Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/63

 And speaking of discoursing with the angels on one occasion "when the interior heaven was opened to him," or in other words, when he was brought into a state similar to that of the angels by the opening of the interiors of his own soul, he says:

"Let it be remarked that, although I was in heaven, still I was not out of myself but in the body, for heaven is in man in whatever place; and so, whenever it pleases the Lord, a man may be in heaven and yet not be withdrawn from the body."—A. C, n. 3884.

"The love and wisdom in which the angels are and which constitute heaven, are not theirs but from the Lord, and are indeed the Lord in them. . . . The angels themselves confess that they live from the Lord; and from this it is evident that heaven is conjunction with the Lord."-D. C, n. 28.

"It can in no case be said that heaven is without one, but that it is within him; for every angel receives the heaven which is without him according to the heaven that is within him. This plainly shows how much he is deceived, who believes that to go to heaven is merely to be elevated among the angels, without regard to the quality of one's interior life; thus that heaven may be given to every one from immediate mercy; when yet, unless heaven is within a person, nothing of the heaven without him flows-in or is received."—H. H, n. 54; also 400, 518, 525.

And throughout his voluminous works the same doctrine is everywhere taught: Which is, that heaven is within men, and is to be thought of as a certain quality of life or condition of the soul—as an internal state, and not as an external place. It is a state of spiritual near-