Divine Providence #124
124. At this point, I may add two secrets of angelic wisdom that will enable us to see what divine providence is like. The first is that the Lord never acts in any detail of our being by itself unless he acts in all the details at once. The second is that the Lord acts from the center and the boundaries at the same time.
The reason the Lord never acts in any detail of our being by itself unless he acts in all the details at once is that everything in us is so knit together and therefore so united in a single form that it does not act as a plurality but as a single whole. We know that we are knit together and therefore formed in this way as far as our bodies are concerned. The human mind is also in the same kind of form and has the same kind of all-inclusive connectedness, because the human mind is a spiritual person and in fact acts as a single person. This is why our spirit, the mind that is in our body, has a complete human form, so that after death we are people just as much as we are in this world. The only difference is that we have cast off the skin that made up our body in this world.
[2] Since it is the nature of the human form that all its parts make an inclusive entity that acts as a single whole, it follows that one element cannot be shifted from its place and changed with respect to state except with the consent of the others; for if one element were moved out of place and changed in state, there would be a gap in the form that was intended to act as a single whole. We can see from this that the Lord never acts on any detail without acting on all of them at the same time.
This is how the Lord works in the whole angelic heaven, because the whole angelic heaven is like a single person in his sight. This is also how the Lord acts on every individual angel, because every angel is a miniature heaven. This is also how he acts on each of us, most directly on our minds, and through them on everything in our bodies. This is because our mind is our spirit--an angel to the extent that it is united to the Lord--and our body is obedience.
[3] However, we need to be acutely aware that the Lord acts precisely, most precisely in fact, on every detail of our being while working through everything in our form. He does not, though, change the state of any part or any element in specific unless all the elements of the form concur. There will be more on this later, when I explain that the Lord's divine providence is all-inclusive because it deals with details and that it deals with details because it is all-inclusive.
[4] The reason the Lord acts from the center and the boundaries at the same time is that this is the only way the whole and all its elements can be kept connected. The things in between depend in sequence on the central ones, all the way to the boundaries, and they are all gathered together at the boundaries; for as explained in part 3 of Divine Love and Wisdom, there is a gathering at the boundaries of everything that comes from the First. This is why the Lord from eternity or Jehovah came into the world and put on the clothing of a human nature there in outermost form in order to be present in first and last things at the same time, and therefore from the first things to govern the whole world through the last things. This enabled him to save those people whom he could save under the laws of his divine providence, which are also the laws of his divine wisdom. This involves the fact acknowledged in the Christian world that no one could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world (see Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Faith 35). This is why the Lord is called the First and the Last.
Ezekiel 32
1
It happened in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first [day] of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
2
Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, You were likened to a young lion of the nations: yet you are as a monster in the seas; and you did break forth with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.
3
Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples; and they shall bring you up in my net.
4
I will leave you on the land, I will cast you forth on the open field, and will cause all the birds of the sky to settle on you, and I will satisfy the animals of the whole earth with you.
5
I will lay your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your height.
6
I will also water with your blood the land in which you swim, even to the mountains; and the watercourses shall be full of you.
7
When I shall extinguish you, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light.
8
All the bright lights of the sky will I make dark over you, and set darkness on your land, says the Lord Yahweh.
9
I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I shall bring your destruction among the nations, into the countries which you have not known.
10
Yes, I will make many peoples amazed at you, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for you, when I shall brandish my sword before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall.
11
For thus says the Lord Yahweh: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come on you.
12
By the swords of the mighty will I cause your multitude to fall; the terrible of the nations are they all: and they shall bring to nothing the pride of Egypt, and all its multitude shall be destroyed.
13
I will destroy also all its animals from beside many waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, nor the hoofs of animals trouble them.
14
Then will I make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, says the Lord Yahweh.
15
When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate and waste, a land destitute of that of which it was full, when I shall strike all those who dwell therein, then shall they know that I am Yahweh.
16
This is the lamentation with which they shall lament; the daughters of the nations shall lament therewith; over Egypt, and over all her multitude, shall they lament therewith, says the Lord Yahweh.
17
It happened also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth [day] of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
18
Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit.
19
Whom do you pass in beauty? Go down, and be laid with the uncircumcised.
20
They shall fall in the midst of those who are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword; draw her away and all her multitudes.
21
The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of Sheol with those who help him: they are gone down, they lie still, even the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
22
Asshur is there and all her company; her graves are all around her; all of them slain, fallen by the sword;
23
whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit, and her company is around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who caused terror in the land of the living.
24
There is Elam and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who are gone down uncircumcised into the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit.
25
They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude; her graves are around her; all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for their terror was caused in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of those who are slain.
26
There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude; their graves are around them; all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the living.
27
They shall not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who are gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones; for [they were] the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
28
But you shall be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shall lie with those who are slain by the sword.
29
There is Edom, her kings and all her princes, who in their might are laid with those who are slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with those who go down to the pit.
30
There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who are gone down with the slain; in the terror which they caused by their might they are put to shame; and they lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.
31
Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, says the Lord Yahweh.
32
For I have put his terror in the land of the living; and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord Yahweh.
