Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 2.djvu/72

 sua! man cannot think of the Divine except from the world and the objects therein; thus he cannot think otherwise of a Divine and Spiritual Man, than as of a corporeal and natural one. Hence he concludes that if God were a Man He would be as large as the universe; and if He ruled heaven and earth He would do it by means of many subordinate officers, after the manner of kings in the world. If he were told that in heaven there is no extension of space as in the world, he would not at all comprehend it; for he who thinks solely from nature and its light, thinks of no other sort of extension than that which is visible before him.

But people commit a great mistake when they think in this manner concerning heaven. Extension there is not like extension in the world. Extension in the world is determinate, and therefore measurable; but in heaven extension is not determinate, and therefore not measurable.

The inhabitants of heaven are astonished that men should imagine themselves intelligent who think of an invisible Being, that is, of a Being incomprehensible under any form, when they think of God; and that they should call those not intelligent and even simple, who think otherwise; when yet the contrary is the truth. They suggest that if those who imagine themselves intelligent because they think God has no form, would examine themselves, they would find that they regard nature as God; some of them nature as manifest to the sight, others nature in her invisible recesses.