Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 2.djvu/71

 Hence it follows that one who has no true idea of heaven, that is, of the Divine from whom heaven exists, cannot be elevated to the first threshold of heaven. As soon as he approaches it, he is sensible of a resistance and strong repulsion. The reason is, that his interiors which ought to receive heaven are closed, since they are not in the form of heaven; yea, the nearer he approaches heaven, the more tightly are they closed. Such is the lot of those within the church who deny the Lord, and who, like the Socinians, deny his Divinity.

That the ancients had an idea of the Human [linked with their idea] of the Divine, is manifest from the appearances of the Divine to Abraham, Lot, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, his wife and others, who, although they saw God as a man, still adored Him as the God of the universe, calling him the God of heaven and earth, and Jehovah. That it was the Lord who was seen by Abraham, He Himself teaches in John viii. 56; that it was He, also, who was seen by the rest, is evident from the Lord's words, "That no one has seen the Father and his shape, or heard his voice," John i. 18; v. 37.

But that God is a Man, can with difficulty be comprehended by those who judge everything from the sensual conceptions of the external man. For the sen-