Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/231

Rh and the greatest conceivable variety, is not the human body the very thing we should select? And as all parts of the body are nourished and vitalized by the same blood, so all the diverse angelic societies are pervaded and animated by one and the same Divine Spirit. The Lord's own life is the animating principle—the very life-blood—of them all.

Time in the natural world is measured by some regular movement through space, as the hands of a clock, or the earth's revolution on its axis or around the sun. In heaven there is no such time as this. There is an appearance of time there as here, but it is caused by, and is in correspondence with, the changes of state with the angels. Speaking of the apparent movement of the sun of our world, producing what we call time, Swedenborg says:

"It is otherwise with the sun of heaven. This does not, by successive progressions and revolutions, cause years and days, but to appearance changes of state; and these not at regular intervals. Hence the angels have no knowledge of the things which belong to time, as a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour, to-day, to-morrow, yesterday. When they hear them named by man, they have, instead of them, a perception of states, and of such things as relate to state. Thus the natural idea of man, is turned into a Rh