New Jerusalem Church -- Doctrinal and controversial works; Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688-1772
Love to the Lord is the love regnant in the heavens; for there the
Lord is loved above all things. Thus the Lord is All in all there. He
flows into all the angels, and into each of them. He disposes them; He
induces a likeness of Himself on them, and causes Heaven to be where
He is. Hence an angel is heaven in the least form; a society is heaven
in a greater form; and all the societies together are heaven in the
greatest form.
--_Heaven and Hell, nn._ 319, 54, 58
AN ACTUAL WORLD
In general, what appears in heaven, appears the same as it does in our
material world of three kingdoms. Things appear before the eyes of
angels just as objects of the three kingdoms do before the eyes of
men in the world. Still there is this difference: the things which
appear in heaven, have a spiritual origin, and those which appear in
our world a material origin. Objects of a spiritual origin affect the
senses of angels because these senses are spiritual, as those of a
material origin affect the senses of men, inasmuch as their senses are
material. Heavenly objects are said to have a spiritual origin,
because they exist from the Divine which proceeds from the Lord as a
Sun; and the Divine that proceeds from the Lord as a Sun is spiritual.
For there the Sun is not fire, but Divine Love, appearing before the
eyes of the angels as the sun of the world does before the eyes of
men; and whatever proceeds from the Divine Love is Divine and is
spiritual. Of this origin are all things which exist in the heavens,
and they appear in forms like those in our world. It is due to the
order of creation that they appear in such forms. According to that
order, things which are of love and wisdom with the angels, on
descending into the lower sphere in which angels are in respect of
their bodies and of their sensation, present themselves in such forms
and under such types. These are correspondences.
--_Apocalypse Explained, n._ 926
A WORLD OF ACTION
All heaven's delights are united to uses and inhere in them, because
uses are the goods of love and charity, in which the angels are. The
angels find all their happiness in use, from use, and according to
use. There is the highest freedom in this because it proceeds from
interior affection, and is conjoined with ineffable delight. Uses
exist in the heavens in all variety and diversity. Never is the use of
one angel quite the same as that of another; nor the delight. What is
more, the delights of any one person's use are countless. These
countless and various delights are nevertheless united in an order so
that they mutually regard one another, as do the uses of every member,
organ and inner part of the body. They are even more like the uses of
each vessel and fibre in every member, organ and vital part; each and
all of which are so related that they regard each of its own good in
the other, and thus in all, and all in each. As a result of this
general and several regard they act as one.
--_Heaven and Hell, nn._ 402, 403, 404, 405
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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