True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 105

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105. The Lord had to undergo these two states of exinanition and glorification because progress towards union is not possible by any other way, since it is in accordance with Divine order, and this is immutable. Divine order requires that a person should adjust himself to receive God, and prepare himself as a receiver and dwelling-place for God to enter into and live as in His temple. This a person must do of himself while still acknowledging that it is from God. He must make this acknowledgment, because he does not feel the presence and working of God, although it is God who by His intimate presence performs all the good of love and all the truth of faith in a person. Every person must and will advance in accordance with this order, if he is to become spiritual instead of natural. The Lord advanced in the same way in order to make His natural human Divine; it was for this reason that He prayed to the Father, did His will, attributed to Him all that He did and said, and on the cross uttered the words 'My God, my God, why are you abandoning me?' For in that state God appears to be absent. But after this state comes another, which is a state of being linked with God. In this state a man behaves in the same way, but then does so from God; nor does he then need, as he did previously, to attribute to God all the good which he wills and does, and all the truth which he thinks and speaks, because this acknowledgment is written on his heart, and consequently is inwardly in every action he does and every word he utters. In the same way the Lord united Himself with His Father, and the Father united Himself with Him; in short, the Lord glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, in just the same way as He regenerates a person, that is, makes him spiritual. [2] Every person who becomes spiritual instead of natural passes through two states, the first of which leads to the second, and so from the world to heaven, as will be fully proved in the chapters on free will, charity and faith, reformation and regeneration. All I shall say here is that in the first state, that called reformation, a person has full freedom to act as his understanding argues; and in the second, the state of regeneration, he has the same freedom, but he then wills and acts, thinks and speaks under the influence of a new love and a new intelligence, which are given him by the Lord. For in the first state the understanding plays the leading role and the will the second, in the second state the will plays the leading role and the understanding the second. But still it is the understanding which acts from the will, not the will which acts by means of the understanding. The linking of good and truth, charity and faith, and the internal and external man, takes place in exactly the same way.


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