Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/142

 language. The following extracts contain the substance of it:

"The nature of the objects which appear to the angels in heaven cannot be described in few words. For the most part they are like the things on earth, but in form more perfect and in number more abundant. That such things exist in heaven, is evident from those seen by the prophets [as by Ezekiel, Chap. xl.-xlviii.; by Daniel, Chap, vii.-xii.; by John, Rev., from first to last chapter]. They saw such things when they were in the spirit and heaven was opened to them; and heaven is said to be opened when the interior sight which is that of a man's spirit, is opened. For the things in heaven cannot be seen with the bodily eyes, but with the eyes of the spirit."—H. H, n. 171.

"Whenever it has been granted me to be in company with angels, the things of heaven have appeared to me exactly like those in the world,—so perceptibly indeed, that I knew not but that I was in the world, and in the palace of a king there. . . . Since all things which correspond to the interiors [of the angels] also represent them, therefore they are called REPRESENTATIVES. And since they vary according to the state of the interiors with the angels, therefore they are called APPEARANCES; although the objects which appear before their eyes, and which are perceived by their senses, appear and are perceived as much to the life as those on earth appear to man; nay, much more clearly, distinctly and perceptibly. The appearances thence existing in the heavens are called real appearances, because they really exist.

"To illustrate the nature and quality of the objects which appear to the angels according to correspondences, I will here adduce a single instance. To those who are in intelligence there appear gardens and paradises full of trees and flowers of every kind. The trees are planted in the most beautiful order, and so interwoven as to form