Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/363

 heaven, not knowing whether he was in the body or out of it. And his testimony in regard to the unspeakable words he heard, "which it is not possible for a man to utter," is in perfect agreement with Swedenborg's revealings. Concerning the speech of spirits and angels, he says:

"The speech of angelic spirits is incomprehensible. . . But the speech of angels is ineffable, far above that of spirits because above that of angelic spirits, and not at all intelligible to man so long as he lives in the body.

"The speech of the celestial angels [those of the third heaven] is distinct from that of the spiritual angels, and is still more ineffable and inexpressible. . . It is much more full and abundant, for they are in the very fountains and origins of the life of thought and speech."—A. C. n. 143, '5, '7.

But every angelic society, we are told, when viewed collectively, appears in the human form, which is the form of the whole heaven; "because, in the most perfect form which is the form of heaven, the parts bear a likeness to the whole, and the least reflects the greatest." Consistently with this, therefore, there should be a trine in each of the angelic heavens, and in each angelic society, simulating the three-fold division of the whole heaven. Accordingly Swedenborg says:

"That there are three heavens, is a known thing; consequently three degrees of goods and truths there. Every heaven also is distinguished into three degrees, for its inmost must communicate immediately with what is superior, its external with what is inferior; and the middle thus, by means of the inmost and the external, with both; hence is its perfection. The case is similar with the interiors of man, which in general are distin-