365. (ii) The Lord flows in likewise in the case of every person with the whole essence of faith and charity.

This follows from the previous proposition, since the life of Divine wisdom is the essence of faith, and the life of Divine love is the essence of charity. Therefore, when the Lord is present with His own particular attributes, namely Divine wisdom and Divine love, He is also present with all the truths which make up faith and all the kinds of good which make up charity. For faith means every truth which the Lord enables a person to perceive, think and speak, and charity means every kind of good for which the Lord inspires an affection, and which the person consequently wills and does.

[2] I said above that the Divine love which radiates from the Lord as a sun is felt by the angels as heat, and the Divine wisdom from the same source is perceived as light. Anyone who is unable to pass beyond appearances in his thinking might hold the view that that heat is nothing but heat, and that light is nothing but light, such as are the heat and light radiated by the sun of our world. But the heat and light radiated by the Lord as a sun contain within themselves all the infinite possibilities in the Lord, the heat containing all the infinite possibilities of His love, the light all the infinite possibilities of His wisdom. Thus they also contain to an infinite degree all the good which makes up charity and all the truth which makes up faith. The reason is that that very sun is everywhere present in the form of its heat and light; and that sun is a circle most closely surrounding the Lord, and emanating from His Divine love and at the same time from His Divine wisdom. For, as has been said a number of times before, the Lord is in the midst of that sun.

[3] These statements now show plainly that there cannot be anything lacking to prevent a person drawing from the Lord, since He is omnipresent, all the good which makes up charity and all the truth which makes up faith. The fact that nothing of this is lacking is evident from a consideration of the love and wisdom of the angels of heaven; these they have from the Lord, and they are beyond description, passing the comprehension of a natural person, and they are capable of being increased for ever.

The infinite possibilities contained in the heat and light radiated by the Lord, even though they are perceived as simply heat and light, can be illustrated by various phenomena of the natural world. For instance, the sound of a person's voice and speech is heard as a simple sound, yet the angels on hearing it perceive in it all the affections which make up the person's love, and they also show which affections and of what kind they are. The fact that these things lie hidden within the sound one can even to some extent grasp from the sound of someone talking: for instance, whether it has in it a ring of contempt, or mockery, or hatred; and equally whether it has a ring of charity, good will, or cheerfulness, or other affections. The look the eye has when gazing at someone has something similar hidden in it.

[4] Another illustration might be the scents of a large garden, or the scents from broad expanses of flowering meadows. The fragrant odour they exhale is composed of thousands and myriads of various scents, yet they are still perceived as one. It is similar with many other things which, uniform as they appear externally, are still inwardly multifarious.

Sympathetic or antipathetic feelings are nothing but affections given off from the mind; they attract another the more strongly the more they resemble his, and repel him the more they differ from his. Although these feelings are countless and not felt by any bodily sense, they are still perceived by the sensory organs of the soul as one; and it is these which determine who are linked together and associated in the spiritual world. I have brought in these comparisons in order to illustrate what was said above about the spiritual light radiated by the Lord containing the whole of wisdom and the whole of faith; and to show that this is the light which allows the understanding to see and submit to analysis rational arguments, just as the eye sees and estimates the proportions of natural objects.

10214. Verses 11-16 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, When you take the sum of the children of Israel, as they have been numbered ¹ , they shall give - each one - an expiation for his soul to Jehovah when they are numbered ² , that there may be no plague among them when they are numbered ² . This is what they shall give, everyone passing over to those who have been numbered - half a shekel according to the shekel of holiness (a shekel is twenty obols ³ ). Half a shekel shall be the offering to Jehovah. Everyone passing over to those who have been numbered, from a son of twenty years ⁴ and over, shall give the offering of Jehovah. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give the offering of Jehovah, to make expiation for your souls. And you shall take the silver of expiations from the children of Israel, and give it to the work of the tent of meeting; and to the children of Israel it shall be as a remembrance before Jehovah, to make expiation for your souls.

'And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying' means enlightenment from the Lord through the Word. 'When you take the sum of the children of Israel' means all things of the Church. 'As they have been numbered' means as they have been arranged and set in order. 'They shall give - each one - an expiation for his soul when they are numbered' means purification or deliverance from evil through the acknowledgement and belief that all the forms of good and the truths of faith and love come from the Lord, not at all from man, as does their being arranged in order. 'That there may be no plague among them when they are numbered' means in order that there may be no punishment of evil when they do good as from themselves. 'This is what everyone passing over to those who have been numbered shall give' means the attribution to the Lord of all that constitutes faith and love. 'Half a shekel according to the shekel of holiness' means all forms of truth springing from good. 'A shekel is twenty obols' means all the components of good. 'Half a shekel shall be the offering to Jehovah' means that all the constituents of truth springing from good are the Lord's alone. ['Everyone passing over to those who have been numbered' means that all truths and forms of good are to be attributed to the Lord alone.] 'From a son of twenty years and over' means the state in which the understanding of truth and good exists. 'Shall give the offering of Jehovah' means attribution to the Lord alone. 'The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give [the offering] of Jehovah' means that all equally, however much ability they possess, should attribute to the Lord all forms of truth springing from good. 'To make expiation for your souls' means in order that evils may be removed. 'And you shall take the silver of expiations from the children of Israel' means the purifying truths springing from good that are the Church's. 'And give it to the work of the tent of meeting' means being joined to heaven through the acknowledgement that all truths and forms of good come from the Lord. 'And to the children of Israel it shall be as a remembrance before Jehovah' means thus the preservation of the Church and of all things the Church has by the Lord. 'To make expiation for your souls' means since evils have thereby been removed.

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