The Establishment of a
Spiritual Life with Mankind - Part 1
By Rev. Paul Booth
Spiritual Life with Mankind - Part 1
By Rev. Paul Booth
The Church with man is the Lord with man. It is His presence with us. We saw in the Most Ancient Church or the Celestial Church that the Lord created man to become an image and a likeness of Him. That means that man was to be conjoined internally (celestially / spiritually) with the Lord, and that this meant a man would be able to receive both the qualities - Love and Wisdom or charity and faith and that these would become the life of man. In the Most Ancient Church we learned that man was not content to be instructed or led by the Lord and wanted a proprium for himself. As a result, mankind removed himself from the Lord's presence and favored his new-formed self. We see that eventually the Most Ancient Church was vastated and ended. There was a consummation and end and the man's will became closed lest he perish from the earth.
It is only out of the remains of the man of the Most Ancient Church that there could arise a new Church with mankind and that he not perish. Here is what is meant: remains are of the Lord. They are His goods and truths insinuated into each of us unknown to us. It is the Lord's presence with us since man fell from God's grace. For, it is only in the remains that the Lord's life can exist with mankind. However, there was a price to pay. This new Church would no longer be celestial or Heavenly. It would not be blessed with immediate conjunction of the Lord or with angels. Though angels did present themselves to some men of that Church and, even, the Lord did. Goods and truths with the man of the Ancient Church could not be known through perception anymore. Now, they were to be learned and to be acted upon, as if, by themselves, after all they had a proprium. This new Church or the Church now with a man, in time and after the man's reformation and his coming into regeneration, became the Ancient Church and it was a spiritual Church. The man's celestial or what is of the 'heart', that is, of his love to the Lord had been closed in order to protect the Lord's truths and goods with him. Now, don't think that by spiritual that here is meant that a man lives in some sort of spiritual-substantial body. They lived in the natural body, as did the Celestial Church and as we do today.
It was taught that a Celestial man lived his life in the internal or celestial state. That his thoughts were from within from the Lord. Primarily, you could say the Celestial man of the Most Ancient Church received life through his will, and his life was love to the Lord, for above all else he loved the Lord. That is not just saying, 'I love the Lord'. It is a sort of internal feeling. However, with the Spiritual man of the Ancient Church the understanding became first and prominant in his life and Divine truth now had to enter through the understanding and not through the will as it did with the celestial man. A man had to be illuminated within his Rational and Natural mind, not through the will or through his celestial mind. It should be pointed out that by the Rational the internal man, thus the spiritual man is meant. The celestial is one's inmost.
In the Old Testament, Genesis 6: 9, the story of Noah making an Ark as commanded by God and his entering in and the waters flooding all life outside the Ark signifies both the end of the Most Ancient Church and the beginning of a new Church, which we learn is called the Ancient Church. This Church became a spiritual Church. You need to know that the Celestial Church is of man's will and the Spiritual is of his understanding. It can be seen that Noah was not a real historical person, but was like Adam and Eve and their posterity after them, who signified that Church's various states and the doctrines of those fallen in the Most Ancient Churches. So too, were Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Jeptheth the names of the various states that the Ancient Church went through and their doctrines. The man of the Spiritual Church, like the man of the Celestial Church, had to first be reformed and then regenerated before coming into the spiritual state, and like the first Chapter of Genesis, the eighth Chapter of Genesis describes a man's regeneration. This time it was into the spiritual life, not the celestial life. In his formation, man had to undergo suffering and temptation, just as today a man does whom becomes regenerated and saved. The Flood describes these; however, the literal understanding of such a story does not reveal this, but rather God's apparent anger with mankind. In the literal sense of the Word it appears as an historical event, here you need to understand that the man of that time loved to express things representatively where as today, man is inclined more to knowledge, than he is to thought. Therefore, the Ancients had wisdom, that is, before the Ancient Church's vastation, within their understanding men displayed charity. The Churches that followed eventually looked only to knowledge as we are prone to do today and, in fact, that is what happened to the Ancient Church they ended up gathering knowledge for themselves. Nonetheless, from knowledge we, now, can gain wisdom when it is put into proper use.
Before we proceed further into the understanding the Ancient Church a comparison between the Celestial and the Spiritual Churches is in order. So, that we can see that between the two men celestial and spiritual there is a completely different genius involved one of Celestial and the other of Spiritual. First, the Most Ancient Church man had perception of what is good and what is the truth, (This came from the Lord within.) while the Ancient Church man did not have perception. The Ancient Church person had a conscience or it should be said, could develop conscience in their reformation and regeneration. It was in this way that the Lord could speak with them, as it were, and this at first was like a dictate. From the Word of the Third Testament one can learn that the men of the Most Ancient Church spoke, as it were, by ideas, as the angels do, and not by words, although there was a sort of silent speech. We know, of course, that this ability or peculiarity had receded little by little and ended, since they had turned away from the Lord and had turned to themselves and to their proprium. As the internal respiration of the celestial man ceased, external respiration became more prominent and with these external respiration, instead of a person's looks and changes of the face, which signified their thoughts and ideas; words were now articulated by sound into which the ideas of thoughts were determined.
From this we can see perception ending and a dictate that can be called conscience coming forth in the man of the Ancient Church. The result: man could no longer be instructed as angels are or as the Most Ancient Church was, which was through an internal means, but only through an external way. Before, when there were revelations, doctrinal things succeeded. These were not received by one's senses, that is, through external means. Thus, there were formed natural ideas of the memory. Then thoughts and ideas came, and so, the Lord instructed them. They were of an entirely different genius. The state that the human race came into now was entirely different a state in which, if they had not come into, they would have surely ceased. The Lord has to be conjoined with man in order for man to be sustained. Therefore, the spiritual man had to be come informed and enlightened in a different way. His internal nature had closed as is ours today and could not communicate with Heaven or the angels in the same way as before. Thus, he was no longer instructed as before, but as said, he was now instructed through an external way, which is, through his natural senses hearing and seeing, even, as we today receive instructions and are taught. Through our reading and listening to sermons, etc.
