Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 2.djvu/84

 nates in ultimates. All things in the world which are according to order are correspondences; and all things there are according to order, which are good and fit for use; for every good is a good according to use. Form has relation to truth, because truth is the form of good. Hence it is that all things in the whole world and partaking of the nature of the world, which are in divine order, have relation to good and truth.

But no one at this day can know the spiritual things in heaven to which the natural things in the world correspond, except by revelation from heaven, because the knowledge of correspondences is now lost. I will therefore illustrate by some examples the nature of the correspondence of spiritual things with natural.

The animals of the earth in general correspond to affections; the gentle and useful ones, to good affections; the savage and useless, to evil affections. In particular, cows and oxen correspond to the affections of the natural mind; sheep and lambs, to the affections of the spiritual mind; but winged creatures, according to their species, correspond to the intellectual things of both minds.

Hence it is that various animals, as cows, oxen, rams, sheep, she-goats, he-goats, he-lambs, she-lambs, and also pigeons and turtle-doves were devoted to a sacred use in the Israelitish church,—which was a representative