the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and all things therein from Himself, and not from nothing; this would not have been possible if the Lord were not a Divine Man; He from himself producing the sun of the spiritual world, and by it creating all things. In the substances and matters of which earths consist, there is nothing of the Divine in itself; but still they are from the Divine in itself. All created things in the created universe, viewed from uses, represent man in an image; this testifies that God is Man. All things created by the Lord are uses; and they are uses in the order, degree, and respect, in which they have relation to man, and by man to the Lord their Creator. Evil uses were not created by the Lord, but originated together with hell, after man’s fall. The visible things in the created universe testify that nature has produced nothing, and does produce nothing; but that the Divine has produced and does produce all things from Himself, and through the spiritual world.
Part Fifth is devoted to a description of man’s spiritual nature. It is shown that “the Lord has formed and created in man two receptacles and habitations for Himself, called the will and the understanding; the will for His Divine Love, and the understanding for His Divine Wisdom. The will and understanding are in the brains, in the whole and every part thereof, and thence in the body, in the whole and every part thereof. There is a correspondence of the will with the heart, and of the understanding with the lungs; and all things that can be known of the will and understanding, or of love and wisdom, consequently all that can be known of man’s soul, may be known from the correspondence of the heart with the will, and of the understanding with the lungs.”
There are many volumes in the world whose thinly spun thought, spread over page after page, it would be easy to condense into one brief paragraph; but the treatise on the Divine Love and Wisdom is not such a work. It is one of those rare books which suggest and expand thought, but can bear no abridgment or compression. We have well studied it, but do not expect to finish it during our life on earth. Time was, when, immersed in man made systems of faith, and wont to walk abroad in the green fields and woods, by the sea-side, and on the mountains—we found it difficult, nay we should rather say impossible, to see the God we read of in our books, and thought of in our chamber, to be the same kind Father to whom those wide and beauteous scenes owed their existence. Justification by faith—Jerusalem—the Jews—ephod and teraphim—the Temple, and the sacrifice—seemed to have no connection with the landscape, the wind, the falling rain, the flowing river, and the broad and limitless ocean. We knew it should not be so. If the Bible were God’s book, it must have some closer affinity with his great work of nature. We knew that one Lord was over all, and that this disunity should by no means exist. Much mental pain and travail were our portion. The easy soothsayings of Atheism beguiled us. We “wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way, and found no city (doctrine) to dwell in.” We longed for the rest of Zion. We sighed not in vain. The divine philosophy of this precious book was revealed to us, and we knew the blessing of a faith which finds a confirmation in every item and phase of creation, and makes the Bible and nature evermore at one, each confirming and illustrating the other. It gave to life new aims and aspects. It brought a mental peace we had never hoped to enjoy, and we went on our journey of life rejoicing.
“The Continuation of the Last Judgment,” is a small pamphlet forming a supplement to the treatise on the Last Judgment, with which it is now generally published. It contains a very interesting account of the Last Judgment upon the Reformed. By the Reformed, upon whom the Last Judgment was effected, Swedenborg means those who professed a belief in God, read the Word, heard sermons, partook of the sacrament of the Supper, yet lived in all manner of evils. Living like Christians in externals, and outwardly in unity with heaven, while inwardly united with hell, they were permitted after death to form societies, and to live as in the world; and by arts unknown in the world, to cause splendid appearances, and by this means to persuade themselves and others that they were in heaven. From this outward appearance, therefore, they called their societies heavens. The heavens and the lands in which they dwelt, are understood by the “former heaven, and the former earth, which passed away.” Rev. xxi. 7.
At the time of the Last Judgment, the hypocrisy of these spirits was revealed in the light of heaven, and the simple good with whom they had associated, separated themselves with horror from them. No longer able to simulate Christian lives, they rushed with delight into evils and crimes of every description, openly appeared as devils, and found for themselves the hells corresponding to their loves. At the same time all the splendid appearances they had made for themselves vanished away; their palaces were turned into vile huts; their gardens into stagnant pools; their temples into piles of rubbish; and the hills on which they dwelt, into heaps of gravel, in correspondence with their depraved dispositions and lusts.
“After the Judgment was effected,” writes Swedenborg, “there was joy in heaven, and also light in the world of spirits, such as was not before. A similar light also then arose on men in the world, giving them new enlightenment. I then saw angelic spirits, in great numbers, rising from below, and elevated into heaven. They were the sheep there reserved, and guarded by the Lord for ages back, lest they should come into the malignant sphere of the dragonists, and their charity be suffocated. These are they who are understood in the Word by those who went forth from the sepulchers; also by the souls of those slain for the testimony of Jesus, who were watching; and by those who are of the first resurrection.”
After this follows a description of many things seen in the spiritual world. He writes: “There are lands in the spiritual world, just as in the natural world: there are hills and mountains, plains and valleys, also fountains and rivers, lakes and seas; there are paradises, and gardens and groves, and woods, and palaces, and houses; there are writings, and books, functions, [functiones,] and employments; there are precious stones, gold and silver; in short, there are all the things, in general and in particular, which exist in the natural world; but in the heavens all these things are infinitely more perfect.”
He then describes “the noble English nation” in the spiritual world; the more excellent of whom are in the centre of all Christians, because they have interior intellectual light. This light they derive from the liberty they enjoy of thinking, and thence of speaking and writing. The Dutch are then described, and then the Papists, and the Popish saints. The Mohammedans, the Africans, and the Gentiles follow; and finally the Jews, the Quakers, and the Moravians. The description of all these people, as they appear beyond the grave, has an interest of a most absorbing kind; and the light thrown by Swedenborg on their internal character, serves to show cause for much that happens in the external world, otherwise difficult of explanation.