Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/153

Rh Himself, although He was in Him; for, as stated above, His internal was Jehovah. But in the latter state, namely, the state of glorification. He spake with Jehovah as with Himself, for He was Himself Jehovah. But how these things are cannot be apprehended unless it be known what the internal is, and how the internal acts upon the external; and, further, how the internal and external are distinct from each other, and yet conjoined. This however may be illustrated by its like, namely, by the internal in man, and its influx into and operation upon his external. The internal of man is that by which man is man, and by which he is distinguished from the unreasoning animals. By means of this internal he lives after death, and to eternity; and by this he is capable of being elevated by the Lord among the angels. It is the very first form by virtue of which he becomes and is a man. Through this internal the Lord is united to man. The very heaven nearest to the Lord is of these human internals. This however is above the inmost angelic heaven, wherefore these belong to the Lord Himself. . . . These internals of men have not life in themselves, but are forms recipient of the life of the Lord. Tn proportion then as the man is in evil, whether actual or hereditary, he is as it were separated from this internal which is of the Lord and with the Lord, and therefore in that degree is separated from the Lord; for although this internal is adjoined to man and is inseparable from him, yet, in so far as man recedes from the Lord he as it were separates himself from it. This separation however is not evulsion from it, for then man could no longer live after death; but it is disagreement and dissent from it of his faculties that are beneath it, that is of his rational and external man. In the degree that there is dissent and disagreement he is disjoined; and in the degree that there is not dissent and disagreement he is conjoined by the internal to the Lord. This takes place in proportion as he is in love and charity; for love and charity conjoin. Thus it is in respect to man. But the internal of the Lord, since He was conceived of Jehovah, was Jehovah Himself, who cannot be divided and become another's as in the case of a son conceived of a human father; for the Divine is not like the human divisible, but is and remains one and the same. With this internal the Lord united the Human essence. And because the internal of the Lord was Jehovah it was not a form recipient of life, like the internal of man, but was life itself. His human essence also, by union, in like manner became life. Therefore the Lord so often says that He is life; as in John,—"As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself" (v. 26); besides other passages in the same Evangelist, as i. 4; v. 21; vi. 33, 35, 48; xi. 25. In proportion therefore as the 10