From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #134

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134. Heaven's warmth, like heaven's light, is different in different places. It has one nature in the heavenly kingdom and another in the spiritual kingdom. It also differs in each community, not only in intensity but in quality. It is more intense and pure in the Lord's heavenly kingdom because the angels there accept more divine good. It is less intense and pure in the Lord's spiritual kingdom because the angels there accept more divine truth. In each community, it varies depending on people's receptivity. There is also warmth in the hells, but it is unclean. 1

The warmth in heaven is meant by sacred and heavenly fire, and the warmth of hell by profane fire and hellfire. Both refer to love: heavenly fire to love for the Lord and love for one's neighbor, and hellfire to love for oneself and love of the world and all the craving that is associated with these loves. 2

The fact that love is warmth of a spiritual origin can be seen from the way we grow warm in proportion to our love, even becoming inflamed and heated in proportion to its intensity and quality, with its full heat evident when we are attacked. This is why it is usual to talk about inflaming, heating up, burning, boiling, and kindling when we are talking about either the affections of a good love or the cravings of an evil love.

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] There is warmth in the hells, but it is unclean: 1773, 2757, 3340; and the smell that comes from there is like the smell of manure and excrement in our world - in the worst hells, like the smell of corpses: 814-815 [819], 817 [820], 943-944, 5394.

2 [The note at this point refers the reader back to the second note in 118 above.]

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #304

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304. Man is so created as to have a conjunction and connection with the Lord, but with the angels of heaven only an affiliation. Man has affiliation with the angels, but not conjunction, because in respect to the interiors of his mind man is by creation like an angel, having a like will and a like understanding. Consequently if a man has lived in accordance with the Divine order he becomes after death an angel, with the same wisdom as an angel. Therefore when the conjunction of man with heaven is spoken of his conjunction with the Lord and affiliation with the angels is meant; for heaven is heaven from the Lord's Divine, and not from what is strictly the angels' own [proprium]. That it is the Lord's Divine that makes heaven may be seen above (7-12).

[2] But man has, beyond what the angels have, that he is not only in respect to his interiors in the spiritual world, but also at the same time in respect to his exteriors in the natural world. His exteriors which are in the natural world are all things of his natural or external memory and of his thought and imagination therefrom; in general, knowledges and sciences with their delights and pleasures so far as they savor of the world, also many pleasures belonging to the senses of the body, together with his senses themselves, his speech, and his actions. And all these are the outmosts in which the Lord's Divine influx terminates; for that influx does not stop midway, but goes on to its outmosts. All this shows that the outmost of Divine order is in man; and being the outmost it is also the base and foundation.

[3] As the Lord's Divine influx does not stop midway but goes on to its outmosts, as has been said, and as this middle part through which it passes is the angelic heaven, while the outmost is in man, and as nothing can exist unconnected, it follows that the connection and conjunction of heaven with the human race is such that one has its permanent existence from the other, and that the human race apart from heaven would be like a chain without a hook; and heaven without the human race would be like a house without a foundation. 1

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Nothing springs from itself, but from what is prior to itself, thus all things from a First, and they also have permanent existence from Him from whom they spring forth, and permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth (Arcana Coelestia 2886, 2888, 3627-3628, 3648, 4523-4524, 6040, 6056).

Divine order does not stop midway, but terminates in an outmost, and that outmost is man, thus Divine order terminates in man (634, 2853, 3632, 5897, 6239, 6451, 6465, 9215-9216, 9824, 9828, 9836, 9905, 10044, 10329, 10335, 10548).

Interior things flow into external things, even into the extreme or outmost in successive order, and there they spring forth and have permanent existence (634, 6239, 6465, 9215-9216).

Interior things spring forth and have permanent existence in what is outmost in simultaneous order (5897, 6451, 8603, 10099).

Therefore all interior things are held together in connection from a First by means of a Last (9828).

Therefore "the First and the Last" signify all things and each thing, that is, the whole (10044, 10329, 10335).

Consequently in outmosts there is strength and power (9836).

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