4380. 'Let my lord now pass over before his servant' means a more general presence. This is clear from the meaning here, where the joining of good to truths is the subject, of 'passing over before anyone' as a more general presence. For with regeneration which is achieved by means of the joining of good to truths the situation is that good is that which acts and truth that which allows itself to be acted upon. Whenever good has brought itself in touch with truths and linked itself to them a little, truth is seen to react. Yet it is not the truth itself that reacts but the good combined with it or else attached to it, doing so by means of that truth. Such an attachment is what is meant by a more general presence. The phrase joining good to truths is used, but what is meant is the person in whom goodness and truth are present, for goodness and truth are meaningless attributes if they have no subject - that is, man - to which they can be applied. In heaven people do employ abstract terms such as these in their thought and speech, for the reason that they do not attribute good or truth to themselves but to the Lord, and also for the reason that goodness and truth from the Lord fill heaven in its entirety. The ancients too were accustomed to employ such terms in their speech.

1116. I have been shown the dwelling-places of those who belonged to the second and third generations of the descendants of this Most Ancient Church. Those dwelling-places are magnificent, stretching out a long way and varying in beautiful shades of red and blue. In fact angels have most magnificent dwelling-places defying description, which I have seen many times. To their eyes they appear so real that no appearance could ever be more real. The origin of these appearances that are so real will in the Lord's Divine mercy be discussed later on. They live in a radiance of light, so to speak, of bright pearl, and sometimes like that of diamonds, for in the next life wonderful radiances exist in endless variety. People are much mistaken who imagine that such things do not exist there - things unendingly more numerous than those that anyone could or can conceive. They are, it is true, representatives like those sometimes seen by the prophets; but to those who are in the next life these representatives are nevertheless so real that they regard them as realities, and the things belonging to this world by comparison as non-realities.