Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/109

Rh translate outward phenomena into spiritual principles and mental processes; and this they perceived intuitively from the divine Spirit which then, in orderly influx, was communicated from the Lord without the need of a written Word. Thus the Word, the wisdom of God and the light of man, spoke itself in their hearts and pictured itself in the world.

Then they fell away. Some, then others, and more and more, allowed themselves to delight in sensuous things for their own sake, instead of regarding them as the means of heavenly intelligence and use. Then they lost their interior perception of the truth. The transition was something like that from infancy to childhood, in which the senses assert themselves, dependence gives place to self-assertion, intuition gives place to curious investigation. The transition was gradual, but it sped on. It involved more and more. They regarded their wisdom as their own, and felt themselves gods. They grew spiritually stupid, and could not hear the voice of the Word within.

How shall God now instruct men and make His wisdom known and carry over the life of his love into their souls? He is