Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/450

 groves, because groves signified spiritual love, and in the highest sense the Lord in respect to that love; and when they were having their worship in groves they were in its holiness, because at the same time in spiritual love. In the representative church, when they celebrated Divine worship they turned their faces to the rising of the sun, because the rising sun also signified celestial love. And when they gazed upon the moon they were filled likewise with a certain holy veneration, because the moon signified spiritual love; so when they looked up to the starry heaven, because this signified the angelic heaven, or the Lord's kingdom. In the representative church they had tents or tabernacles, and Divine worship in them; and it was holy because tents or tabernacles signified the holiness of love and worship. So in numberless other things. In the representative of a church, in the beginning Divine worship was indeed in like manner on mountains, and also in groves; they looked likewise toward the rising of the sun; and also to the moon, and to the stars; and moreover worship was in tents or tabernacles. But because they were in external worship without internal, or in corporeal and worldly love, and not in celestial and spiritual love, and so worshipped the mountains and groves themselves, and also the sun, the moon, and the stars, as well as their tents or tabernacles, and thereby made those rituals idolatrous which in the Ancient church were holy, therefore they were restricted to one common mountain, namely, to the mountain where Jerusalem was, and where at length Zion was; and to the rising of the sun [as seen] therefrom and from the temple; and also to one common tent, which was called the tent of the congregation; and finally to the ark in the temple. And this was done to the intent that the representative of a church might exist when they were in a holy external; otherwise they would have profaned holy things. From this it may be seen what the distinction is between a representative church and the representative of a church. In general, that they who were of the representative church, as to their interiors, communicated with the three heavens, to which the externals served as a plane; whereas they who were in the representative of a church did not communicate with the heavens as to their interiors,—but yet the externals in which they were held could serve as a plane; and this miraculously, of the Lord's Providence, to the intent that something of communication might exist between heaven and man by a certain semblance of a church. For witliout communication of heaven with man by something of a church the race would perish. (A C. n. 4288.)