Page:The Other Life.djvu/174

 system of celestial truth. Flowing thence through the spiritual heavens, it was dictated in a form of spiritual truth. Descending still lower into the natural degree, it took on a natural and literal form, apparently imperfect, feeble, obscure, accommodated to the feeblest and obscurest states of the human understanding.

Now all these senses, utterly different in external appearance as they are—the divine, the celestial, the spiritual, the natural—are absolutely one. They coexist, cohere and connect by correspondential forms in all the spheres of creation. When man upon earth reads a verse in the letter humbly and believingly, spiritual angels instantly perceive it in the spiritual sense, celestial angels in the celestial sense, the Lord hears and feels it, and the Divine Truth runs the whole scale of thought from centre to circumference. Thus we are consociated with angels and conjoined to the Lord by means of his Word.

The Word, written by angels from direct divine dictation, is preserved in every heavenly society with great care, and is approached with profound reverence. It is the source of all their wisdom and power. The public worship is from the Word, and the minister does not explain its meaning from