from his own hereditary evil, re-acts against God; but so far as he believes that all his life is from God, and every good of life from the action of God, and every evil of life from the re-action of man, re-action becomes correspondent with action, and man acts with God as from himself. The equilibrium of all things is from action and joint re-action, and every thing must be in equilibrium. These things are said, that no man may believe that he ascends to God from himself, but from the Lord.

69. THAT THE DIVINE FILLS ALL SPACES OF THE UNIVERSE WITHOUT SPACE. There are two things proper to nature, space and time from these in the natural world man forms the ideas of his thought and thence his understanding: if he remains in these ideas, and does not elevate his mind above them, he never can perceive any thing spiritual and divine; for he involves it in ideas which are derived from space and time, and in proportion as he does this, the light of his understanding is merely natural. Thinking from this merely natural light in reasoning of things spiritual and divine, is like thinking from the darkness of night of those things which only appear in the light of day; hence comes naturalism. But he that knows how to elevate his mind above the ideas of thought which partake of space and time, passes from darkness to light, and becomes wise in spiritual and divine things, and at length sees those things which are in them and from them; and then, by virtue of that light, he shakes off the darkness of natural light, and removes its fallacies from the middle to the sides. Every man who has understanding, may think above those things proper to nature, and does actually so think, and then he affirms and sees, that the Divine, as being omnipresent, is not in space; and also he may affirm and see those things which are adduced above but if he denies the divine omnipresence, and ascribes all things to nature, then he is not willing to be elevated, although he is able.

70. All who die, and become angels, put off those two things proper to nature, which, as has been said, are space and time; for they enter into spiritual light, in which the objects of thought are truths, and the objects of sight are similar to those in the natural world, but corresponding to their thoughts. The objects of their thoughts, which, as has been said, are truths, derive nothing at all from space and time: the objects of their sight indeed appear as in space and in time, but still they do not think from them. The reason is, because spaces and times there are not stated, as in the natural world, but changeable according to the states of their life: hence instead of spaces and times, in the ideas of their thought, there are states of life: instead of spaces, such things as relate to states of love, and instead of times, such things as relate to states of wisdom. Hence it is, that spiritual thought, and thence also spiritual speech, differ so much from natural thought and speech

derived from it, that they have nothing in common, except as to the interiors of things which are all spiritual; concerning which difference more will be said elsewhere. Now since the thoughts of the angels derive nothing from space and time, but from states of life, it is evident that they do not comprehend what is meant when it is said, that the Divine fills space, for they do not know what space is, but that they comprehend clearly when it is said, without any idea of space, that the Divine fills all things.

71. That the merely natural man thinks of things spiritual and divine from space, and the spiritual man without space, may be thus illustrated: the merely natural man thinks by ideas which he has acquired from the objects of sight, in all which there is figure derived from length, breadth, and height, and from form terminated by them, which is either angular or circular: these are manifestly in the ideas of his thought concerning the visible things on earth, and they are also in the ideas of his thought concerning invisible things, as things civil and moral; he does not indeed see them, but still they are there as continuous. Not so the spiritual man, especially the angel of heaven; his thought has nothing in common with figure and form deriving any thing from the length, breadth, and height of space, but from the state of a thing as grounded in its state of life: hence, instead of length of space, he thinks of the good of a thing grounded in the good of life; instead of breadth of space, of the truth of a thing grounded in the truth of life; and instead of height, of the degrees of these; thus he thinks from the correspondence which there is between spiritual and natural things; from which correspondence, length, in the Word, signifies the good of a thing, breadth, the truth of a thing, and height, their degrees. Hence it is evident that an angel of heaven can by no means think otherwise, when he thinks of the divine omnipresence, than that the Divine fills all things without space: what an angel thinks, is truth, because the divine wisdom is the light which illuminates his understanding.

72. This thought concerning God is fundamental, for without it those things which will be said of the creation of the universe from God-Man, and of His providence, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, may indeed be understood, but still not retained, because the merely natural man, when he understands them, still relapses into the love of his life, which is of his will, and this love dissipates them, and immerses them in space, in which is what he calls his rational light, not knowing, that in proportion as he denies those things, so far he is irrational. That this is the case may be confirmed by the idea concerning this truth, THAT GOD IS A MAN. Read, I beseech you, with attention, what is written above, n. 11 to 13, and what follows after; then you will understand that it is so; but let down your thoughts into natural light which partakes of space, and will it not appear to you a paradox?

and if you let it down much, will you not reject the idea? This is the reason why it is said, that the Divine fills all spaces in the universe, and why it is not said that God-Man fills them; for if this were said, merely natural light would not assent to it; but when it is said that the Divine fills them, this is assented to, because it agrees with the form of speech of theologians, that God is omnipresent, and hears and knows all things. More may be seen on this subject above, n. 7 to 10.

