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184 SWEDENBORG’S TRAVELS AND DIARIES. [Doc. 209. I
be resisted, whenever man tries to believe from his own
understanding, and not from the Lord’s grace.* At last it
was granted me by the grace of the Spirit to receive faith
without reasoning upon it, and thus to be assured in respect
to it ; I then saw, as it were, below me my own thoughts,
by which faith was confirmed ; I laughed in my mind at
them, but still more at those by which they were im
pugned and opposed. Faith appeared to be far above the
thoughts of my understanding.* Then only I got peace : May
God strengthen me in it ! For it is His work, and mine so
much the less, as my thoughts, and indeed the best of them,
destroy more than they are able to promote. Man smiles at him
self, both when he thinks in opposition to faith, and when he
desires with his understanding to confirm what he believes.
It is therefore a higher state-I am uncertain whether it is
not the highest-when man, by grace, no longer mixes up his
understanding in matters of faith; although it appears as
if the Lord with certain persons permits the understanding
to precede such states of assurance in respect to things
which concern the understanding. "Blessed are they who
believe and do not see."* This I have clearly written in the
Prologue, nos. 21, 22 ;† yet of my own self I could never have
discovered this or arrived at its knowledge ; but God’s grace
has wrought this, I being unconscious of it; afterwards, however,
I perceived it from the very effect and the change in my
whole interior being. This, therefore, is God’s grace and
His work, and to Him alone belongs eternal glory. From this
I see how difficult it is for the learned, more indeed than for
the unlearned, to arrive at such a faith, and consequently to
conquer themselves [to such a degree] that they are able to
smile at themselves :§ for man’s worship of his own understanding
must first of all be abolished and overthrown ; and this is
God’s work and not man’s. It is also God’s work for man
* See Note 165, xi, A.
The Prologue to the Regnum Animale, English Edition , Vol. I.
pp. 13, 14.
See Note 165, viii.
§ See Note 165, ix, A, and Note 166, i.
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