-
And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to the voice of the LORD your God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command you this day, that the LORD your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth:
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- And it shall come to pass if you shall diligently obey the Divine
Love and Wisdom as far as you know them, to observe and carry out in the
life the truths given you in every state from the Lord, either through the
Word, or from doctrine, or from conscience, then you shall be perfected by
the Divine Love and Wisdom even to the inmost recesses of the soul:
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-
And all these blessings shall come on you, and overtake you, if you shall hearken to the voice of the LORD your God.
|
- And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you
shall hearken to and carry out in the life the dictates of the Divine Love and
Wisdom.
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-
Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
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- You shall be blessed both in the doctrines and knowledges of truth which
you shall possess in the interiors of the mind, and in the faculties
receptive of truth from heaven in the natural mind.
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-
Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep.
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- You shall be blessed in the increase of good born of your new regenerate
will, in the increase of the good and truth sown in the heart by the Lord, and
in the increase of the good affections planted therein, and in the increase of
natural good, and in your affections of love and charity.
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-
Blessed shall be your basket and your store.
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- Your new will and understanding shall be filled with good things from the
Lord.
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-
Blessed shall you be when you comest in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
|
- Blessed shall be your alternating states in regeneration from exterior to
interior, and from interior to exterior things.
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-
The LORD shall cause your enemies that rise up against you to be smitten before your face: they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.
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- And all the evils and falses that infest your soul shall be driven by the
Lord from the interiors of your mind; though they seem linked together as one
against you, they shall be absolutely scattered.
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-
The LORD shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouses, and in all that you set your hand to; and he shall bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
|
- The Lord shall command His blessing on all the remains of good and truth
stored in your soul by Him, and upon all that is attempted by your new
regenerate will; and you shall be for ever blessed in the new principles of
life which you have from the Divine Love and Wisdom.
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-
The LORD shall establish you an holy people to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in his ways.
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- And the Lord will establish your character with pure truths unmixed with
falsities, so that you may be His as promised in the Word, if you will
give yourself up to His guidance, and follow in the path pointed out by the
Divine Love and Wisdom.
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-
And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of you.
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- And all the lower propensities of the mind shall perceive that your new
regenerate will is stamped with the qualities derived from the Lord's Divine
Humanity; and shall desist from infesting you.
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-
And the LORD shall make you plentiful in goods, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
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- And the Lord shall bring you to a full state of spiritual goods—of
spiritual births in your regenerate will; in the fruits of all holy affections
within you, and of the truths sown in your heart in that state of heavenly
life, to endure for ever, with which you shall be gifted, according to the
Lord's promise in the Word to those who will receive genuine good from the
Divine Love and Wisdom. [Note.—It may be noted here, where a full
regenerate state is treated of, that good is mentioned first and truth second;
whereas in verses 3, 4, treating of a prior state, truth comes first.]
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-
The LORD shall open to you his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain to your land in his season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow.
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- Yours interior mind shall be open towards the Lord, whose influx of
goodness and wisdom shall pour in upon you from heaven into your new
regenerate will according to necessity, to bless all your efforts to serve
Him: your regenerate life shall impart happiness and satisfaction to all the
exterior faculties of the mind, and shall not need to borrow aught from them.
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-
And the LORD shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if that you hearken to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day, to observe and to do them:
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- You shall be made spiritual and intelligent, and be elevated out of the
light of the world into the light of heaven; you shall look to the Lord and
not look to self (see AE 559); if that you hearken to the commandments
of the Divine Love and Wisdom now made manifest from the Word, to carry them
out in your life:
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-
And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
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- And you shall be preserved from going in any other way than that in which
the Lord Himself leads, or into which the good and truth of heaven and the
Church lead (AE 600, end), and from every false principle of religion,
doctrine, and life derived therefrom.
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-
But it shall come to pass, if you will not hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day; that all these curses shall come upon you, and overtake you:
|
- But it shall come to pass if you will not hearken to the voice of the
Lord your God within your soul to carry out the laws of Divine order in your life
both in internal and external things which are made manifest from the Word;
then will you avert yourself from the Lord and His influences, and bring upon
yourself all these evils and curses which will surely overtake you:
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-
Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
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- The doctrines of truth which you did possess shall become falsities,
and your external mind shall be closed to the Lord, and receive only the
fallacies that flow from hell.
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-
Cursed shall be your basket and your store.
|
- The goods stored up in your will and understanding by the Lord shall become
corrupted by evil and falsity.
