Swedenborg and the new age

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INTKODUCTION.

GOD AND MAN.

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Introduction

GOD AND MAN.

1. God the Same to n _AH.

In order to understand Swedenborg and the real character of his Writings, as relating to the man of this New Age, we must first have true views of God, who He is, what He is, and what is His relation to man. With true views of God, the Writings, in many places, have a very different meaning from what they have with false ideas of God. Swedenborg has made it especially plain that God is absolutely unchangeable, — unchangeable both in what He is and in what He does, — and also that He is "no respecter of persons ;" and thus that, so far as His action in relation to men is concerned, all men are alike. God is the Sun of the spiritual world, and His radiance is eternally and unchangeably going forth to all, as is the case with the radiance of His great representative, the sun of the natural world. And is it because of any change in what the natural sun does or gives, that one field is barren, another productive ; that one plant or tree is noble, another ignoble? So, is it owing to anything different that the Lord gives or does for men, that they are different from each other, different in character and different in capacity ? Is this the reason why Swedenborg was different from Nero, or different from Humboldt, or Shakspeare, or Napoleon ? Search the Scriptures, and search the Writings, and, though you may find certain misunderstood expressions, you will find, when truly interpreted, no affirmative answer to any of these questions.

8 IX TROD UCTION.

2. All Difference in Recipient Conditions.

On the contrary, Swedenborg plainly teaches that the cause of all the differences and of all the changes in men is in differences and changes in men as recipients of what the Lord gives. And this is in perfect accordance with reason and with what we see and learn of the operations of God in nature. A large recipient will receive more than a small one, not different in kind. And the action of what is received will be different in an obedient recipient from what it will be in a disobedient one ; and there will be, accordingly, a corresponding difference in the results. All creatures below man are obedient recipients. All true men, so far as they are true, are obedient recipients. Selfish men, so far as they permit their selfishness to rule them, are disobedient recipients. That is to say, the former act according to the good impulses of the life that flows into them from the Lord ; the latter obey their selfish, evil promptings instead. Swedenborg was an obedient recipient ; his vessel was also a large one ; and by obedience it constantly increased in capacity and improved in quality, so that he became, in many respects, a most extraordinary man, — extraordinary for his goodness, and extraordinary for his great and varied acquirements and talents. But it was all owing, let me repeat, not in the least degree to anything different that the Lord did for him from what He does equally for all men, but to what was in and constituted the man and to his use of what the Lord gave him.

But what did the Lord do for Swedenborg ? Rather, what is it that the Lord does for all men ? This is a question concerning which there need be no disagreement among those who read Swedenborg's writings in the light of their true spirit and philosophy.

3. God as the Word.

Nothing comes from God but what is called, in the Sacred Scriptures, the WOBD [Logos, in Greek]. The Lord does nothing but as the Word ; just as nothing comes froin the sun but radiance, and just as the sun does nothing but as such radiance. The Word is actually God Himself in His omnipresence ; just as the radiance is the sun itself in its limited omnipresence. The Word is God in His goings out, as it were, of Himself and from Himself, in His processes of creation, or of evolving finite being from Plimself ; just as the radiance is the sun in its processes of action on the earth, or just as the nervous system, or the vascular system, is the brain, or is the heart, in its processes of creating or evolving animal tissue and fibre, and thus animal organism. The Word is God at work, if I may so speak ; just as the radiance is the sun at work, or just as the nerves and the blood-vessels are the brain and the heart at work. " By Him [the Word] were all things made, and without Him was not anything made that was made." Thus the Word is the " Mighty Arm" of Jehovah ; just as the radiance is the mighty arm of the sun, or just as the nerves and the arteries are the mighty arm of the brain and the heart. To conceive of God but as the Word, is to conceive of the sun without an effluence, or the heart and brain without arteries and nerves ; and this is to think of God without action or manifestation : and there is no such God. We know nothing about God but as the Word; just as we know nothing about the sun but as it reveals itself in its effluence, and just as we practically know nothing about the heart and brain but as they manifest themselves in their effluence in arteries and nerves. Let me repeat, for it is a very important fact, the Word is God, not at rest, not with power stayed and in reserve, — there is no such God, — but is God at work. When we have come to see this, and see it clearly, we have taken a most important step towards understanding God, and we never can have any really true ideas of Him until we have taken this step. And how significant the fact that all of the Lord's " comings" or "manifestations" to men have been as the Word! It was as the Word finited and verbalized in Sacred Scripture that 2 the Lord many times came to the Jews. It was as the Word " made flesh" that He afterwards came and " dwelt among us" as " God with us." It is as the Word, which is meant by the " Son of Man," that He is now coming again, but now coming, not as veiled or clothed in human language, or in a finite personal humanity, but, on the contrary, as the unveiled Spirit of Truth itself.

