8857. It is similar with love to the Lord. When that love is dominant it is present in every aspect of his life, as when he loves his monarch or loves his parent. While he is in their presence love towards them shines from every part of his face, is heard in every syllable of his speech, and is apparent in every one of his gestures. This is how to understand the command ¹ to have the Lord unceasingly before one's eyes and to love Him above all, with all one's soul and all one's heart.

სქოლიოები:

904. Verse 14. And I saw, signifies prediction respecting the separation of the good from the evil. This is evident from the fact that "seeing" involves the things that are seen, and these are what now follow; and as these involve in the spiritual sense the first or general separation of the good from the evil, so here, "I saw" signifies prediction respecting this separation. It is to be known that in what follows in this chapter separation in general is predicted, and in the following chapters separation in particular, or specifically, which is described by "the seven angels having the seven vials of the wrath of God." It is according to Divine order that the separation of the good from the evil should be thus described, which order is that what is general should come before the setting forth of the particular and the most particular or the specific things. It is according to Divine order for what is general to precede, in order that particulars may be introduced into them and rightly arranged, and made homogeneous and joined together in close connection.

(On this subject see what is set forth in the Arcana Coelestia, namely, that general things precede, into which particulars are introduced, and most particular things into these, n. 920, 4325, 4329, 4345, 5208, 6089).

That with the man who is being regenerated general things precede, and particular and most particular things follow in order, n. 3057, 4345, 4383, 6089.

That afterwards there is a subordination of all things under the generals in man, and thus connection, n. Arcana Coelestia 5339. That generals may be filled with innumerable things, n. 7131.

That such as a man is in general, such he is in every particular thing, n. 917, 1040, 1316.

That what reigns generally is in all things and in each thing, n. 6159, 7648, 8067, 8853-8857, 8865. All this has been presented to make known why general and generic things are here first stated, and afterwards the particular and most particular things.)

4329. Some spirits arrived at a point fairly high up who, to judge by the sound they made, seemed to be many. I learnt from the ideas comprising their thought and speech which were channelled in my direction that they did not have a distinct idea of anything, only a general idea of many things. This led me to suppose that they were not capable of perceiving anything distinct and separate, but only something general and not distinct, and so something obscure; for I was of the opinion that something general could not be other than obscure. That their thought was general, that is, the thought of many things at one and the same time, I was able to recognize clearly from the ideas which were flowing into my thought from them.

[2] But they were provided with a spirit as an intermediary through whom they talked to me; for that kind of general thought could not be put into words without the help of others. And when I spoke to the spirits through the intermediary I said, as I supposed, that general things could not present a distinct and separate idea of any particular matter, only an idea so obscure as to be so to speak none at all. But after a quarter of an hour they showed that they had a distinct idea of things that were general, and of many aspects of those that were general. They showed this in particular by observing, so accurately and distinctly that no other spirits could do better, all the variations and changes in my thoughts and affections, and noting the smallest details in these. From these experiences I was able to deduce that a general idea which is obscure, as it is among people who have little knowledge and are therefore in obscurity about everything, is quite different from a general idea which is clear, as it is among those who have been taught about truths and forms of good. For those truths and forms of good have been introduced - in their own order and own connected series - into a general profile of them, and have been arranged in such a way that those people are able from that general profile to see them all distinctly.

[3] The spirits are those who in the next life constitute the general and voluntary sensory activity, and who by means of cognitions of goodness and truth have acquired to themselves the ability to look at things from what is general, and by doing that to contemplate things broadly and to discover instantly whether something is true. They see things, it is true, in obscurity so to speak, since they see them from the general profile to which they belong. Yet because they have been ordered and made distinct within the general profile, those things are therefore clear to them. This general sensory activity that is voluntary does not occur except in the wise. The fact that these spirits were such was another thing I learnt, for they could see in me every single detail of what I had concluded, and from this drew conclusions about the interior aspects of my thoughts and affections. Those conclusions were so accurate that I began to be afraid even to think anything more at all. For they uncovered things which I did not know to exist with me, and yet from the conclusions reached by them I had to admit to what they had uncovered. From this I perceived in myself a disinclination to talk to them, a disinclination which, when I became aware of it, took on the appearance of something hairy and of something in it speaking yet making no sound. I was told that this meant the general sensory awareness in the body that corresponds to those spirits. The next day I again spoke to them and once more discovered that they had a general perception that was not obscure but clear, and that as general things and the states that go with these varied so did particular ones and the states that go with them since the latter are related by their order and connected series to the former.

[4] I was told that general and voluntary sensory powers that are yet more perfect exist within the interior sphere of heaven and that when angels have a general or universal idea they have at the same time specific ideas which are ordered and made distinct by the Lord within the universal. General and universal wholes, I have been told, are not anything if they do not include within them the individual and the specific parts from which they exist and are so called, and that they exist just insofar as these individual and specific parts are present within them. From this it is also evident that without every most specific detail within it and from which it exists the Lord's Providence is nothing at all, and that it is quite stupid to think of the existence of something universal in the case of the Divine and to take specific details away from it.