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-
Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your land, the increase of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep.
|
- All the spiritual births of your soul, all the products of your mind from
the good and truth sown therein by the Lord, all the developments of your
affections, both interior and exterior, will be polluted.
|
-
Cursed shall you be when you comest in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
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- The progress of your spiritual life from interior to exterior states, and
vice versa, will be from bad to worse, and towards utter vastation of
all good.
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-
The LORD shall send upon you cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that you set your hand to for to do, until you be destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the wickedness of your doings, whereby you have forsaken me.
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- You shall bring upon yourself aversion from the Lord (which is to be
cursed), infestation by evil spirits, and punishment, in all that is attempted
by your perverted will, till your spiritual life is destroyed, and you are
completely lost; because you have rejected life by not receiving and
appropriating the influx from the Lord.
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-
The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave to you, until he have consumed you from off the land, whither you go to possess it.
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- You shall attract the falsities of evil to you, which will utterly
destroy all the goods and truths of the Church, which you hadst received from
the Lord as the possession of your new regenerate will.
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-
The LORD shall smite you with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish.
|
- And you will bring upon yourself a consumption of your spiritual life, with
lust and vehement desire to commit evil, and the extinction of good by burning
evil in the natural will, and the false destroying all truth, and inability to
receive good and truth from the Lord; which evils will infest you till your
spiritual life is perished.
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-
And your heaven that is over your head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron.
|
- And the whole of your mind, both interior and exterior, will be entirely
shut out from heaven, and immersed in worldly and corporeal things.
|
-
The LORD shall make the rain of your land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon you, until you be destroyed.
|
- And the influx from the' Lord into your soul will be turned into what is
corporeal and infernal: from the interiors of your mind it will stream out
upon you till your spiritual life is destroyed.
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-
The LORD shall cause you to be smitten before your enemies: you shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.
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- And having removed yourself from the protection of the Lord, you will be
entirely under the power of evils and falses: you shall consider yourself
secure against them, but all your resistance will be utterly dissipated before
them: you shall be delivered up to every kind of evil and false persuasion.
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-
And your carcase shall be meat to all birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.
|
- And your lost soul will become a prey to every kind of false imagination
and evil craving; there will be no spiritual wisdom from the Lord in
your soul to drive them away.
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-
The LORD will smite you with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof you can not be healed.
|
- You shall be smitten with the evils arising from the filthy loves of the
natural man, with truths defiled by evils of life, with the blasphemous
conjunction of good and evil, and with the loss of peace, which cannot be
regained.
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-
The LORD shall smite you with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:
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- And you will be without conscience or other interior plane to retain the
Divine influx (see AC 5145), and you will be destitute of the
understanding of truth, and of the will of good:
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-
And you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and spoiled ever more, and no man shall save you.
|
- And you shall be of such a quality, even though you are in the Lord's
Church, where the light of truth is given by the Word; you shall be as though
you hadst no light; your course of life will be thwarted because against the
order of Divine Providence; you will be infested by evils and falses, and
will not be able to receive truths from the Lord to deliver you from them.
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-
You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build an house, and you shall not dwell therein: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not gather the grapes thereof.
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- You shall seek to realize your idea of happiness, and find it to be a
mistaken one and conjoined to folly: you may lead an outwardly moral and
decorous life, but as it does not agree with your interior soul you will not
be able to retain it: you may be in the possession of truth, but shall not
possess the good of life to which it leads.
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-
Yours ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat thereof: your ass shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to rescue them.
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- In the next world such natural good as you have possessed will be
destroyed, and you shall perceive it to be so, and that no part is
appropriated to you: the understanding of truth which you hadst in your
natural mind shall be completely separated from you (as your true interior
character becomes developed), and you shall not be able to regain it; and the
good affections which you hadst externally will be turned to evils, and there
will be no principle in your soul to prevent it.
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-
Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in your hand.
|
- And the good affections and good thoughts which you hadst given birth to
in your natural life will be under the power of the false principle that rules
within you, and your understanding will strive in vain to make use of them
in that state: and you will be without the power of doing anything good or
thinking anything true.
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-
The fruit of your land, and all your labours, shall a nation which you know not eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always:
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- And all the results of your life and labour in this world will be consumed
by your interior evil, the quality of which you were not acquainted with
before; and you will be always restrained and prevented from following your
own will, because against the Divine order:
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-
So that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.
|
- And you shall be insane, and without the power of thinking and acting
rationally, from the false persuasions which will appear to your perverted
understanding.
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-
The LORD shall smite you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
|
- The holy principle of conjugial love or the conjunction of good and truth
within you shall become infernal, and that even to extremes past remedy, and
your whole soul will be diseased from externals to internals. (See AC Index,
"Knee.")
