Elbert's Divine Providence Proverbs
Page 6
Under inspiration of Divine Providence by Emmanuel Swedenborg (1755, Sweden)
When we are about to repent we need to turn to the Lord alone. D.P. 122
There is only one God, and the Lord is that God. D.P. 122
The Lord instituted the Holy Supper, assuring forgiveness of sins to those who repent. D.P. 122
During the (Holy) Supper or Communion, each participant is kept focused on the Lord alone. D.P. 122
It is the unceasing effort of the Lord’s divine providence to unite us to himself and himself to us in order to give us the joys of eternal life. D.P. 123
Since (the) threefold nature in a single Being exists only in the Lord, it follows that any union must be a union with him. D.P. 123
The Lord, heaven, and eternal life are real. D.P. 123
The Lord gives us the bliss of eternal life, since this is the nature of divine love. D.P. 123
We cannot be united to the Lord and thus reformed, regenerated, and saved until we are allowed to act freely and rationally. D.P. 123
Anything that is in accord with the Lord’s divine wisdom is also in accord with his divine providence. D.P. 123
Two secrets of angelic wisdom: 1. The Lord never acts in any detail of our being by itself unless he acts in all the details at once. 2. The Lord acts from the center and the boundaries at the same time.
Our spirit, the mind that is in our body, has a complete human form. After death we are people just as much as we are in this world. The only difference is that we have cast off the skin that made up our body in this world. D.P. 124
The whole angelic heaven is like a single person in the Lord’s sight. D.P. 124
The Lord acts on each of us most directly on our minds, and through them on everything in our bodies. D.P. 124
No one could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world. D.P. 124
The Lord from eternity or Jehovah came into the world and put on the clothing of a human nature (there in outermost form) in order to be present in first and last things at the same time. D.P. 124
This enabled him to save those people whom he could save. D.P. 124
Our center is our life’s love, and our boundaries are the contents of our outward thinking. D.P. 125
The Lord cannot work … unless he works with us. D.P. 125
This means that in those matters where we make (good) choices the Lord is working. D.P. 125
We should abstain from evils as sins and turn to the Lord. This is the only way the Lord can set aside our life’s love, (which is hellish from our birth,) and transplant a love for heavenly life in its place. D.P. 125
Once the Lord has transplanted a love for heavenly life in place of a love for hellish life,… (we have) eventually genuine care in place of cleverness, and wise thought processes in place of malicious ones. D.P. 126
Teachings about Life for the New Jerusalem tells which good qualities take the place of evil ones. D.P. 126
We come to love truths of wisdom to the extent that we abstain from evils as sins and dislike them; we have faith and become spiritual to the same extent. D.P. 126
What is repentance, the forgiveness of sins and consequently salvation? It is: 1. explore ourselves, 2. see our sins, 3. admit them, 4. confess them to God, 5. stop committing them. D.P. 127
Open the Word and read it and you will see this clearly. D.P. 128
We should not be compelled think and intend and so to believe and love in matters of our religion. We should guide ourselves and sometimes compel ourselves. D.P. 129
Our spirit or mind has complete freedom to think, intend, believe, and love. D.P. 129
We can be compelled to say that we think and intend something or that we believe and love something. Unless this is or becomes a matter of our own desire and our consequent reasoning, it is not something that we really think, intend, believe and love. D.P. 129
We can be compelled to speak in favor of religion and to act according to religion. But we cannot be compelled to think in its favor as a matter of our own faith and to intend it as a matter of our own love. D.P. 129
Everyone is obliged not to speak against religion or to violate it in action, but still no one can be compelled to think and intend in its favor. D.P. 129
No one is reformed by: 1. Miracles and signs, 2. visions or by conversations with the dead, 3. by threats or by punishment, D.P. 129
The Lord leave(s) us to convince ourselves by rational means of the truth of anything that has become a matter of faith for us because of the (a) miracle. D.P. 130
If what we are looking at is something true, we could compare it to a good-looking, vibrant young woman or young man. D.P. 130
(A) kind of blindness and deafness is imposed on our minds by miracles. The same holds true for any conviction that is not looked at rationally before it becomes a conviction. D.P. 130
A faith caused by miracles is not real faith but only second-hand belief. It has no rational content, let alone spiritual content. D.P. 130
Don’t have faith which is actually an outer shell with nothing inside it. D.P. 131
When the only thing that prompts the acknowledgment, the worship, and the devotion is some miracle, then we are acting from the earthly level … not from the spiritual level. D.P. 131
The Lord only enters us from the inside, that is, by means of the Word and by lessons and sermons based on the Word. D.P. 131
The Lord did miracles in our presence when he was in the world: even so, we crucified him. D.P. 132
Good people have no desire for miracles but they believe the miracles in the Word. D.P. 132
Good people base their thinking on the Word and therefore on the Lord and not on miracles. D.P. 133
Evil people can actually be constrained and compelled to faith and even to worship and devotion by miracles. This lasts only a short while. D.P. 133
Evil people wind up calling miracles a sham, a trick, or a natural event. This enables them to return to their evil ways. D.P. 133
People who go back to their evil ways after being worshipful profane what is good and true in worship. D.P. 133
If miracles happen for people who do not believe in the miracles in the Word, they would be happening constantly. D.P. 133
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