10420. 'For your people have corrupted themselves' means that they have turned themselves away altogether from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'corrupting themselves', when their worship is the subject, as turning themselves away from the Divine; for all corruption and deviation in worship is a departure and turning away from the Divine. Since the expression 'turning away' is used, what is implied by it must be stated briefly. Those whose interest lies in external things separated from what is internal all turn themselves away from the Divine; for they look in an outward and downward direction, and not in an inward and upward one. For a person looks inwards or upwards when his internal is open, thus when it is in heaven, but he looks outwards or downwards when his internal is closed and only his external is open; for his external is located in the world. Consequently when the external has been separated from the internal the person cannot be raised upwards; for the part on which heaven must act is unavailable, because it has been closed off. This explains why for those people all things of heaven and the Church dwell in thick darkness, as a result of which also they do not believe in the existence of those things. Indeed in their heart they deny the existence of them, some doing so with their lips as well.
[2] When heaven acts on a person, which happens when the internal is open, it leads him away from self-love and love of the world, and from the falsities welling up from them. When the internal is raised, so too is the external; for the viewpoint of the external is similar to that of the internal when it is subordinate to the internal. But when the internal cannot be raised because it is closed, the external looks in no other direction than towards self and the world, since self-love and love of the world reign. This is also called looking downwards because it involves looking towards hell, this being the place where those loves reign; and a person ruled by those loves lives in company with those inhabiting hell, though he is not conscious of doing so. Also inwardly he in actual fact turns himself away from the Lord; for he turns his back on Him and faces towards hell. This cannot be seen within a person while he lives in the body; but since his thought and will are what do this it is his spirit that so turns itself around, the spirit being that which thinks and wills within a person.
[3] It is plainly apparent in the next life that this is so; there spirits turn around as their loves direct them. Those who love the Lord and the neighbour look constantly towards the Lord; indeed, amazingly, they are facing Him whichever way they turn their body. For in the spiritual world no direction or quarter exists as in the natural world. The direction that anyone in the spiritual world faces is determined by his love causing him to turn around. But those who love themselves and the world above all things turn their face away from the Lord and turn themselves towards hell. And there each one turns towards those ruled by a love similar to his, and this too is so whichever way they turn their body. From this it becomes clear what turning oneself away from the Divine describes, and also what precisely is meant in the Word by 'turning oneself away', as in Isaiah,
They turn themselves away backwards, those trusting in a graven image. Isa 42:17.
In David,
[Our] heart does [not] turn itself away backwards. Ps 44:18.
In Jeremiah,
Their transgressions have been multiplied, and their turnings away have become firm. Jer. 5:6.
In the same prophet,
They turn themselves away, in order that they may not return. This people turn themselves away; Jerusalem is perpetually turned away, they refuse to return. Jer 8:4,5.
In the same prophet,
They have turned themselves away, they have taken themselves away to dwell in the deep. Jer 49:8.
And the expression is used many times elsewhere.
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