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-
The LORD shall bring you, and your king which you shall set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known; and there shall you serve other gods, wood and stone.
|
- And you will come together with the false principles you have taken for
a guide to a state of evil worse than that of any previous state of your soul;
where you will love and cherish what is evil and false.
|
-
And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead you.
|
- And you will be more consumed with evil than those who are out of the
Church, or who are in externals, or in whom regeneration has not commenced, so
as to be an astonishment, proverb, and byword amongst them.
|
-
You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
|
- You may learn many truths in your natural life, but shall reap but
little in the next world; for the false derived from evil shall consume it.
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-
You shall plant vineyards, and dress them, but shall neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.
|
- Though you have abundance of doctrines about truth, and have studied
them, you will not imbibe spiritual truth by their means, nor be endowed with
the good thereof; for they will be destroyed by the corrupting influence of
your unregenerate proprium.
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-
You shall have olive trees throughout all your coasts, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast his fruit.
|
- Though you may live in the Church with the means of acquiring
celestial good within reach, you shall not enjoy its felicities; for the
good within you shall be dissipated by evils.
|
-
You shall beget sons and daughters, but you shall not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.
|
- You shall develop seeming goods and truths in your external mind in this
world, but they will not benefit you in the next; for they will be kept bound
by your evil lusts.
|
-
All your trees and fruit of your land shall the locust consume.
|
- And all the knowledges and spiritual fruit of your soul will be consumed by
the false derived from your interior evil.
|
-
The stranger that is within you shall get up above you very high; and you shall come down very low.
|
- What is evil and false within you will dominate over your soul; and what
is good and true will be reduced beneath.
|
-
He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
|
- These false and evil principles shall distort and influence what is good
and true in your mind, and the latter shall not influence and control the
former: the false and the evil shall rule in you, and the good that you
hadst shall be abased beneath them.
|
-
Moreover all these curses shall come upon you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, till you be destroyed; because you hearkenedst not to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you:
|
- Moreover, all these evils shall come upon you, and shall pursue you, and
overtake you, till all your spiritual life is utterly destroyed in you;
because you did not obey the voice of the Divine Love and Wisdom within
you, to attend to follow the perception that was given you of what was in
accordance with the Divine laws, and the principles of life laid down by them:
|
-
And they shall be upon you for a sign and for a wonder, and upon your seed for ever.
|
- And they shall be upon you as a testification and a proof of the evil of
rejecting the Divine, the terrible consequences of which shall be an example
to the good for all ages.
|
-
Because you servedst not the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;
|
- And because you would not serve the Lord your God by receiving and
obeying with delight and with gladness of heart the precepts of the Divine
Love and Wisdom, whereby your soul would have been filled with happiness;
|
-
Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he have destroyed you.
|
- Therefore you will serve the enemies of your soul in selfishness, folly,
and ignorance, and the loss of all true felicity: and you will be held bound
by the love of evil of your unregenerate nature, till all the life from God
is destroyed within your soul.
|
-
The LORD shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand;
|
- And a new state of evil shall come upon you from the domination of
external things with false reasonings thence derived; in which you will
utterly lose the faculty of understanding what is good and true;
|
-
A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young:
|
- And your interiors will become closed, and wisdom will not be regarded,
nor innocence esteemed:
|
-
And he shall eat the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your land, until you be destroyed: which also shall not leave you either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of your kine, or flocks of your sheep, until he have destroyed you.
|
- This state will consume the produce of the apparently good affections and
right principles in the natural mind until spiritual life is destroyed: it
will not leave in your soul any kind of spiritual nourishment, truth, or good,
neither the results of your external goodness, nor spiritual and interior
good, until all is lost.
|
-
And he shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fenced walls come down, wherein you trustedst, throughout all your land: and he shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.
|
- It will attack your rational mind (see AC 2851) until those doctrinals
which you considered so exalted and secure will be overthrown: and all the
entrances from your rational mind to heaven, whereby the Lord had given you
goodness and wisdom from Himself, will become closed.
|
-
And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, which the LORD your God has given you, in the siege, and in the straitness, with which your enemies shall distress you:
|
- So that you will consume the good of your own soul, and the goods of the
truths and affections which the Divine Love and Wisdom had developed within
you, in the oppression of the false, and deprivation of spiritual
nourishment, which will be brought upon you by evils and falses, the enemies
of your soul:
|
-
So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
|
- So that the truth that was once esteemed full of goodness and kindness
amongst you, shall be hostile to all charity, and towards the holy affection
of doing good that was once joined to it in the soul, and towards those right
principles of conduct that were once developed from it:
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-
So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he has nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, with which your enemies shall distress you in all your gates.
