XXI. Growth During Youth.

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Chapter XXI. Growth During Youth.

THIS diagram compared with XX shows the development accomplished during youth. There has been great development of c the lowest degree of the spiritual mind in which were deposited celestial-natural and spiritual-natural remains by altogether imperceptible influxes, mainly by immediate Divine operation and partly through the angels of the lowest heaven which is celestial-natural and spiritual-natural. Great development has taken place also in the corresponding degree of the natural mind d, in the highest degree of the limbus g and in the gross body E.

In the plane c are implanted the interior and initial forms of the love of knowing the reason of things and of the faculty of reason. In d are implanted the exterior and natural forms of the same, which however are imperceptible except as they operate in and by g the highest of the limbus. Thence they speak and act by means of the gross body.

Youth completes the period of spiritual minority. Spiritual majority follows. During minority man believes, knows, thinks and acts not from himself or in his own right and reason as a spiritual free agent, but from others-from parents and masters whom he trusts, thus from authority. Minority since the Fall is prolonged far beyond its duration in the pristine age. This prolongation is to ensure a protracted quiescence of evil inclinations and a fullness of remains of good and truth whereby regeneration may be secured in after years.

Knowledges of natural objects and of social life gathered in by means of the senses during this period are highly important, yet knowledges from the Word and the Doctrines of the Church are the most essential.

Concerning the three states of Spiritual Minority we recapitulate

Infancy is a corporeal and sensual state. During its continuance the sensual degree, involving the corporeal, is opened and developed. (Chapter XIX.)

Childhood is a knowing or scientific state. During its continuance, the knowing or scientific degree is opened and developed. (Chapter XX.)

Youth, reaching to the BEGINNING of adult age, is a rational or reasoning state. During its continuance the natural rational degree of the mind is opened and developed.

These three states have their internal and unconscious existence in the spiritual mind and their external and conscious existence in the natural. It is solely their internal that renders their external possible. Infancy, childhood and youth are but the beginning of will and understanding. Manhood, to be presented in the following Chapters, is a state of actual will and understanding.

In the present diagram we see the state of the faculties and the interior seat of thought on arrival at adult age. The interior unconscious seat of thought has been elevated during minority through the three discrete degrees of the natural mind. This seat of thought is now poised between the spiritual mind above and the natural mind below. This equilibrium exists with him who has not yet chosen and appropriated either good or evil. This however is not the freedom of the regenerate man and of the angel in heaven. The freedom of the regenerate and of the angel arises from the delight of the love of good and truth appropriated from the LORD and is seated in the spiritual mind and higher therein according to the degree of regeneration. While the seat of thought was rising, man was natural. Now, by regeneration he becomes spiritual. Without regeneration he remains merely natural.

Should he become regenerate, the seat of his thought will be elevated into the spiritual mind, and successively higher therein as he advances in regeneration. If not regenerate the seat of his thought sinks into the natural mind and lower therein the more deeply he betakes himself to hereditary evils and makes them his own.

Both the upward course of the good and the downward course of the evil will be represented in subsequent diagrams. Here read Doctrine of Life, 19, and refer to this diagram. Imagine man at adult age standing in the midst between the natural and the spiritual mind. if from that point he looks up, he looks to the LORD flowing into his inmost A and thence into the spiritual mind B his heaven. If he looks down he looks to the devil that is hell whence is influx into the lower regions of his mind C and D into which he gradually sinks to rise no more.

The natural man C and D with E included, though stored during minority with good and truth, is yet (at adult life) tainted with hereditary evil more or less active, and with fallacy and falsity. These are mingled with the good and truth, defiling and obscuring them and are to be removed by regeneration in after years. The gross body E is included in the term natural man as a subject of evil because it is disordered and impure from evil in the natural mind and limbus. These disorders and impurities are also to be removed as far as may be during regeneration.