Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/131

Rh Now let us turn to Swedenborg. Reverting to the general doctrine, it will be remembered, he teaches that the first proceeding from the Lord, who is the Itself and the Only, is the sun of the spiritual world, which is pure love from Jehovah God in the midst of it. It may be well here to state in summary the order of creation from that sun. Let it be remembered that this is the order in which the "One only essence, substance and form," who is the Lord from eternity, "produces from Himself all the essences, substances and forms that have been created." They were not created out of nothing, but from His only essence, substance and form; they are not in Him, but produced forth from Himself by orderly derivations according to degrees, as already explained.

1. God is Man; and from Him proceeded and proceeds the sun of the spiritual world, which is the first sphere of His Divine love and wisdom; spiritual fire and light emanating from Him, in the midst of which He is, and by which He creates and sustains all things.

2. From the spiritual sun He produces spiritual atmospheres of several distinct degrees. These atmospheres, at first most pure,