From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #460

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460. Finally, I should like to offer a secret no one has ever known before, namely that everything good and true that comes from the Lord and makes heaven is in the human form. This is true not only of the greatest whole but also of every least part. This form influences everyone who accepts what is good and true from the Lord, and causes everyone in heaven to be in a human form according to that acceptance. This is why heaven is consistent with itself in general and in particular, why the human form is the form of the whole, of each community, and of each angel, as explained in the four chapters from 59-80. I need to add here that this is also the form of the details of thought that come from heavenly love in angels.

This secret may not fit well into the understanding of anyone on earth, but it is clear to the understanding of angels because they are in heaven's light.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #330

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330. Since the final end in creation is an angelic heaven from the human race, and so also the human race, therefore its intermediate ends are all other phenomena that have been created. And because these have relation to mankind, they have regard to these three constituents of a person, namely, his body, his rational faculty, and his spiritual character, for the sake of his conjunction with the Lord. For a person cannot be conjoined with the Lord unless he is spiritual, and he cannot be spiritual without being rational, and he cannot be rational without having a body in sound condition. These three are like a house. The body is like the foundation. The person's rational faculty is like the superstructure of the house. His spiritual character is like the furnishings in the house. And conjunction with the Lord is like his inhabiting of it.

Apparent from this is the order, degree and respect in which forms of use, the intermediate ends of creation, have relation to mankind, namely, that they are for sustaining a person's body, for perfecting his rational faculty, and for his receiving a spiritual character from the Lord.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.