Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/379

 breath of true spiritual life, and makes him a living soul.

The Lord himself teaches in the parable of the sower, that seed has a spiritual signification. "The seed," He says, "is the Word;" and the Word is divine truth. And when the truth falls into humble and honest minds, and is received, understood and obeyed, the seed is said to fall upon good ground. "He that received seed into the good ground, is he that heareth the Word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty."

"With a man who is principled in love and charity," says Swedenborg, "seed from the Lord is so fructified and multiplied that it cannot be numbered,—not so much during his life in the body, but incredibly in the other life. For while man lives in the body, the seed is in corporeal ground and among underbrush and thickets which are scientifics and gross pleasures, also cares and anxieties. But when these things are cast off, as is the case when he enters the other life, the seed is freed from them and shoots forth, as the seed of a tree when it springs out of the ground, shoots forth into a shrub and then into a large tree, and is afterwards multiplied into a garden of trees. For all knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, with their delights and felicities, are thus fructified and multiplied, and in this manner grow to eternity."—A. C. n. 1941.

If in heaven, therefore, there exist the precious seeds of truth, and the still more precious fruits of charity, there must be a perpetual multiplication of truths and fructification of goods in the minds and hearts of the angels; and this implies eternal progress.

Analogy also lends additional support to the truth of