Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/185

Rh What is this "absolute divine truth" which operates upon the individual mind? Is it the truth which God is,—the Word, which is God? Then Swedenborg affirms and shows that it does not operate upon any individual without a medium. "It is a law of Divine Providence that man should be led and taught by the Lord from heaven through the Word and doctrine and preaching from it, and this in all appearance as by himself." The Word is such a medium of divine truth to man and of its power with him, because it is written in Correspondences, and while man reads it in its letter the angels of heaven perceive the spiritual sense of what is read, and man is thus brought according to his willingness to be instructed and led by the Lord within the sphere of divine truth as it is with the angels of heaven.

But the Lord thus leads him by correspondence and influx "according to the truths that are with him, and does not immediately infuse new ones."

What, then, is meant by "the absolute truth?" If it be said the truth of the Word is meant, and the Doctor at least does probably mean this, then it is answered that according to Swedenborg the truth of the