4. WJiatis the Word?

Thus it is as the Word that God is related to man. What, then, specifically and practically is the Word, and how does it operate with or in man? " Thy Word is Truth." " In Him [the Word] was Life ; and the Life was the Light of men." The Word " made flesh" said : " I am the Light of the World ;" " I am come a Light into the world ;" also, " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Swedenborg says : " The Word is Divine Truth itself." " Truth"—" Life"— " Light." The Word is all these. As Life, the Word, or God as the Word, creates and sustains. As Truth — which is spiritual Light — the Word enlightens the mind and shows the " way of life." In its essence the Word is Love, — " God is Love." Life, Truth, Light, are only forms of operation and manifestation of Love, thus of God. All these, therefore, are one. They are all in and constitute what is called the Word. How are they related to man ? This is the great cpuestion. And I answer, They are related to man by what Swedenborg calls " influx ;" they are an influx into man, and into all men alike : " The Lord, with all His Divine Love, with all His Divine Wisdom, thus with all His Divine Life, flows in with every Man." T. C. R. 364.

5. God as Influx.

Such " Influx" then, is all that God gives ; and to give this is all that He does for any man ; all that He ever has done, or ever will, or even can do, for man. For, as we have seen, such Influx is the Word in man, thus is God at work in man, and thus at work always with all His Attributes_in intensest operation. This, I mean, so far as God is concerned. With all men, with all being, in fact, He simply and only gives, or is present as, such Influx. Of course, as we are all related, we receive influx also " mediate!?/" or are affected indirectly by influx into others and through its effects upon them. Swedenborg was in no sense an exception to this universal and unchangeable principle. Like all other men, he never received anything from the Lord but such Influx, or such presence of the Lord as the Word. And its operation in him, so far as the Lord's agency had anything to do with its operation, was precisely the same in him as in all other men.

" The Life of God, in all its fulness, is not only with good and pious men, but also with bad and impious men ; in like manner with the angels of heaven and with the spirits of hell ; the difference is, that the bad stop up the way and shut the door, that God [that Influx] may not enter into the lower parts of their mind ; but the good clear out the way and open the door, and also invite God to enter into the lower parts of their minds, as He dwells in the highest parts of it ; and thus they form the state of the will 'for the influx of love and charity and the state of the understanding for the influx of wisdom and faith, consequently for the reception of God ; but the bad obstruct that influx by various lusts of the flesh and spiritual defilements, which hinder and stop the passage ; but still God resides in the highest parts of them with all His Divine essence, and gives them the faculty of willing good and of understanding truth, which faculty every man has, but which he would not have unless life from God were in his soul. That the bad also have this faculty has been given me to know by much experience. That every one receives life from God according to his FORM may be illustrated by comparisons with vegetables of every kind. Every tree, every shrub, every herb, and every blade of grass receives the influx of light and heat according to its form ; thus not only those which are of good use, but also those which are of evil use, and the sun with its heat does not change their forms, but the forms change its effects in themselves. It is similar with the subjects of the mineral kingdom : each of them, as well the excellent as the mean, receives influx according to the form of the contexture of the parts among themselves ; and so one stone receives it differently from another stone, one mineral differently from another mineral, and one metal differently from another metal. Some of them variegate themselves with most beautiful colors, some transmit the light without variegation, and some confuse and suffocate the light in themselves. From these few cases it may be evident that, as the sun of the world, with its heat and with its light, is equally present in one object as in another, but that the recipient forms vary its operations, so the Lord from the sun of heaven, in the midst of winch He is, is universally present with its heat, which in its essence is love, and with its light, which in its essence is wisdom ; but that the form of man, which is induced by the states of his life, varies the operations ; consequently that the Lord is not the cause why man is not regenerated and saved, but man himself." T. C. R. 366.

