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 world is nothing but quality of state. It is from this that in the Word, "hours," "days," "weeks," "months," and "years," signify states and progressions of state in series and in the aggregate; and when times are predicated of the church, by its "morning" is meant its first state, by "mid-day" its fulness, by "evening" its decline, and by "night" its end. The four seasons of the year, "spring," "summer," "autumn," and "winter," have a like meaning.

. From the above it can be seen that time makes one with thought from affection; for from that is the quality of man's state. And with progressions of time, in the spiritual world, distances in progress through space coincide; as may be shown from many things. For instance, in the spiritual world ways are actually shortened or are lengthened in accordance with the longings that are of thought from affection. From this, also, comes the expression, "spaces of time." Moreover, in cases where thought does not join itself to its proper affection in man, as in sleep, the lapse of time is not noticed.

. Now as times which are proper to nature in its world are in the spiritual world pure states, which appear progressive because angels and spirits are finite, it may be seen that in God they are not progressive because He is Infinite, and infinite things in Him are one (as has been shown above, n. 17-22). From this it follows that the Divine in all time is apart from time.

. He who has no knowledge of God apart from time and is unable from any perception to think of Him, is thus utterly unable to conceive of eternity in any other way than as an eternity of time; in which case, in thinking of God from eternity he must needs become bewildered; for he thinks with regard to a beginning, and beginning has exclusive reference to time. His bewilderment arises from the idea that God had existence from Himself, from which he rushes headlong into an origin of nature from herself; and from this idea he can be extricated only by a spiritual or angelic idea of eternity,