Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/70

64 became deranged—diseased from the sole of the foot, even unto the head." Thus he became alienated—spiritually separated and far removed —from his Maker; and therefore he is said, in the symbolic language of Scripture, to have been driven out of the Garden wherein his Creator originally placed him.

But God was not angry with man for this, neither did He forsake him. On the contrary, He pursued him with infinite love and compassion. He came into the ultimates of nature; became Himself a man; assumed our frail and fallen nature with all its evil tendencies and corrupt inclinations; and this, in order that He might overcome these inclinations, restore the order that man himself had disturbed, and bring him back into his original state of blissful conjunction with Himself; for in this state only could man find peace and rest. And this great work He accomplished by means of successive combats with and victories over the evil spirits that infested humanity. These combats and victories took place in the humanity that He assumed, and could not have taken place out of it, nor without its assumption. Hence the necessity of the Divine Incarnation. And by the same acts which were his temptations, the last of which was the passion of the cross, He united, in his assumed humanity, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and so made that humanity itself Divine.