Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/128



heaven the Divine Human of the Lord is all; the reason is, because no one there, not even an angel of the inmost or third heaven, can have any conception of the Divine itself; according to the Lord's words in John, "No man hath seen God at any time" (i. 18). "Ye have neither heard the voice of the Father at any time, nor seen His shape" (v. 37). For the angels are finite, and what is finite can have no conception of the infinite. In heaven therefore, if they had not an idea of God in the human shape, they would have no idea, or an unbecoming one; and thus they could not be conjoined with the Divine either by faith or love. This being so, therefore in heaven they perceive the Divine in the human form. Hence it is that in the heavens the Divine Human is the all in their intuitions concerning the Divine; and is thus the all in their faith and love; whence comes conjunction, and by conjunction salvation. (A. C. n. 7211.) That Jehovah appearing means the appearing of the Lord's Divine in His Human, is evident from this, that His Divine cannot appear to any man, nor even to any angel, except by the Divine Human; and the Divine Human cannot appear but by the Divine Truth which proceeds from Him. (ib. n. 6945.) When Jehovah appeared before the coming of the Lord into the world He appeared in the form of an angel; for when He passed through heaven He clothed Himself with that form, which was the human form. For the universal heaven, by virtue of the Divine there, is as one man, called the Greatest Man. Hence then is the Divine Human; and as Jehovah appeared in the human form as an angel, it is evident that it was still Jehovah himself; and that very form was also His, because. it was His Divine in heaven. This was the Lord from eternity. (ib. n. 10,579.)

When the Lord made His Human Divine He did this from