Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 251

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251. (i) What the natural man is, and what the spiritual man. A man is not a man from the face and body, but from the understanding and the will, and therefore by the natural man and the spiritual man is understood his understanding and will which are either natural or spiritual. The natural man as to his understanding and will is like the natural world, and may also be called a world or microcosm; and the spiritual man as to his understanding and will is like the spiritual world, and may also be called a spiritual world or heaven. From this it is clear that because the natural man is a natural world in a certain image, he loves the things of the natural world, and that because the spiritual man is a spiritual world in a certain image, he loves those things belonging to that world or heaven. The spiritual man, indeed, also loves the natural world, but in no other way than a master loves his servant through whom he performs uses. According to uses also the natural man becomes like the spiritual, which happens when the natural man feels the delight of uses from the spiritual man. This natural man may be called natural-spiritual. The spiritual man loves spiritual truths. He loves not only to know and understand them, but he also wills them; but the natural man loves to speak of those truths and also to do them. To do truths is to perform uses. This subordination is from the conjunction of the spiritual world and the natural world. For whatever appears and is done in the natural world derives its cause from the spiritual world. From these considerations it may be established that the spiritual man is altogether distinct from the natural man, and that no communication occurs between them other than such as there is between cause and effect.


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