The Gist of Swedenborg | Page 4

This God is the Lord. The Divinity
itself, which is called Jehovah "the Father," is the Lord from eternity.
The Divine Humanity is "the Son" begotten from His Divine from
eternity, and born in the world. The proceeding Divinity is "the Holy
Spirit."
--_Divine Providence, n._ 157

MAN
"Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him; And the son of man
that Thou visitest him?"
_Psalm_, VIII, 4
GOD'S UNRELAXED EFFORT
The object of creation was an angelic heaven from the human race; in
other words, mankind, in whom God might be able to dwell as in His
residence. For this reason man was created a form of Divine order. God
is in him, and as far as he lives according to Divine order, fully so; but
if he does not live according to Divine order, still God is in him, but in
his highest parts, endowing him with the ability to understand truth and
to will what is good. But as far as man lives contrary to order, so far he
shuts up the lower parts of his mind or spirit, and prevents God from
descending and filling them with His presence. Then God is in him, but
he is not in God.
--_True Christian Religion, nn._ 66, 70
AN INSTRUMENT OF LIFE
Man is an instrument of life, and God alone is life. God pours His life
into His instrument and every part of him, as the sun pours its heat into
a tree and every part of it. God also gives man to feel this life in
himself as his own. God wills that he should do so, that man may live
as of himself according to the laws of order, which are as many as there
are precepts in the Word, and may dispose himself to receive the love
of God. But still God perpetually holds with His finger the
perpendicular above the scales, and regulates, but never violates by
compulsion, man's free decision. Man's free will is from this: that he
feels life in himself as his, and God leaves him so to feel, that
reciprocal conjunction may take place between Him and man.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 504
"ABIDE IN ME"
Man is so created that he can be more and more closely united to the
Lord. He is so united not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone,
nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life in accordance with these. The
more closely he is united to the Lord, the wiser and happier he becomes,
the more distinctly he seems to himself to be his own, and the more
clearly he perceives that he is the Lord's.
--_Divine Providence, nn._ 32 _et al._

TWO MINDS: TWO WORLDS
Man is so created as to live simultaneously in the natural world and in
the spiritual world. Thus he has an internal and an external nature or
mind; by the former living in the spiritual world, by the latter in the
natural world.
--_Heavenly Doctrine_, n. 36
INALIENABLE POWERS
There are in man from the Lord two capacities by which the human
being is distinguished from the beasts. One capacity is the ability to
understand what is true and what is good. It is called rationality, and is
a capacity of his understanding. The other capacity is the ability to do
the true and the good. It is called freedom, and is a power of the will.
By virtue of his rationality, man can think what he pleases, as well
against God as with Him, and with his neighbor or against his neighbor.
He can also will and do what he thinks; and when he sees evil and fears
punishment, by virtue of freedom he can refrain from doing. By these
two capacities man is man and is distinguished from the beasts. Man
has these twin powers from the Lord, and they are from Him every
moment; nor are they ever taken away, for if they were, man's
humanity would perish. The Lord is in these two powers with every
man, with the evil as well as the good. They are His abiding-place in
the race. Thence it is that every human being, evil as well as good, lives
to eternity.
--_Divine Love and Wisdom, n._ 240
THE DRAG OF HEREDITY
Man inclines to the nature he derives hereditarily, and lapses into it.
Thus he strengthens any evil in it, and also adds others of himself.
These evils are quite opposed to the spiritual life. They destroy it.
Unless, therefore, a man receives new life from the Lord, which is
spiritual life, he is condemned; for he wills nothing else and thinks
nothing else than concerns him and the world.
--_Heavenly Doctrine, n._ 176
LOVES OF SELF AND THE WORLD
The reason why the love