Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/25

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NO REGENERATION WITHOUT IT.
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There are many reasons from and on account of which man loves to learn truth and will good. Several of these are grounded in worldly considerations, several too in bodily concerns, and sometimes in such cases without any views respecting heaven, and still less respecting the Lord. Man is thus introduced of the Lord into good and truth by affections; and one man altogether differently from another, each according to his particular temper innate and acquired. And since he is introduced into truth and good continually by affections, thus continually by free principles, and at length into affections of spiritual truth and good, the Lord alone knows those times and states, and alone disposes and rules them in a way of application to the temper and life of every particular person. Hence it is evident why man has freedom.

Nothing else appears to man as his own, or what is the same, as his proprium, but what flows from freedom. The reason is, that all affection which is of love, is his most essential life; and to act from affection is to act from life, that is, from himself; consequently from his own, or what is the same, from proprium. In order therefore that man may receive a celestial proprium, such as the angels in heaven have, he is kept in freedom, and is thus by freedom introduced.

If it were possible for man to be reformed by compulsion, there would not be a single individual in the universe but what would be saved; for nothing would be easier to the Lord than to compel man to fear Him,

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