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Divine Providence Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Providence EMANUEL SWEDENBORG Translated from the Original Latin by William F. Wunsch STANDARD EDITION SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION West Chester, Pennsylvania © 2009 Swedenborg Foundation This version was compiled from electronic files of the Standard Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg as further edited by William Ross Woofenden. Pagination of this PDF document does not match that of the corresponding printed volumes, and any page references within this text may not be accurate. However, most if not all of the numerical references herein are not to page numbers but to Swedenborg’s section numbers, which are not affected by changes in pagination. If this work appears both separately and as part of a larger volume file, its pagination follows that of the larger volume in both cases. This version has not been proofed against the original, and occasional errors in conversion may remain. To purchase the full set of the Redesigned Standard Edition of Emanuel Swedenborg’s works, or the available volumes of the latest translation (the New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg), contact the Swedenborg Foundation at 1-800-355-3222, www.swedenborg.com, or 320 North Church Street, West Chester, Pennsylvania 19380. Contents Editor’s Preface Translator’s Preface 1. Divine Providence Is Government by the Lord’s Divine Love and Wisdom 2. The Lord’s Divine Providence Has for It’s Object a Heaven from the Human Race 3. In All That It Does the Lord’s Divine Providence Looks to What Is Infinite and Eternal 4. There Are Laws of Divine Providence That Are Unknown to Men 5. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That Man Shall Act from Freedom according to Reason 6. It Is a Law of the Divine Providence That Man Shall Remove Evils as Sins in the External Man of Himself, and Only So Can the Lord Remove the Evils in the Internal Man and at the Same Time in the External 7. It Is a Law of the Divine Providence That Man Shall Not Be Compelled by External Means to Think and Will, Thus to Believe and Love What Pertains to Religion, but Bring Himself and at Times Compel Himself to Do So 8. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That Man Shall Be Led and Taught by the Lord out of Heaven by Means of the Word and Doctrine and Preachings from It, and This to All Appearance as of Himself 9. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That Man Shall Not Perceive or Feel Any of the Activity of Divine Providence, and Yet Should Know and Acknowledge Providence 10. There Is No Such Thing as One’s Own Prudence; There Only Appears to Be and It Should So Appear; but Divine Providence Is Universal by Being in the Least Things 11. Divine Providence Looks to What Is Eternal, and to the Temporal only as This Accords with eternal 12. Man Is Not Admitted Inwardly into Truths of Faith and Goods of Charity except as He Can Be Kept in Them to the Close of Life 13. Laws of Toleration Are Also Laws of Divine Providence 14. Evils Are Tolerated in View of the End, Which is Salvation 15. Divine Providence Deals Impartially with the Evil and the Good 16. Divine Providence Appropriates Neither Evil nor Good to Anyone, but Ones Own Prudence Appropriates Both 17. Every Man Can Be Reformed, and There Is No Predestination [as Commonly Understood] 18. The Lord Cannot Act Contrary to the Laws of Divine Providence Because to Do So Would Be to Act Contrary to His Divine Love and Wisdom, Thus Contrary to Himself Critical Notes Index of Scripture Passages Index DIVINE PROVIDENCE 1 Editor’s Preface Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence, usually referred to simply as Divine Providence, was first published in Latin in Amsterdam in 1764. It is the sequel to Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Wisdom (1763) and deals with how God oversees human life and all of creation. It is based in part on a doctrinal treatise in the author’s posthumous work Apocalypse Explained, which is interwoven in the text of paragraphs 1135 to 1194. Swedenborg first defines divine providence and then states the purpose and ideology of God’s foresight, that divine providence in all that it does looks only to what is infinite and eternal in order that there may be a heaven of angels from the human race. Various laws under which providence operates are explained, including details about the true nature of the spiritual world, as well as the hope of salvation for all people. Finally, explanations are given as to why evil and human suffering are tolerated. Divine Providence ranks second only to Heaven and Hell as Swedenborg’s most popular work. At least a dozen separate translations have been made into English, with many reprints of each. It has also been translated into Danish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian and Swedish. The present English version by William F. Wunsch was first published in paperback in 1963 and later replaced the 1899 translation of John C. Ager as part of the standard edition. For this second edition the Wunsch text was electronically scanned so that it could be completely reset in a more readable typeface. All notes (which appeared as footnotes in the previous edition) are now referenced by consecutive superscripts and will be found collected at the end of the volume. As with previous printings, the bold numerals in brackets [2], [3], etc., indicate divisions within the author’s numbered sections that were introduced for the convenience of the reader by John DIVINE PROVIDENCE 2 Faulkner Potts in his six-volume Swedenborg Concordance (London: Swedenborg Society, 1888–1902). Wunsch’s Translator’s Preface contains additional helpful information for the general reader. William Ross Woofenden Sharon, Massachusetts DIVINE PROVIDENCE 3 Translator’s Preface The reader will find in this book a firm assurance of God’s care of mankind as a whole and of each human being. The assurance is rested in God’s infinite love and wisdom, the love pure mercy, the wisdom giving love its ways and means. It is further grounded in an interpretation of the universe as a spiritual-natural world, an interpretation fully set forth in the earlier book, Divine Love and Wisdom, on which the present work draws heavily. As there is a world of the spirit, no view of providence can be adequate which does not take that world into account. For in that world must be channels for the outreach of God’s care to the human spirit. There also any eternal goal—such as a heaven from the human race—must exist. A view of providence limited to the horizons of the passing existence can hardly resemble the care which the eternal God takes of men and women who, besides possessing perishable bodies, are themselves creatures of the spirit and immortal. The full title of the book, Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence, implies that its author, in an other-world experience, had at hand the knowledge which men and women in heaven have of God’s care. Who should know the divine guidance if not the men and women in heaven who have obviously enjoyed it? “The laws of divine providence, hitherto hidden with angels in their wisdom, are to be revealed now” (n. 70). As it is presented in this book, providence seeks to engage man in its purposes, and to enlist all his faculties, his freedom and reason, his will and understanding, his prudence and enterprise. It acts first of all on his volitions and thinking, to align them with itself. That it falls directly on history, its events and our circumstances, is a superficial view. It is man’s inner life which first feels the omnipresent divine influence and must do so. If we cannot be DIVINE PROVIDENCE 4 lifted to our best selves and if our aims and outlook cannot be modified for the better, how shall the world be bettered which we affect to handle? Paramount in God’s presence with all men, if only in their possibilities, is His providential care. This care, to which man’s inner life is open, is alert every moment, not occasional. It is gentle and not tyrannical, constantly respecting man’s freedom and reason, otherwise losing him as a human being. It has set this and other laws for itself which it pursues undeviatingly. The larger part of the book is an exposition of these laws in the conviction that by them the nature of providence is best seen. Is it not to be expected in a universe which has its laws, and in which impersonal forces are governed by laws, that the Creator of all should pursue laws in His concern with the lives of conscious beings? To fit a world of laws must not the divine care have its laws, too? Adjustment of thought about divine providence to scientific thought is not the overriding necessity, for scientific thought must keep adjusting to laws which it discerns in the physical world. In consonance, religious thought seeks to learn the lawful order in the guidance of the human spirit. Do not each and all things in tree or shrub proceed constantly and wonderfully from purpose to purpose according to the laws of their order of things? Why should not the supreme purpose, a heaven from the human race, proceed in similar fashion? Can there be anything in its progress which does not proceed with all constancy according to the laws of divine providence? (n. 332) Respecting the laws of providence, it is to be noted that there are more laws than those, five in number, which are stated at the heads of as many chapters in the book.
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