1122. And mourning I shall not see, signifies that they will never be in desolation and will not perish. This is evident from the signification of "not to see mourning" (when predicated of a "widow," which signifies defense) as being to be desolated and perish. "Mourning" here has reference to dominion and to its having no end. Moreover, such things the Babylonians say in their hearts, because they have fortified themselves by every art. This they have done by having ingratiated and by continually ingratiating themselves by means of the delights of earthly and worldly loves, especially with the chief men of the earth, and thereby catching souls and interiorly conjoining themselves to them; they have fortified themselves also by exciting terror by means of the horrors of purgatory if they do not manifest a blind faith; also by the judgment of the inquisition whenever anyone speaks against their dominion; moreover by confessions, which they extort, and by which they search out secret things; and further by the multiplication of monasteries, which have increased into armies, from which they send out emissaries in every direction as so many guards both at the walls and gates. These defenses pertain, however, to those who are on earth, and not to those who are in the spiritual world; where no one has any longer the refuge they had before the Last Judgment. For when they come thither after death they are immediately separated, and those who have exercised dominion from the love of self are cast into hell, and the others are sent away into societies. Thus Babylon at this day has been desolated and has perished.
(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith and respecting the Lord)
[2] The appearance to man is that he lives from himself, but this is a fallacy; if it were not a fallacy man would be able to love God from himself, and be wise from himself. The appearance is that life is in man, because it flows in from the Lord into his inmosts, which are far removed from the sight of his thought, and thus from perception; also for the reason that the principal cause which is life and the instrumental cause which is a recipient of life act together as one cause, and this is felt in the instrumental cause which is the recipient, that is, in man, as if it were in him. It is exactly the same as our feeling that the light, which is the cause of sight, is in the eye, and that sound, which is the cause of hearing, is in the ear, and that the volatile particles in the air that cause smell are in the nose, that the soluble particles of food that cause taste are on the tongue; when the truth is that the eyes, the ears, the nose, and the tongue, are recipient organized substances, that is, instrumental causes, while light, sound, the volatile particles in the air, and the soluble particles on the tongue, are the principal causes, and these act together as one cause; that which acts is called the principal, and that which suffers itself to be acted upon is called the instrumental. He who examines the subject more deeply can see that man, as to each and every thing pertaining to him, is an organ of life, and that what produces sensation and perception flows in from without, and that the life itself is what causes man to feel and to perceive as if from himself. Another reason why life appears to be in man is that the Divine love is such that it desires its own to be man's, and yet it teaches that it is not man's. And the Lord wills that man should think and will and in consequence speak and act as if from himself, and yet should acknowledge that this is not done from himself. Otherwise man could not be reformed (see above, n. 971, 973).
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