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NATURAL HEAVEN >> Natural Angels >> Feet
The Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven is not like the natural of the world, but has the spiritual and the celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual-natural and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual-natural and celestial-natural.{1} Those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. The spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in one degree. [HH31]
This angelic heaven to which they are carried away is the first heaven, or the last of the three. This heaven appears to the right from their earth, and is quite separate from the first or lowest heaven of the angels who are from our earth. They who are in this heaven appear clothed in azure dotted with little golden stars; for they believe this color to be the veriest heavenly color. When they are in the world, and contemplate the starry heaven, they call it the abode of the angels; and for this reason the azure color is loved by them. [AC8030]
Certain spirits who were admitted into the heaven of innocence of the first heaven spoke to me thence, and confessed that the state of joy and gladness was such as they never could have conceived any idea of. Yet this was only in the first heaven, and there are three heavens, and states of innocence in each, with their innumerable varieties. [AC544]
I will mention some strange things, which yet are not strange in heaven; they are as follow:--
(1) That the natural world could not exist except from the spiritual world; consequently, it could not subsist, inasmuch as subsistence is perpetual existence.
(2) That the church cannot exist in man, unless its internal be spiritual and its external natural. A church purely spiritual does not exist, nor a church merely natural.
(3) Consequently, that there cannot be raised up any church, nor anything of the church with man, without an angelic heaven, through which everything spiritual is derived and descends from the Lord.
(4) Since therefore the spiritual and the natural thus make one, it follows that the one cannot exist and subsist without the other; the angelic heaven not without the church with man, nor the church with him without the angelic heaven; for, unless the spiritual flow into and terminate in the natural, and rest therein, it is like a prior without a posterior, thus like an efficient cause without an effect, and like an active without a passive, which would be like a bird perpetually flying in the air without any resting place on the earth. It is also like the mind of a man perpetually thinking and willing, without any organ of sense and motion in the body, to which it may descend and produce the ideas of its thought and bring into operation the efforts of its will.
(5) These things are adduced, to the end that it may be perceived or known, that as the natural world cannot exist without the spiritual world, nor conversely the spiritual world without the natural world, so neither can there be a church on the earth unless there be an angelic heaven through which it may exist and subsist, nor conversely an angelic heaven unless there be a church on the earth.
(6) The angels know this; on which account, they bitterly lament when the church on earth is desolated by falsities and consummated by evils; and then they compare the state of their life with drowsiness; for then heaven is to them as a seat withdrawn, and like a body deprived of feet; but when the church on the earth has been restored by the Lord, they compare the state of their life to wakefulness. [COR19]
From all this men may know how the case is with the Word; for the Word has been given by the Lord to man and also to the angels in order that by it they may be with Him; for the Word is the medium that unites earth with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord. Its literal sense is that which unites man with the first heaven; and as within the literal there is an internal sense which treats of the Lord's kingdom, and within this a supreme sense which treats of the Lord; and as these senses are in order one within another, it is evident what is the nature of the union with the Lord that is effected by means of the Word. [AC3476]
That there are countless things in one idea, has also been made evident to me from the fact that the angels perceive in a moment the life of a spirit and of a man by merely hearing him speak, or by looking into his thought; the angels of a lower heaven can see this, and still more the angels of a higher one. A certain good spirit was taken up into the first heaven, and speaking with me from thence he said that he saw infinite things in what I was then reading in the Word; when yet I myself had only a simple thought on the subject. Afterward he was taken up into a more interior heaven, and he said from thence that he now saw still more things, and so many that what he had seen before were comparatively gross to him. He was next taken up into a heaven still more interior, where the celestial angels are, and he said from thence that what he had before seen was scarcely anything compared with the things he now saw. While this continued, various things flowed in, and I was affected with the various things that came from thence. [AC6617]
Author: EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (1688-1772)
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