It is only out of the remains of the man of the Most Ancient Church that there could arise a new Church with mankind and that he not perish. Here is what is meant: remains are of the Lord. They are His goods and truths insinuated into each of us unknown to us. It is the Lord's presence with us since man fell from God's grace. For, it is only in the remains that the Lord's life can exist with mankind. However, there was a price to pay. This new Church would no longer be celestial or Heavenly. It would not be blessed with immediate conjunction of the Lord or with angels. Though angels did present themselves to some men of that Church and, even, the Lord did. Goods and truths with the man of the Ancient Church could not be known through perception anymore. Now, they were to be learned and to be acted upon, as if, by themselves, after all they had a proprium. This new Church or the Church now with a man, in time and after the man's reformation and his coming into regeneration, became the Ancient Church and it was a spiritual Church. The man's celestial or what is of the 'heart', that is, of his love to the Lord had been closed in order to protect the Lord's truths and goods with him. Now, don't think that by spiritual that here is meant that a man lives in some sort of spiritual-substantial body. They lived in the natural body, as did the Celestial Church and as we do today.
It was taught that a Celestial man lived his life in the internal or celestial state. That his thoughts were from within from the Lord. Primarily, you could say the Celestial man of the Most Ancient Church received life through his will, and his life was love to the Lord, for above all else he loved the Lord. That is not just saying, 'I love the Lord'. It is a sort of internal feeling. However, with the Spiritual man of the Ancient Church the understanding became first and prominant in his life and Divine truth now had to enter through the understanding and not through the will as it did with the celestial man. A man had to be illuminated within his Rational and Natural mind, not through the will or through his celestial mind. It should be pointed out that by the Rational the internal man, thus the spiritual man is meant. The celestial is one's inmost.
In the Old Testament, Genesis 6: 9, the story of Noah making an Ark as commanded by God and his entering in and the waters flooding all life outside the Ark signifies both the end of the Most Ancient Church and the beginning of a new Church, which we learn is called the Ancient Church. This Church became a spiritual Church. You need to know that the Celestial Church is of man's will and the Spiritual is of his understanding. It can be seen that Noah was not a real historical person, but was like Adam and Eve and their posterity after them, who signified that Church's various states and the doctrines of those fallen in the Most Ancient Churches. So too, were Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Jeptheth the names of the various states that the Ancient Church went through and their doctrines. The man of the Spiritual Church, like the man of the Celestial Church, had to first be reformed and then regenerated before coming into the spiritual state, and like the first Chapter of Genesis, the eighth Chapter of Genesis describes a man's regeneration. This time it was into the spiritual life, not the celestial life. In his formation, man had to undergo suffering and temptation, just as today a man does whom becomes regenerated and saved. The Flood describes these; however, the literal understanding of such a story does not reveal this, but rather God's apparent anger with mankind. In the literal sense of the Word it appears as an historical event, here you need to understand that the man of that time loved to express things representatively where as today, man is inclined more to knowledge, than he is to thought. Therefore, the Ancients had wisdom, that is, before the Ancient Church's vastation, within their understanding men displayed charity. The Churches that followed eventually looked only to knowledge as we are prone to do today and, in fact, that is what happened to the Ancient Church they ended up gathering knowledge for themselves. Nonetheless, from knowledge we, now, can gain wisdom when it is put into proper use.
Before we proceed further into the understanding the Ancient Church a comparison between the Celestial and the Spiritual Churches is in order. So, that we can see that between the two men celestial and spiritual there is a completely different genius involved one of Celestial and the other of Spiritual. First, the Most Ancient Church man had perception of what is good and what is the truth, (This came from the Lord within.) while the Ancient Church man did not have perception. The Ancient Church person had a conscience or it should be said, could develop conscience in their reformation and regeneration. It was in this way that the Lord could speak with them, as it were, and this at first was like a dictate. From the Word of the Third Testament one can learn that the men of the Most Ancient Church spoke, as it were, by ideas, as the angels do, and not by words, although there was a sort of silent speech. We know, of course, that this ability or peculiarity had receded little by little and ended, since they had turned away from the Lord and had turned to themselves and to their proprium. As the internal respiration of the celestial man ceased, external respiration became more prominent and with these external respiration, instead of a person's looks and changes of the face, which signified their thoughts and ideas; words were now articulated by sound into which the ideas of thoughts were determined.
From this we can see perception ending and a dictate that can be called conscience coming forth in the man of the Ancient Church. The result: man could no longer be instructed as angels are or as the Most Ancient Church was, which was through an internal means, but only through an external way. Before, when there were revelations, doctrinal things succeeded. These were not received by one's senses, that is, through external means. Thus, there were formed natural ideas of the memory. Then thoughts and ideas came, and so, the Lord instructed them. They were of an entirely different genius. The state that the human race came into now was entirely different a state in which, if they had not come into, they would have surely ceased. The Lord has to be conjoined with man in order for man to be sustained. Therefore, the spiritual man had to be come informed and enlightened in a different way. His internal nature had closed as is ours today and could not communicate with Heaven or the angels in the same way as before. Thus, he was no longer instructed as before, but as said, he was now instructed through an external way, which is, through his natural senses hearing and seeing, even, as we today receive instructions and are taught. Through our reading and listening to sermons, etc.