Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

Angelic Wisdom about Divine
Providence, by

Emanuel Swedenborg This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at
no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Author: Emanuel Swedenborg
Translator: William Wunsch
Release Date: June 5, 2006 [EBook #18507]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELIC
WISDOM ***

Produced by William J. Rotella

Angelic Wisdom about DIVINE PROVIDENCE
by

Emanuel Swedenborg
Translation By
WILLIAM FREDERIC WUNSCH
Standard Edition
SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION INCORPORATED NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED IN 1850
Originally published in Latin at Amsterdam 1764 First English
translation published in U.S.A. 1851 51st Printing, 1975 (5th Printing
Wunsch Translation).
ISBN 0-87785-059-3 (Student) 0-87785-060-7 (Trade)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-30441
Manufactured in the United States of America
CONTENTS[1]

Translator's Preface
I. What Divine Providence Is
II. The Goal of Divine Providence
III. The Outlook of Divine Providence
IV. Providence has its Laws
V. Its Regard for Human Freedom and Reason
VI. Even in the Struggle against Evil
VII. The Law of Noncompulsion

VIII. The Law of Overt Guidance
IX. The Law of Hidden Operation
X. Divine Providence and Human Prudence
XI. Binding Time and Eternity
XII. The Law Guarding against Profanation
XIII. Laws of Tolerance in the Laws of Providence
XIV. Why Evil is Permitted
XV. Providence Attends the Evil and the Good
XVI. Providence and Prudence in the Appropriation of Good and Evil
to Man
XVII. The Salvation of All the Design of Providence
XVIII. The Steadfast Observance of its Laws by Providence
Index of Scripture Passages
Subject Index
[1]Swedenborg gave neither numbers nor brief captions to the chapters
of the book. Nor did he prefix a recital of all the propositions and
subsidiary propositions to come in the book; this was the work of the
Latin editor. For this the above, giving the reader a succinct idea of the
book's contents, is substituted. Tr.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
THE Book
The reader will find in this book a firm assurance of God's care of
mankind as a whole and of each human being. The assurance is rested

in God's infinite love and wisdom, the love pure mercy, the wisdom
giving love its ways and means. It is further grounded in an
interpretation of the universe as a spiritual-natural world, an
interpretation fully set forth in the earlier book, Divine Love and
Wisdom, on which the present work draws heavily. As there is a world
of the spirit, no view of providence can be adequate which does not
take that world into account. For in that world must be channels for the
outreach of God's care to the human spirit. There also any eternal
goal--such as a heaven from the human race--must exist. A view of
providence limited to the horizons of the passing existence can hardly
resemble the care which the eternal God takes of men and women who,
besides possessing perishable bodies, are themselves creatures of the
spirit and immortal. The full title of the book, Angelic Wisdom about
Divine Providence, implies that its author, in an other-world experience,
had at hand the knowledge which men and women in heaven have of
God's care. Who should know the divine guidance if not the men and
women in heaven who have obviously enjoyed it? "The laws of divine
providence, hitherto hidden with angels in their wisdom, are to be
revealed now" (n. 70).
As it is presented in this book, providence seeks to engage man in its
purposes, and to enlist all his faculties, his freedom and reason, his will
and understanding, his prudence and enterprise. It acts first of all on his
volitions and thinking, to align them with itself. That it falls directly on
history, its events and our circumstances, is a superficial view. It is
man's inner life which first feels the omnipresent divine influence and
must do so. If we cannot be lifted to our best selves and if our aims and
outlook cannot be modified for the better, how shall the world be
bettered which we affect to handle? Paramount in God's presence with
all men, if only in their possibilities, is His providential care.
This care, to which man's inner life is open, is alert every moment, not
occasional. It is gentle and not tyrannical, constantly respecting man's
freedom and reason, otherwise losing him as a human being. It has set
this and other laws for itself which it pursues undeviatingly. The larger
part of the book is an exposition of these laws in the conviction that by
them the nature of providence is best seen. Is it not to be expected in a

universe which