|
- So that it will not supply to any of them anything of what is now called
good by the perverted will, namely, the desires of the proprium on which the
soul feeds; and has no other perception of good left on account of the
oppression of falsities and evils, whereby the entrance of all good and truth
from the Lord into the soul is prevented.
|
-
The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
|
- The affection of charity that was esteemed tender and pure in the soul,
that seemed as though it had nothing in contact with carnal things on account
of its sanctity and purity, shall be so blinded as to hate the principles of
truth and good that were its guide and counsellor, and the holy affections and
thoughts that were once produced from it,
|
-
And toward her young one that comes out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates.
|
- And its innocent spiritual births in the natural mind, and the good uses
performed by it; they shall be consumed inwardly and unperceived in the soul
on account of the defect of all good and truth in the oppression and closing
of the mind from influx of heaven, brought about by the dominion of the evil
and false.
|
-
If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
|
- If you will not observe to carry out into your life all the will of the
Lord as given by the Word, that you may perceive and reverence and
exceedingly fear to act against the Divine and Holy qualities that shine forth
from God made manifest,—that is, the lord JESUS CHRIST.
[Note. —In the internal sense, "Name" signifies quality or character.
The character of Jehovah is shown by the fact that to save mankind He assumed
the sorrows and the sins of human nature; became the Son of a. peasant's wife,
the companion of a few poor fishermen, the friend of outcasts and the lowest
sinners; lived a life of poverty, and died a felon's death; so that none of
His creatures can say his cross is so heavy as that voluntarily assumed for
his sake by the Creator Himself. If it be objected that this Being was not
God, but a created man like ourselves, it may fairly be answered, that what is
related of this Man, is at all events superior in Divine
characteristics to what is related of any other god elsewhere, in any
religion, ancient or modern; and how can created man be superior to God?] |
-
Then the LORD will make your plagues wonderful, and the plagues of your seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
|
- Then will all the good that is within you be utterly devastated, and all
the truths thence derived will be utterly devastated, and your understanding
will be a confused mass of false persuasions derived from evil, and your heart
will be corrupt with the love of evil.
|
-
Moreover he will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cleave to you.
|
- And you shall bring upon yourself all those evils, and the loss of
happiness in the natural mind of which you were afraid; and they shall cleave
to you.
|
-
Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon you, until you be destroyed.
|
- And all the evils and falses which come from a life contrary to the Divine
order as revealed in the Word, will you bring upon you till your spiritual
life be destroyed.
|
-
And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
|
- And all your knowledges of what is good and true will be reduced to
nothing, whereas you were plenteously endowed with knowledges from heaven and
the Word; because you did not obey, and carry out in the life the dictates
of the Divine Love and Wisdom.
|
-
And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and you shall be plucked from off the land whither you go to possess it.
|
- And it shall come to pass that as you were built up by the Lord with
joyfulness into a Church* full of truths of wisdom and good affections; so
will it become necessary, for the sake of others, that you should be
utterly deprived of all truth and ability to act, and that all the things of
the Church should be plucked away from within you.
* Each regenerate soul is a Church, and a Temple of God
(l Cor 3:16). |
-
And the LORD shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, even wood and stone.
|
- And all the goods and truths of your mind will be scattered among falses in
the external principles of your mind; and you will be brought under the
bondage of evil affections and false persuasions unknown to you in any former
period of the soul since regeneration commenced, even a simulated worship from
evils and falses of doctrine, which has for its real object nothing but
selfishness and worldliness.
|
-
And among these nations shall you find no ease, neither shall the sole of your foot have rest: but the LORD shall give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
|
- But these external things will give you no true satisfaction, and the
sensuous or external part of your mind will not be tranquil and content: but
you will bring upon yourself a timorous heart, weakness of perception, and
misery of mind:
|
-
And your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of your life:
|
- You shall be full of anxiety and distress about the future; you shall be
in fear in every state, and shall not feel any sense of protection by the
Lord:
|
-
In the morning you shall say, Would God it were even! and at even you shall say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of your heart with which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.
|
- And when the light of heaven flows in from the Lord revealing your mind
you shall say, Would God it were obscured! and when kept in ignorance you
shall wish for more light on account of the anxieties of your mind, and your
falsified perception of the character of God.
|
-
And the LORD shall bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spoke to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall be sold to your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.
|
- And you shall return to a merely natural and corporeal state conducted by
the false intelligence derived from worldly science alone (or, based on the
evidence of the senses alone), in which you trustedst, and by those doctrines
which in your regenerate state you hadst perceived from the Word to be false:
and in that natural state you will become the slaves of every evil cupidity and
false imagination, and of no service to real truth.
|