Divine Love and Wisdom #334

By Emanuel Swedenborg

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334. It is abundantly clear that these are for our use and that they are gifts freely given if we look at the state of angels in the heavens. They have bodies, rational abilities, and spiritual receptivity just as we on earth do. They are nourished for free, because they are given their food daily. They are clothed for free, because they are given their clothing. They are housed for free, because they are given their homes. They have no anxiety about any of these things; and to the extent that they are spiritually rational, they enjoy pleasure, protection, and preservation of their state.

The difference is that angels see that these things come from the Lord because they are created in response to the angels' state of love and wisdom, as explained above in 322, while we do not see this because things recur according to the calendar and happen not according to our states of love and wisdom but according to our efforts.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.