Can anything be plainer than this ? Does Swedenborg anywhere contradict it ? Does he anywhere say anything in the least qualifying these plain, practical, common-sense statements ? Is what he says of his own experience at variance with them ? Must not, on the contrary, all that he says of himself in his relation to the Lord be understood in the light of these universal and unchangeable principles ? Is it possible that he could have been, in any sense, according to his own unmistakable principles, as a private pupil, receiving special attention or special manipulation, as it were, at the hands of the Lord to prepare him for his mission ? " The life of God is, in all its fulness, with all men, with the evil equally as with the good, with devils equally as with angels ; all the difference is in the recipient vessels, the recipient forms." So far as the Lord was concerned, Swedenborg received nothing more from Him in preparation for his mission than the wickedest devils of the wickedest hells receive. So far as such preparation was effected by anything special on the Lord's part, or in the Lord's agency in relation to it, it was nothing more than every man's preparation is for even the same mission ; just as, so far as the preparation of the oak to bear acorns is effected by anything special that the sun does for it different from other trees, it might bear chestnuts or apples as well. So also, in regard to the spirits or angels and prophets through whom Sacred Scripture was written, — or the Word was veiled or clothed in human language, — according to the above principles or laws of the Lord's relation to man, as iterated and reiterated throughout ' the Writings, they received nothing from the Lord different from what all men receive, — nothing different in either quality, or measure, or degree ; they received nothing, absolutely and unqualifiedly nothing, but that " Influx" which is equally given by the Lord to all men. The holiness of Sacred Scripture, as "the basis, continent, and firmament" of the Word, must be explained on an altogether different principle from that of any variation whatever in the Lord's agency or action in regard to men or the uses of men, and it can be, though this is not the place to do it.

This point, then, we must regard as eternally and unalterably settled, — namely, that the Lord gives nothing and does nothing for men but give them influx of Himself, of Himself as the Word, thus as Divine Life, Truth, Light, or Love, with all the Divine attributes, just as the sun does nothing for the earth or anything on the earth but give its radiance, or itself in its effluence.

6. Nothing Finite in Influx.

But what is in this Divine Influx ? Are there ideas, thoughts, principles, doctrines in it ? No more than there are acorns, apples, peaches, berries in the sunbeams. All these are finite things. The Divine Influx, and everything in it, is infinite. The Lord can no more give such finite things than the sun can give fruits. All these things are in potency in the Divine

Influx, and the Lord can bring them out into actuality, but only through the finiting organism of mind which has first, in its own order, been finited and developed; just as the sun can produce fruits only through the organism of shrubs and trees, which are first produced in their order. Finited and finiting mind is just as necessary in the process of evolving from the Divine Influx ideas, principles, and doctrines as trees are in evolving fruits from the elements of earth, air, water, and sunshine. The Lord is no mechanic. He is not outside of His work, as a mechanic is of his. He does nothing by manipulation, or by special design and act, as man does. He simply LIVES ; He is nowhere but inmostly the life of all being ; He creates by simply living ; therefore all that is is the resuit, and not by creation according to a certain plan, but by evolution of what is eternally reposited, in potency, in Himself. All possibilities, infinite possibilities, are in that influx which every man receives. All true ideas, principles, teachings, precepts of life are, in potency, in that Influx ; but they can be evolved or brought out into actuality only by the conditions supplied by already finited mind. For all these are the fruits of finite thought. And God does not think as man thinks, — that is, does not think finitely^ thus, does not ultimate ideas and words : " For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

When Swedenborg says, therefore, that " the Lord prepared him for his mission," " opened the sight of his spirit," " commanded him what to write," " dictated to him," and the like, — also that " he was only an humble instrument to do the Lord's work," that " he did not act of himself but from the Lord," and that the revelations which he made were not his, but the Lord's through him, — we are not to understand him as saying anything in contradiction of his own teachings, or of the spirit and philosophy of his own principles ; we are not to understand him as making his own case an exception to the immutable principles laid down in the paragraph above quoted from the " True Christian Religion ;" we are not to understand him as receiving anything whatever, or in any sense or way, from the Lord, but that " Influx of Divine Truth" which is equally given to all men. God is in that Influx "preparing," "commanding," " dictating," " impelling," and the like, but with no difference as regards men as subjects of Influx. Swedenborg's language, as regards the Lord's relation to him, must be interpreted by the unchangeable principles so plainly laid down in bis writings as regards the Lord's relation to all men alike. Swedenborg was, in no sense, an exceptional expedient in the hands of the Lord to meet an emergency. The Lord has no expedients and never resorts to any. Every emergency is met, and instantly, by the normal operation of the Divine Influx ; for there is in every moment's operation of that Influx, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Providence, Infinite Power, or, if I may so speak, infinite and constant expediency. To make Swedenborg, according to the views of some, an extraordinary or exceptional expedient would be to make God, so far, a finite being. On the contrary, Swedenborg was simply and only the noble, normal fruit of certain recipient conditions and of the same Divine Influx into those conditions that flows into all conditions. The difference is, he " cleared out the way and opened the door, and also invited God to enter into the lower parts of his mind as He dwelt in the highest parts of it ; and thus he formed the state of his will for the influx of love and charity, and the state of his understanding for the influx of wisdom and faith, consequently for the reception of God," — he did these things as others did not do. It was this and not anything different in the Divine Influx, or in what the Lord gave him or did for him, that made his case exceptional or different from that of other men.

