Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/113

 "To say then," he continues, "that the finite came forth mediately through the Son, is exactly tantamount to saying that it came forth immediately through the Father, or immediately through the Son; since the Father and Son are alike the Infinite, and the Infinite is the immediate cause of the finite." Then showing that in creation there must be a Divine, or infinite, final end; that this end is to be reached through the whole chain of creation, of which man is the last link, the crown of all, he declares that in man therefore for the fulfilment of the Divine end, there must be something that can partake of the Infinite:—

"Not certainly in the fact that man is an animal and has senses provided him to enjoy the delights of the world; nor in the fact that he has a soul, for his soul is finite and can contain nothing of the Infinite. Neither in reason, which is the effect of the coöperation between the soul and the body; which, as they are both finite, so the effect of both is also finite: therefore it does not lie in reason. So far we find nothing Divine in man. Where is that, then, which appears to be nowhere, and yet is necessary to realize the Divine end? . . . It lies in this, that man can acknowledge