Page:The Gist of Swedenborg.djvu/57

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES

N its inmosts the Sacred Scripture is no other than God, that is, the Divine which proceeds from God In its derivatives it is accommodated to the perception of angels and men. In these it is Divine likewise, but in another form, in which this Divine is called "Celestial," "Spiritual," and "Natural." These are no other than coverings of God. Still the Divine, which is inmost, and is covered with such things as are accommodated to the perceptions of angels and men, shines forth like light through crystalline forms, but variously, according to the state of mind which a man has formed for himself, either from God or from self. In the sight of the man who has formed the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror in which he sees God, each in his own way. The truths which he learns from the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to them, compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is the fulness of God. —True Christian Religion, n. 6

HE Word in its bosom is spiritual. Descending from Jehovah the Lord, and passing through the angelic heavens, the Divine (in itself ineffable and imperceptible)