67. Next, since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, is that we should be in some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

200. THE FORM OF HEAVEN WHICH DETERMINES ASSOCIATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS THERE

What the form of heaven is can be confirmed, in some measure, from what has been shown in the preceding sections, as that heaven is like itself in its greatest and its least things (72); that consequently, any one society is heaven in lesser form, and each angel in the least form (51-58). Also as the entire heaven resembles one Man, so every society of heaven resembles a Man in lesser form, and each angel in the least form (59-77); that the wisest are in the middle, and the less wise round about even to boundaries, and the same is true of any one society (43); and that those who are in the good of love dwell from the east to the west in heaven, and those who are in truths from good, from the south to the north, and the same is true of every society (148-149). All these things are in accord with the form of heaven. Consequently, it can be concluded from these things what that form is in general. ¹

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