73. THAT THE DIVINE IS IN ALL TIME WITHOUT TIME. As the Divine is in all space without space, so it is in all time without time; for nothing which is proper to nature can be predicated of the Divine, and space and time are proper to nature. Space and time in nature are measurable. Time is measured by days, weeks, months, years, and ages; and days, by hours; weeks and months, by days; years, by the four seasons; and ages, by years. Nature derives this mensuration from the apparent gyration and revolution of the sun of this world. But it is not so in the spiritual world; there the progressions of life in like manner appear in time, for its inhabitants live with one another, as men in the world live with one another, which is not possible without an appearance of time but time there is not distinguished into seasons as in the world, for their sun is constantly in its east, never removed: it is the divine love of the Lord which appears to them as a sun; therefore they have no days, weeks, months, years, and ages, but states of life instead, by which a distinction is made, which cannot be called a distinction into times, but into states. Hence the angels do not know what time is, and when it is named, they perceive state instead of it; and when state determines time, time is only an appearance: for the delight of state causes time to appear short, and the unpleasantness of state causes it to appear long; from which it is evident that time there is nothing but the quality of state. Hence hours, days, weeks, months, and years, in the Word, signify states, and their progressions in their series and their complex; and when times are predicated of the church, morning signifies its first state, noon, its fulness, evening, its decrease, and night, its end; and the four seasons of the year,spring, summer, autumn, and winter,-signify the same.

74. From these considerations it appears, that time makes one with thought grounded in affection; for hence the quality of a man's state is derived. That distances in progressions through spaces in the spiritual world make one with the progressions of time, might be illustrated by many things; for ways in that world are actually shortened according to the desires of the thought from affection, and vice versa are lengthened. Hence it is that we speak also of spaces of time. But in such things, when thought does not join itself with the proper affection of man, time does not appear, as in dreams.

75. Now since times, which are proper to nature in her world, are pure states in the spiritual world, which there appear progressive, because angels and spirits are finite, it may be seen that in God they are not progressive, because He is infinite, and infinite things in Him are one, according to what was demonstrated above, n. 17 to 22; from which it follows, that the Divine is in all time without time.

76. He that does not know, and cannot from some perception think of God without time, cannot at all perceive eternity any otherwise than as eternity of time, and then he cannot but be in a kind of delirium in thinking of God from eternity; for he thinks from a beginning, and a beginning is only of time. His delirium in this case is, that God existed from Himself, whence he falls immediately into the origin of nature from herself; from which idea he can only be extricated by the spiritual or angelic idea of eternal, which is without time, and when it is without time, eternal and the Divine are the same: the Divine is the Divine in itself, and not from itself. The angels say, that they can indeed perceive God from eternity, but by no means nature from eternity, and much less nature from herself, and not at all nature as nature in herself; for what is in itself, is the esse from which all things are, and esse in itself is life itself, which is the divine love of divine wisdom and the divine wisdom of divine love. This to the angels is eternal, therefore abstracted from time, as uncreate is from created, or infinite from finite, between which there is no comparison.

77. THAT THE DIVINE IN THE GREATEST AND LEAST THINGS IS THE SAME. This follows from the two preceding articles, that the Divine is in all space without space, and in all time without time; for spaces are greater and greatest, and lesser and least; and as spaces and times make one, as was said above, it is the same with times. The Divine in them is the same, because the Divine is not variable and mutable, like every thing of space and time, or every thing of nature, but it is invariable and immutable; hence it is every where and always the same.

78. It appears as if the Divine were not the same in one man that it is in another, as that it is different in the wise man from what it is in the simple, and different in the old man from what it is in the infant; but this is a fallacy from appearance: man is different, but the Divine in him is not different, Man is a recipient, and recipients or receptacles are various: a wise man is more adequately, and therefore more fully, a recipient of the divine love and divine wisdom, than a simple man; and an old man who is wise, more so than an infant and a boy; but nevertheless the Divine is the same in the one that it is in the other. In like manner it is a fallacy from appearance, that the Divine is various in the angels of heaven and men of the earth, because the angels of

heaven' are in wisdom ineffable, and men not so; but the apparent variety is in the subjects according to the quality of their reception of the Divine, and not in the Lord.

79. That the Divine is the same in things the greatest and most minute, may be illustrated by heaven and the angels there. The Divine in the whole heaven and the Divine in an angel is the same, wherefore also the whole heaven may appear as one angel. It is the same with the church and the man of the church. The greatest body in which the Divine is, is the whole heaven, and also the whole church; the least, is an angel of heaven and a man of the church. Sometimes a whole heavenly society has appeared to me as one angelic man; and it was told me that it might appear as a great man or a giant, and as a little man or an infant; and this because the Divine is the same in things the greatest and most minute.

80. The Divine is also the same in the greatest and smallest of all the things which are created and do not live; for in all it is the good of their use; but the reason why they do not live is, because they are not forms of life, but forms of uses; and the form varies according to the goodness of the use. The manner in which the Divine is in them will be explained in what follows, when creation is treated of.

81. Abstract space, and altogether deny a vacuum, and then think of the divine love and the divine wisdom, as the real essence, space being abstracted, and a vacuum being denied: then think from space, and you will perceive, that the Divine in the greatest and smallest portions of space is the same; for in essence abstracted from space there is no great or small, but identity.

82. Here something shall be said concerning a vacuum. I once heard the angels talking with Newton concerning a vacuum, and saying that they cannot endure the idea of a vacuum as of nothing; because in their world, which is spiritual, and within or above the spaces and times of the natural world, they equally feel, think, are affected, love, will, breathe, yea speak and act; which things are not possible in a vacuum as nothing, because nothing is nothing, and of nothing not any thing is predicable. Newton said, that he knew that the Divine which is, fills all things, and that he himself abhorred the idea of nothing concerning a vacuum, because it is destructive of every thing; exhorting those who conversed with him about a vacuum, to beware of the idea of nothing, calling it a swoon, because in nothing there is no actuality of mind.