Chapter XXXI. The Glorification; Its Third Stage-Youth.

As appears in this diagram, the LORD at the beginning of His Manhood had all that development, formation and storing of the several planes of His Human which answered in Him to the state of man on arrival at adult age, allowing for the difference between the LORD and man. (Compare this diagram with XXI representing man at the commencement of his majority.) With man at this period the spiritual mind is formed and stored with remains of finite good and truth from the LORD. With the LORD at this stage the spiritual mind was formed and stored from the Father in Him with Infinite Divine Good and Truth. His spiritual mind, though now Divine is yet (like man's at this age) to he successively opened and entered as the Glorification progresses in adult age and as the ascent of the interior seat of perception towards the Father continues.

Consequent on the spiritual mind being made Divine and in proportion as it was so made, a most potent influx descended into the natural mind. But for the reception of this influx the natural must he stored by instruction and other Divine means. This preparation of His natural was effected by degrees from the lowest to the highest. Nor could His spiritual mind be made Divine Truth and Good, faster than His natural mind became truth divine. This influx from the Divine in the spiritual mind was not a descent of the Divine Itself into the natural; the Divine Itself had not yet descended lower than into the spiritual mind, nor could it till the spiritual mind was first made Divine in all its degrees and the natural mind fully prepared for its reception, This, however, is now accomplished; the Divine Itself, filling even the lowest degree of the spiritual mind (c), is ready to descend into the highest degree of the natural and make it Divine and in due time into the others below.

This preparation of the highest degree of the natural to receive and be made Divine Truth Itself, which will be the next step of Glorification, was effected by making it truth divine of the purest kind during this period. We say truth divine of the purest kind. The truth divine (truth from the Divine) which was first received to aid in preparing any degree to be made Divine, was not the purest kind of truth divine. Truth divine in each degree was rendered gradually more and more pure till it reached its maximum. Not till then could it receive Essential Divine Truth from above into a degree below.

Only the purest kind of truth divine could be in the degree next to the Divine Itself or next to a degree already made Divine, and consequently such only could introduce the Divine into a degree below. Such purest truth divine now fills the highest degree of His natural mind. The lower degrees are also stored with truth divine but of less and less purity according to descent, each kind of truth divine serving its appropriate use and each gradually becoming purer till it reaches its purest and then gives place to Divine Truth Itself as Glorification descends.
Truth divine in one degree differs from truth divine in another because the degrees themselves differ in nature and function. Thus when we say that each degree became the purest kind of truth divine as the last step of preparation, we mean the purest suited to that degree. Truth divine in His spiritual mind was different from truth divine in His natural mind and both were different from that in the limbus.
We have said that His spiritual mind could not be made Divine before truth divine of a lower order and at length of the purest was implanted in His natural mind. Neither could the natural mind be made truth divine of a higher order before the limbus was made truth divine of a lower order. The work progressed in each degree in due regard to the state of the other degrees.

The body was being continually renovated and purified during the Glorification of all the degrees above it from birth to crucifixion. The work wrought in any period of His life was not confined to a single degree but while a higher degree was being glorified a corresponding change was made in the preparation of all the planes below, in each according to its nature and state.

By the work accomplished in this period the interior scat of perception is elevated to the highest part of His natural mind and stands ready to ascend during the next period into the lowest degree of His spiritual mind now Divine.

His whole spiritual mind being glorified, His whole natural mind stored with remains and its highest degree d filled with the purest and most potent order of truth divine, a more powerful influx now descends into the natural mind especially into its highest degree. Hence a most potent force is brought to bear on the infernal spirits occupying the world of spirits where they were molesting the angels, perverting influx from the heavens, infesting novitiates and darkening the minds of men on earth. This force casts them down to the lower earth of that world. As the Glorification progresses to new degrees below, they will be removed to their places in hell. "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke x, 18.) "Now is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out." (John xii, 31.) His combats were grievous beyond comparison. "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." (Luke xii, 50.) "He bowed the heavens" of His spiritual mind and "came down" to the wicked in the world of spirits. "Yea, He sent out his arrows and scattered them, and many lightnings and discomfited them." (Ps. xviii, 11, 14.)

As already shown, His natural mind at birth was so tainted with evil and falsity from the world of spirits that the truth and good from His spiritual mind then feeble were greatly perverted on descent into that mind. This, with the LORD, was like influx from the angelic heaven into the world of spirits before a general judgment; that world, then filled with spirits evil and false within though apparently good and true, was spiritually cold and dark and perverted the genuine good and truth inflowing from heaven.
But on reaching manhood (as represented in this diagram) His spiritual mind was Divine, not merely angelic as at first. His natural mind though still infirm and thus measurably impure had nevertheless become so stored with truth divine that the immensely more potent divine influx from the spiritual mind into it found adequate finite vessels of reception in direct or true order. This gave light and warmth and cheer, driving wicked spirits to a distance and bringing relief and great comfort to good spirits and angels.
The state of His natural mind at this time was like that of an adult man prepared for regeneration. In man (as may be seen in diagram XXI) the natural mind is stored with remains which may be called truth divine and good divine, though indefinitely inferior to truth divine and good divine in the LORD. With the LORD also at this stage the natural mind was stored with remains immense in amount and of surpassing purity. Yet as evil is at this time present in man's natural mind to be removed by combat, so with the LORD.

This evil and organic substance in which it inhered was to be expelled to give place to the Divine from the Father within.
This change to be wrought in the three degrees of His natural mind, the conjunction of these degrees with those of His spiritual mind, and the successive openings into these higher degrees attended with elevation of the interior seat of perception into them, (the actual seat of perception remaining in the limbus), will be the main features of the next three Chapters.
 

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