Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/65

 to the love that He feels and exercises toward all his creatures. It is the Lord's own influent life operating within them, and leading them to love what He loves, and to delight in doing what He loves to have them do. It is the Divine Love received by the angels so as to become in them love of the Lord and of each other. Hence all in heaven are said to dwell in the Lord and the Lord in them; for they all abide in his love, and his love abides in them. Thus they are images and likenesses of the Lord, being conjoined to Him by love. And we may see from this why heaven is said to be a state of conjunction with the Lord; and what is meant by the Lord's own words to his disciples: " Abide in me and I in you." "He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love." (John xv. 4, 5, 10.) And the beloved apostle says: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him." (1 John iv. 16.)

Love of the Lord, then, is the supreme love of all in heaven. But to love the Lord supremely, is not to love Him as a person, but it is to love the divine things which proceed from Him—innocence, justice, sincerity, charity—all the Christian graces; and these are really loved only by those who practise them as religious duties. Accordingly. Swedenborg says:

"To love the Lord is not to love his person, but to love those things that proceed from Him, for these are the Lord with man. Thus it is to love what is itself sincere, what is itself right, what is itself just; and since these things are the Lord, therefore in proportion as a