1 6 1KTR OD UCTIOX.

7. Mistakes and Expedients.

But a few words more on " Divine expediency," as this is a point of such vital importance and is so generally misunderstood. There are really no mistakes, no deficiencies, no failures in God's operations, when we understand them truly ; and hence no resort to expedients in, as it were, unexpected emergencies. Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Providence never require, and never resort to, expedients. We see this fact exemplified in everything, even in Nature. The acorn, with God in it,— that is, with Life in it, and God inmostly in that life, — is sure, in the required conditions, to create or evolve an oak, and everything that belongs to an oak ; under proper conditions it cannot possibly fail to do so. So of every other germ of life. And this is because it is an offshoot from the Divine Life, and because the Divine is still operating in it as its vitalizing and evolving force or power. Hence,— and this is the point,— if an injury befalls the developing organism, as, for example, a wound in the flesh or the fracture of a bone, the remedy is instantly at hand and in operation, and simply as the normal result of life continued under the circumstances or in the changed conditions.

So wonderfully perfect is life in Nature, which is God— God as the Word — working, so to speak, in " ultimates." Such life cannot act imperfectly; it cannot fail, either in wisdom, providence, or power, on its plane or in its degree ; for all these are always in its every moment's action as life. How much more perfect, if possible, must be life above Nature, the Infinite Life itself, as not subject to the limitations of Nature ! How spontaneously and at once remedy must follow on the heels of injury, and this without anything like a resort to expedients, but simply from the fact that such is the normal operation of life, on every plane of life, in the changed conditions, thus simply from the fact, not that God devises and does something different as an expedient, but that He lives, or that He Himself is Life. Oh, what an infinite world there is in that one little word Life ! It contains everything ; everything is in it in potency or possibility ; expediency even is one of the features of its normal operation as Life.

So, in what is called the " Fall," God did not take cognizance of it as a condition unexpected, and thus unprovided for, in any such sense as man takes cognizance of like things, and then devise and apply a remedy. Infinitely far from it. God was unaffected and unchanged in any sense or manner whatever, so far as He or what He did in His own absolute action was concerned. It was simply the result of the continued operation of His Life as Life, but as varied in its operation by the changed conditions, that was the remedy or the expedient. And this has always been so in every stage of man's " decline," in every changing phase of his relation to God. What God has absolutely done has never varied because of man's condition, — except in the sense in which its operation has been varied by that condition, — but has been unchangeably the same ; just as is the case with the sun in its relation to earth. The sun sends out, as it were, the same beams — whatever happens to the recipient — day and night, summer and winter, and into the rose as into the nightshade, into the desert as into the green meadow, and in the calm as in the tempest; and just as the heart also sends its life equally into the diseased as into the healthy organ. The acting principle, or the influx given, is in each case the same. But the results are not the same ; these depend upon the recipient. The condition of the recipient in all cases modifies the action, and thus the effects of the action of the influx. How strikingly this is the case as regards the blood, also the nerve-fluid, in their relation to diseased and healthy organism ! They change not, because of the condition of the recipient organism, but the results of their action are very different because varied by the condition of the organism.

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8. God Unchangeable.

