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PHILOSOPHY IN 1743 AND 1744. 1113
ideas which no longer belonged to the old, but to the new theology,
which he taught after 1747.
The doctrine that man enjoys free will, not only in natural but
also in spiritual things, and that in order to receive salvation from
the Lord, he must co-operate with Him, is enunciated in several
places of the Diary for 1744. We read there:
"Man must strive after salvation with fear and trembling” (no. 69).
"
We must really do what is good, and execute it with God’s
grace and in the faith granted by God; for in this case we receive
from our Lord every thing that we need and that is useful to us"
(no. 68).
"We must labour in order to gain heaven" (no. 92).
"Faith is received by man when he lives according to the com
mandments of God, and when he continually prays to God for it”
(no. 99).
"Man must do the work of love out of obedience to faith, even
though it be opposed to the lusts of the body and its persuasions"
(no. 111).
In respect to man’s freedom of choice, which is continually pre
served in him by Lord, we read: "I can compare the action of
the Spirit [by which the freedom of man’s will is preserved] to a
pair of scales ; on one side of which is our own will and our sinful
nature, and, on the other, God’s power. These our Lord so disposes
in temptation, that they are in a state of equilibrium: as soon
then as it is borne down on this side, he helps it up again. Such
have I found, speaking in a natural manner, to be the case ; and
from this it follows that this is far from being our own power; this
draws the scale down, and is rather opposed to, than co-operating
with, the Spirit’s power; and, consequently, it is entirely our Lord’s
work which is thus disposed by Him" (no. 34).
Such then are the principal features of Swedenborg’s theology in
1743 and 1744, and by the complete concordance therewith of the
theology set forth in the Diary for 1744, an additional proof is fur
nished of its authenticity.
NOTE 166.
SWEDENBORG’S PHILOSOPHY IN 1743 AND 1744.
It is not our purpose in this Note to give a full exposition of
the philosophy taught by Swedenborg in 1743 and 1744, but we
intend to show that the philosophical principles stated in the Diary
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