Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/47

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BLISSFUL SEEMINGS.
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volition and action according to perception, flow into man, it is yet of the Lord's Divine Providence that they should seem to be man's own; for otherwise man would not receive, that is, could not be gifted with any intelligence and wisdom.

It is known that all that is good and true is not man's but the Lord's, and that still it appears to man to be his; and as all that is good and true so appears, so does all that belongs to the church and to heaven, consequently all that belongs to love and wisdom, also to charity and faith; nevertheless, nothing belonging to them is man's. No one can receive them from the Lord, unless he seems to himself to have a perception of them from himself. From this will be evident the truth of the statement, that whatever man does from freedom, whether it is [an act] of reason or not, provided it is in accordance with his reason, seems to him to be his own.

Who, from his faculty of rationality, cannot understand that certain things which are good are beneficial to society, and that others which are evil are injurious to society? as that justice, sincerity, and the chastity of marriage, are beneficial to society; and that injustice, insincerity, and intercourse with the wives of others, are injurious? consequently that those which are evils are in themselves injuries, and those which are good are in themselves benefits? Who cannot, therefore, adopt these facts rationally, if he will? He has the rationality and the liberty to do so. And his rationality and liberty are evoked and made apparent, restrain him, and

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