Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/115

 stages from first to last. The answer being given that it is to be secured by means of the soul, which from its altitude is designed to rule the body, it is asked by what means the true order is to be restored when, as must have been foreseen, the body refuses to obey the instincts of the soul and fails to serve its true purpose. And the triumphant answer is given that "God provided against this by His Infinite, only-begotten Son, who took on Him the ultimate effect of the world, or a manhood and a human shape, and thereby was infinite in and with the finite, and consequently restored the nexus in His own person between the Infinite and the finite, so that the primary end was realized. . . . The Infinite . . . thus Himself became the last effect—at once God and man, the Mediator between the finite and the Infinite. . . . Without Him there would be no connection between the last effect and the Infinite; whereas through Him somewhat of the Divine may dwell in us, namely, in the faculty to know and believe that there is a God, and that He is infinite. And again through Him, by the use of the means, we are led to true religion, and become children of God, and not of the world."