Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/137

Rh transfigured (Matt. xvii. 1, 2); and in which He also occasiona]ly appeared to the prophets. Hence it is that now every one is able to think of the very Divine as of a Man, and then of the Lord, in whom is all the Divine, and the perfect Trine. For in the Lord the very Divine is the Father; that Divine in heaven is the Son; and the Divine thence proceeding is the Holy Spirit. And that they are one, as He Himself teaches, is therefore manifest. (A. C. n. 5110.)

Inasmuch as the Lord operates all things from the first by means of the last, and in the last or the ultimates is in His power and in His fulness, therefore it pleased the Lord to take upon Him the Human, and to become Divine truth, that is, the Word; and thereby from Himself to reduce to order all things of heaven, and all things of hell, that is, to execute a last judgment. This the Lord could accomplish from the Divine in Himself, which is in first [principles], by means of His Human, which was in ultimates; and not from His presence or abode in the men of the Church, as formerly; for these had entirely fallen away from the truths and goods of the Word, in which before was the habitation of the Lord with men. This, and also that He might make His Human Divine, was the primary cause of the Lord's advent into the world; for thereby He put Himself in possession of the power to keep all things of heaven and all things of hell in order to eternity. (A. E. n. 1087.)

Before the coming of the Lord into the world, there was with men and with spirits influx of life from Jehovah or the Lord through the celestial kingdom, that is, through the angels who were in that kingdom; hence they then had power. But when the Lord came into the world, and thereby made the human in Himself Divine, He put on that itself which was with the angels of the celestial kingdom, thus that power; for the Divine transflux through that heaven had before been the Human Divine; it also was the Divine Man which was presented when Jehovah so appeared. But this Human Divine ceased when the Lord Himself made the Human in Himself Divine. (A. C. n. 6371.)

The very Divine in heaven, or in the Greatest Man, was the Divine Human, and was Jehovah Himself thus clothed with the human. But when mankind became such that the very Divine clothed as the Divine Human could no longer affect them,—that is, when Jehovah could no longer come to man, because he had so far removed himself,—then Jehovah, who is the Lord as to the Divine Essence, descended and took upon Him a human by conception Divine, and by birth from a virgin like that of another man. But this He expelled, and by Divine means He made Divine the Human that was born, from which all the Holy proceeds. Thus the Divine Human exists, an Essence by itself,