Enlightenment by means of the Word.

Everyone who has a spiritual affection for truth, everyone, that is, who loves truth itself because it is true, is enlightened by the Lord when he reads the Word. This does not happen to someone who reads it as the result of nothing but a natural affection for truth, what is known as a desire for knowledge. He sees nothing but what agrees with his love, or with the principles which he has either sought for himself or acquired from listening to others or reading their writings. I must therefore state briefly whence a person gains enlightenment by means of the Word, and which persons are so enlightened. A person is enlightened if he shuns evils because they are sins, and because they are against the Lord and His Divine laws. In his case and no others the spiritual mind is opened; and the more it is opened, the more the light of heaven enters; and all enlightenment from the Word is due to the light of heaven. For then a person has a will for good, and when this will is directed to this purpose, it becomes in the intellect first an affection for truth, then a perception of truth, next by means of the light of reason thinking about truth, and so a decision and conclusion. As this passes thence into the memory and so also into the way he lives so as to become permanent, this is the path which produces all enlightenment on the Word. It is also the path followed by a person's reform and regeneration. But there must first be present in the memory a knowledge of both spiritual and natural matters. For these are the stores on which the Lord acts by means of the light of heaven. The fuller they are and the more devoid of confirmed falsities, the clearer is the perception given and the more certain is the conclusion. For Divine action cannot reach a person who is empty and vacant. For instance, anyone who does not know that the Lord is pure love and pure mercy, good itself and truth itself; and that love itself and good itself are in essence such as to be unable to do anyone harm, or to become angry and seek vengeance; or who does not know that the Word in many passages is based on appearances. Such a person cannot be enlightened on the Word, where Jehovah is said to flare up with wrath and become angry; that fire and rage are His, that His wrath burns down to the lowest hell, as we read in the works of David.* Or that there is no evil in the city which Jehovah has not caused (Amos 3:6); that He rejoices in doing harm, just as He rejoices in doing good (Deut. 28:63); that He leads people into temptations, as in the Lord's prayer, and likewise in other passages. * E.g. Ps. 2:5; 21:9; 78:49; 89:46; 94:1. But the last clause refers to Deut. 32:22. -Tr.