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Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgements, and his commandments, always.
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You shall therefore love the Divine Goodness and Wisdom as revealed
to you in the Lord Jesus Christ, and shall keep all those things which are
ordained by Him in the Word, the principles of action laid down by Him, His
decisions in every difficulty, and His commandments for the life at all times
and in all states.
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And know you this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm,
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- And let the soul now clearly perceive and trust in the Divine will of the
Lord; for a greater obligation is imposed upon it than upon those who are in
externals and have no perception of the Divine will, and are ignorant of the
dealings of the Divine Love and Wisdom in correcting the soul, the omnipotent
power of His goodness and the profound wisdom of His acts, and their influence
in Providence over all things for the good of the soul,
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And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land;
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- The wonderful way in which He has confirmed truth to the soul, and His
operations by temptations upon the interiors of the natural unregenerate mind,
upon the falsities arising from self-derived intelligence, and upon all the
cupidities agreeing therewith,
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And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day;
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- And how He broke the power of the natural unregenerate principle, which
loves the life of the world more than the life of heaven in the soul, with the
false reasonings and doctrines thence derived; how He permitted the waters of
temptation and affliction to surround the soul, by which the emptiness of
these things was made apparent, and by which they were overwhelmed as they
attempted to prevent the deliverance of spiritual faculties of the soul; and
how the Divine goodness has destroyed them out of the soul, as in the present
state;
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And what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came into this place;
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- And how He has led you through all the defects of good and truth that have
arisen, till you have been brought to the present state;
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And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:
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- And what He did upon the false doctrines which are derived in long series
from perverted religious faith, which place doctrines or ceremonial in the
place of a life of true charity and duty: how the common perception of truth,
such as exists even with those who are out of the Church, helped the soul by
showing the fallacy of these notions and swallowing up those false doctrines,
with their appearances of truth and worship from good, together with all the
apparent religious feelings and intelligence derived from them, out of the
midst of the spiritual mind. (See AE 764, 765.) [Note.—The
arguments even of those who reject revelation and who reason from nature only,
assist the development of a real perception of truth in the soul by clearing
the mind from the falsities of a blind persuasive faith; that is to say, of a
persuasion that any dogma is to be believed unaccompanied by any internal and
rational perception of its truth, and that such blind belief in any dogma can
save without a well-spent life.]
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But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did.
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- But the marvelous operations of the Divine Providence in these things
have been made clearly manifest to the perceptions of the soul.
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Therefore shall you keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither you go to possess it;
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- Therefore shall you be extremely careful to follow the dictates of the
Lord, which are now perceived to be His will, from the Word, that the soul may
be fortified by the Divine presence, and progress towards internal things, and
possess those heavenly thoughts and affections, to possess which should be the
main object and aim of the regenerating soul;
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And that you may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land that flows with milk and honey.
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- And that the states through which the soul passes may be complete and
filled with good, and thus it may inherit in the next world those heavenly
blessings which the Lord has promised to those who are in good and in truths
derived from good, states full of the good of spiritual truth and of the
eternal felicity thence derived.
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For the land, whither you go in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence you came out, where you sowedst your seed, and wateredst it with your foot, as a garden of herbs:
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- For the interior states of the mind with which the Lord will gift you,
are not as those external states of religion existing in the natural mind and
the memory only, from which you have been brought out; in which you were
instructed in doctrinals formulated in the natural mind and supported by
arguments derived from the natural principle, as the sciences of worldly
knowledges are studied:
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But the land, whither you go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven:
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- But the state to which the Lord is leading the soul to gift it with, is a
state of mutual love and the truths agreeing therewith, and receives pure
truths from the Lord direct by influx from heaven:
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A land which the LORD your God cares for: the eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.
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- A state which is more immediately receptive of the Divine Love and Wisdom;
and which has ever a clear perception of truth and genuine wisdom by influx
from the Divine Love and Wisdom, in all the alternating states of spiritual
life.
[Note (verses 10-12).—There is a great difference between hereditary
faith, or faith derived from instruction in childhood, and that derived from a
rational perception of truth. In the one case the mind simply receives what is
taught in the memory, which may be true or may be false; in the other it
receives what is true and rejects what is false from an inward standard and
perception of what is true or false. In the following verses this perception
is promised to those who from the heart endeavour to carry out the Lord's
will. (See also John 7:17.)] |
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And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
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- And it shall come to pass that if the soul will diligently hearken to and
carry out all the perceptions of the Lord's will which it has in this state,
to love the Divine Love and Wisdom revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ (the
Lord's Divine Humanity is the God of the New Church), and to resign to Him the
whole will and understanding,
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That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil.
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- That the Lord will replenish your soul with influx from heaven to supply
all its needs, both for your spiritual states and for your natural states, that
you may be abundantly furnished with every kind of good in the external
man, and with spiritual truth and with celestial good.