So of that All-creating Life, the Word, God, with Whom " is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" that Life has not changed, has not itself modified its own action, during all the successive stages of creation,. during all the successive phases of developing humanity. God has always been giving the same and doing the same, — the same in quality and the same also in amount and energy, — and not at one time more and at another time less. The variety in evolved or ultimated form, is owing to the fact of the infinite potencies in Him as Life, and of the different degrees or distances, so to speak, of evolution from Him. As He continues to be, and from this cause alone, one thing after another comes out, as it were, from Him into ultimated or evolved form, and without anything like resorting to expedients under emergencies : perfect wisdom, I repeat, requires no expedients. His revealing Himself in Sacred Scripture even, was not an expedient, neither was His Incarnation an expedient ; it was no more an expedient than the shooting out of a branch, or the coming of a leaf or a flower, or the development of the teeth or of the beard, in the order of growth, is an expedient ; no more an expedient than is the modified action of the blood in a wounded muscle or fractured bone, or in no other sense than that in which such modified action is an expedient ; in all which cases it is the normal action as modified by recipient conditions themselves. There is everything in the normal, unchanging action of life for every emergency. It is the nature of all life, from the purely Divine clear down to the lowest degree of the finitely evolved life, to ultimate itself in successively lower and lower forms, and then to act, with modified results, through these forms as recipient and modifying vessels.

The great fact which I am endeavoring to make plain is that God, the Word, the Absolute Life, is in Himself] is in the very operation of Himself as Life, such fulness and perfection in all-creative energy, wisdom, providence, and power that all that He does or needs to do is to live ; and all that is, is the result ; just as all that the finitely evolved principle of His life in the seed or egg does, or needs to do, is to live, and the plant or animal is the result.

9. God is Love.

God is Love, or Love, in its real essential nature, is God. There is, indeed, no God but God as Love. Life is simply Love acting, Love living. The Word is Love creating, or evolving and ultimating itself in lower forms ; is Love clothing itself with a body ; is Love revealing itself, and all this as a result of the fact of its living, or of its being Life ; or is Love shining. as light, and hence is called Divine Truth, which is Divine, spiritual light. The Love I speak of is infinitely more than an aftection, and so much more that it is the entity or Divine substance from which all substance, whether spiritual or natural, is derived ; it is, indeed, " all in all," so that if it were withdrawn from all, nothing would remain. Hence everything that is is only a phase or manifestation of Love, thus of God. Hence everything is full of Love, thus full of God, as the body is full of the soul.

10. Not Outside.

All that is, therefore, is God's dwelling-place, God's " tabernacle," but in different degrees, from Nature, as His "outer court," to regenerated angelic mind — rather to the " Divine Humanity" — as His " inmost sanctuary," His " Holy of Holies." God as Love, as the Word, as Divine Truth, as all-pervading, omnipresent Life, operates with infinite wisdom, providence, and power within us, always within vs, never and nowhere outside of us, except through others in relation to us : " Behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Nothing but God's foot-stool, nothing but His materialized expression, or Love materialized, so to speak, nothing but the evolved effects of the operation of the Divine Life, is outside of us. It is vain for us to look for Him or think of Him outside of us. We err most sadly when we think of God as being outside of any being. Everything outside is finite. There is no God outside, any more than there is heart, or brain, or soul outside the little world of the body. God would- not be God outside, but a mere manifestation of God, as the body is of the heart, or brain, or soul. God lives in His kingdom— the soul of man— _ as a King lives in his kingdom ; more truly, as the soul lives in its kingdom, the body. All that is outside, I repeat, is but a manifestation of God. The whole universe is but such manifestation of God. But the universe is no more, for that cause, God than the body is the man.

11. Manifestations.

But God's manifestations or appearings of Himself,— what in reality, are they ? How do they differ from Himself? How does the body, which is a manifestation of the man, differ from the man ? Yet the cases are not quite parallel. The body exists, is evolved directly from what is within, as an effect directly representing a cause within. So is the universe and everything in it and of it, as an effect in relation to God as the cause. It came from God as an effect from its cause. But there are Divine manifestations of appearances of another kind which depend upon, and are characterized by, the states of those persons before whom they take place. The former manifestations are made to all men, though with a difference ; the latter to comparatively few. This is the kind of which Swedenborg speaks as being made to him. What is the real nature of this kind of manifestation ? Did God, in any sense, or in the least degree, absolutely vary in what He did from what He always does, as the cause of such manifestations ? We see from the views we have given of God from Sacred Scripture and from the writings that such variation was simply impossible and absurd. We cannot yield a particle in our view of