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 first [or lowest] degree is opened by a life according to what is equitable and just; the second degree by a life according to the truths of faith derived from the Word, and according to the goods of charity toward the neighbor; and the third degree according to the good of love to the Lord and mutual love." (A. C. 9594; also D L. W. 237.)

We are further told that every man after death enters the heaven corresponding to the "degree of life that was opened within him in the world; he in whom the spiritual degree was opened enters into the spiritual [heaven], and he in whom the celestial degree was opened enters into the celestial." (D. L. W. 238.) And it appears from the Writings that there were some in the Old or former Christian Church whose minds were opened to the third or celestial degree. For the new Christian Heaven, it is said, was composed of "all those who, from the first formation of the Christian Church, worshiped the Lord and lived according to his Commandments in the Word; . . . likewise all the infants of Christians. (A. R. 876.) And in the same paragraph we are told that this heaven, with which the New Church on earth is in consociation, consists of three, an inmost, a middle, and a lowest; which shows that some of the former Church had their minds opened to the third or inmost degree; also that in