Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/177

Rh It should be known that the Word on our earth, given through heaven by the Lord, is the union of heaven and the world,—for which end there is a correspondence of all things in the letter of the Word with Divine things in heaven; and that the Word in its highest and inmost sense treats of the Lord, of His kingdom in the heavens and on the earths, and of love and faith from Him and in Him, therefore of life from Him and in Him. Such things are presented to the angels in heaven, from whatsoever earth they are, when the Word of our earth is read and preached.

In every other earth truth Divine is made known by word of mouth, through spirits and angels,. . . but this is done within families. For in most of the earths mankind dwell apart according to families; and therefore the Divine truth, thus revealed by spirits and angels, is not conveyed far beyond the families; and unless a new revelation constantly succeeds it is either perverted or lost. It is otherwise on our earth, where truth Divine, which is the Word, remains for ever in its integrity.

It should be known that the Lord acknowledges and receives all, from whatsoever earth they are, who acknowledge and worship God under the Human form; since God under the Human form is the Lord. And as the Lord appears to the inhabitants of the earths in an angelic form, which is the human form, therefore when spirits and angels from those earths hear from the spirits and angels of oar earth that God is actually Man, they receive that Word, acknowledge it, and rejoice that it is so.

To the reasons which have been already adduced it may be added, that the inhabitants, the spirits, and the angels of our earth relate to the external and corporeal sense in the Greatest Man; and the external and corporeal sense is the ultimate, in which the interiors of life end, and in which they rest, as in their common [receptacle]. So is truth Divine [in its ultimates] in the letter which is called the Word; and on this account too it was given on this earth and not on another. And because the Lord is the Word, and its first and last, that all things might exist according to order He was willing also to be born on this earth, and to become the Word,—according to these words in John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by, Him, and without him was not anything made that was made. . . . And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father. . . . No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath brought Him forth to view" (i. 1-3, 14, 18). The Word here is Divine truth. But this is a mystery which will be intelligible only to a few. (A. C. n. 9350-9360.)