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And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full.
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- And the Lord will provide spiritual nourishment for all the affections of
the natural mind in your soul, that they may be incorporated in your new
spiritual nature, and that you may be satisfied with good.
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Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
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- Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside
and serve falses, which favour the evil loves of the unregenerate heart, and
love them supremely,
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And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD gives you.
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- And become averse to the good and truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine
Humanity (the Lord Jesus Christ); and thus the internal man or the entrance to
heaven within you become closed, and there be no influx from there; and that
thus the soul will bring forth no good fruit, and you will quickly lose all the
life of heaven within you, which proceeds solely from the Divine Humanity
implanted in you. (John 15:5, 6.)
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Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
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- Therefore shall you lay up the Divine words, the revelations of the
Divine will, in your heart, and let them permeate your understanding; you
shall stamp their impress upon every act of your new regenerate will, and they
shall be the ruling centre of your understanding.
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And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you liest down, and when you risest up.
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- And you shall impress them upon all the derivative principles of the
mind, meditating on them when you are retired into the inmost recesses of your
will, and when your intentions go forth into thoughts and deeds, and they shall
be present with you when your mind is engaged in worldly business (and your
soul is, as it were, asleep), and when you are elevated by the Lord towards
more interior things.
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And you shall write them upon the door posts of your house, and upon your gates:
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- And you shall write them upon the entrance to your inmost will, that
they may regulate the things admitted into and proceeding from the mind, and
all your communications with the outer world.
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That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.
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- That all your varying states may be filled with the life that proceeds
from obeying the truths of the Lord, and all your thoughts thence derived, in
that perfected state of life which the Lord has promised to those who will
attain good by following Him in the regeneration, and that thus your life even
upon earth may become like the life of heaven.
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For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave to him;
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- For if you will diligently attend to all the perceptions which are given
you of the Lord's will by the Word to carry them out in the life, to love
above all things the goodness and wisdom proceeding from the Lord's Divine
Humanity, to form your life in all respects according to the pattern set by
Him, and thus to become conjoined with Him,
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Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.
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- Then will the Lord drive out the evils of the soul now made manifest from
the interiors of the heart, and you shall acquire faculties more receptive of
good than those which the natural man imagines would be derived from
self-intelligence.
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Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the uttermost sea shall your coast be.
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- Every state to which you shall be conducted in your natural life shall
become subservient to the life of heaven within you; from those states of
desolation in which a total want of all spiritual nourishment and comfort is
felt, and those in which the truths of faith were implanted, from those states
of wisdom formed by the influx of things spiritual into things rational, and
things rational into things natural (AE 569), even to the whole of
the knowledges and scientifics of the memory, shall be made use of in forming
the new regenerate character.
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There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon, as he has said to you.
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- No falsity shall be able to bar the progress of the mind towards
intelligence for the Divine Love and Wisdom will inspire the goods and truths
proceeding from Himself within you with convincing power in all the varying
states to which you shall be brought in this natural world, according to his
promises in the Word.
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Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
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- See clearly, then, that the Word in this state sets before the soul a
blessing and a curse—
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A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:
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- A blessing if you obey and carry out the dictates of the Divine Love and
Wisdom which are now most clearly manifested to the soul,
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And a curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which you have not known.
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- And a curse if you will not obey the dictates of the Divine Love and
Wisdom, but turn aside from the course so plainly pointed out in this state
from the Word to be the right one, and place other things than the Lord and
His kingdom in the supreme place against the perception thus given you.
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And it shall come to pass, when the LORD your God has brought you in to the land whither you go to possess it, that you shall put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
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- And it shall come to pass when the Divine Love and Wisdom have brought
you to the heavenly state which the Lord designs to give you as your own,
that you shall plainly put before the mind and keep in remembrance that
happiness proceeds from love to the Lord and keeping His commandments, and
that misery proceeds from the love of self and rejection of the Lord.
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Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?
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- These things are clearly perceived by those who are within the Lord's
kingdom, when the love of self begins to be subdued and moderated in the soul,
as is the case with those who begin to act from the spiritual motives which
have place in the soul when it has entered the Lord's kingdom, and into the
first states of perception thence derived.
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For you shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you shall possess it, and dwell therein.
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- For you are now to be introduced into the heavenly kingdom of the Lord, and
to possess all those blessed states which proceed from carrying out the
dictates of the Divine Love and Wisdom, and they shall be yours as if from
yourselves, and you shall be ever in them.
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And you shall observe to do all the statutes and judgements which I set before you this day.
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- And you shall then observe and do all the things which are perceived to be
necessary by internal dictate from the revelations given in every state from
the Word, both in spiritual and in natural things.
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