457. It is different for people who only worship God but do not also perform good actions related to goodwill. These people are like covenant breakers. It is different again for people who divide God into three and worship each one separately. It is different again for people who go to God, but not in his human manifestation. These are the people "who do not enter through the door but instead climb up some other way" (John 10:1). It is different again for people who deny with conviction that the Lord is divine. All these types of people lack a connection to God and therefore lack salvation. The goodwill they have is illegitimate. This type of goodwill forms a connection that is not face to face but side to side or back to back.

[2] I will briefly explain how loving God and loving our neighbor are connected. With all of us, God flows into our concepts of him and brings us true acknowledgment of him. He also flows into us and brings us his love for people. If we accept only the first inflow but not the second, we receive that inflow with our intellect but not our will. We keep the concepts of God that we have without arriving at an inward acknowledgment of God. Our state is then like a garden in winter.

If we accept both types of inflow, however, we receive the inflow with our will and then our intellect - that is, with our whole mind. We then develop an inner acknowledgment of God that brings our concepts of God to life. Our state is then like a garden in spring.

[3] Goodwill makes the connection, because God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love, just as he inspires parents with love for their children. If we receive this love, we become connected to God and we love our neighbor out of love for God. Then we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor. Our love for God makes us willing and able to love our neighbor.

[4] We cannot do anything good if it does not seem to us that our power, willingness, and actions come from ourselves. Therefore we are granted the appearance that they do. When we freely do something good as if we were acting on our own, this goodness is attributed to us and is taken as our response, and this forges the connection.

The situation here is like something active and something passive and the cooperation of the two that occurs when the passive element accepts the active one.

The situation is also like the intention present in people's actions, the thinking present in their speech, and the soul working from the inside on both the intention and the thinking. It is like the originating force that is present in a motion. It is like the prolific power present in the seed of a tree. That power acts from the inside on the various forms of sap that develop the tree all the way to the point of bearing fruit. Through the fruit the tree produces new seeds. It is also like the light in precious stones that is reflected depending on the textures of the interior. Different colors appear as a result, as if they were the stones colors, but they are really the colors of the light.

60. I heard a number of people in the spiritual world speaking round about me, saying that they were quite willing to acknowledge that the Divine is present in each and every constituent of the universe, because they saw in these constituents the wonders of God, and the more deeply they viewed them, the more wonderful they seemed. But yet when I told them that the Divine actually is within each and every constituent of the created universe, they responded with indignation - a sign that they really did not believe what they said.

Therefore I asked them whether they could not see it simply from the marvelous ability that exists in every seed to reproduce its own kind of plant in such a progression of development as to culminate in new seeds. Or from the fact that in every seed there is a reflection of the infinite and eternal, for they have in them a striving to multiply and produce fruit infinitely and to eternity.

[2] Consider also any animal, even the smallest - that it has in it sense organs, a brain, heart, lungs, and all the other organs, including arteries, veins, fibers, muscles, and the functions of these, not to mention the amazing phenomena inherent in their character, on which subject we have available whole books written.

All of these wonders come from God, while the forms in which they are clothed come from materials of the earth. Out of these are formed plants, and in turn human beings. Consequently of man it is said that he was created out of the ground, and that he is dust of the earth, and that the breath of life was breathed into him (Genesis 2:7). From this it is apparent that the Divine is not man's but is something adjoined to him.