Good Deeds: From “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), Part 1 of 2

Today, we are delighted to present excerpts from “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), which remind us of the importance of living a virtuous life and fostering our spiritual well-being through goodness and good deeds.

“From the two, intelligence and wisdom, he can look to the Lord, be conjoined with Him, and thereby live to eternity. This elevation as to affection would not be possible did he not from rationality have the power to raise the understanding, and from liberty the power to will this. By means of the two faculties man can think in himself about what he perceives outside him through the senses, and can also think on high about what he thinks below.”

“Those, therefore, who will to understand only what is of the world and nature and not what moral and spiritual good and truth are, cannot be raised from knowledge into intelligence, still less into wisdom, for they have stifled those faculties. They render themselves no longer men except that they can understand if they wish, and can also will, by virtue of the implanted rationality and liberty; from the two capacities it is that one can think and from thought speak. […]”

“By his faculty called rationality a man can conclude from this what goods are useful to society in the spiritual world and what evils are hurtful there, if instead of evils he sees sins and instead of goods works of charity. This he can also make a matter of his reason if he will, since he has liberty and rationality. His rationality and liberty emerge, become manifest, take charge and give him perception and power so far as he shuns evils as sins. So far as he does this he regards the goods of charity as neighbor regards neighbor in mutual love.

For the sake of reception and union the Lord wills that whatever a man does freely according to reason shall seem to him to be his; this agrees with reason itself. It follows that a man can from his reason will something on the ground that it means his eternal happiness and can perform it by the Lord’s divine power, implored by him.”