Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/233

Rh of place, though there was doubtless the appearance to the apostle of his being lifted up through space. But in reality he only underwent a sudden change of state—the interiors of his mind being opened to the third degree. This is the way he was caught up— up, the same as high, meaning spiritually what is interior in the soul. So when the Lord says, "come unto me," etc., He is to be understood spiritually, as inviting us to come into sympathy with, or spiritual likeness to, Himself;—to pass from a state of mind which is spiritually remote, into one which is spiritually near (that is, akin) to his own—and not from one place to another. Place corresponds to state; and a change of place, therefore, corresponds to a change of state.

"Hence it is," says Swedenborg, "that, in the Word, by places and spaces and all things relating to spaces, are signified such things as belong to state. . . Nothing in heaven is estimated by spaces, but by states; consequently spaces can only be seen there from and according to the state of the interiors of the angels." (H. H. 197, '8.)

"By changes in the state of my interiors, have I also been conducted by the Lord into the heavens, and likewise to the earth's in the universe. I was carried there as to my spirit only, my body meanwhile remaining in the same place. Thus do all the angels journey. They have no spaces nor distances, but instead of these they have states and their changes." (Ibid. 192.)