The Bible

 

Genesis 1:22

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22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #18

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18. Anyone can come to an inner assurance about the presence of infinite things in God--anyone, that is, who believes that God is a person; because if God is a person, he has a body and everything that having a body entails. So he has a face, torso, abdomen, upper legs, and lower legs, since without these he would not be a person. Since he has these components, he also has eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and tongue. He also has what we find within a person, such as a heart and lungs and the things that depend on them, all of which, taken together, make us human. We are created with these many components, and if we consider them in their interconnections, they are beyond counting. In the Divine-Human One, though, they are infinite. Nothing is lacking, so he has an infinite completeness.

We can make this comparison of the uncreated Person, who is God, with us who are created, because that God is a person. It is because of him that we earthly beings are said to have been created in his image and in his likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #5221

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5221. 'And it happened early in the morning' means in that new state. This is clear from the meaning of 'it happened', or so it was, as that which implies something new, dealt with in 4979, 4987; and from the meaning of 'early' or 'the morning" as a state of enlightenment, dealt with in 3458, 3723, this state being the new one that is meant, about which see just above in 5218. The subject here is that state and the nature of it, namely one of turmoil owing to the obscurity that exists regarding the things that are taking place. But scarcely anyone can know anything about what that state is like unless he has come into a spiritual sphere and at the same time takes note of what is going on inside himself.

[2] Unless he does so he cannot begin to know what is meant by receiving a general enlightenment or by receiving a particular enlightenment. He cannot even know what is meant by receiving enlightenment, let alone the idea that within a state of general enlightenment 1 turmoil exists initially and that there is no respite until truths rooted in good are restored in their proper order. Angels have a clear perception of all this, and so do good spirits, because they live in a spiritual sphere. To know about such matters and to think them over is a source of delight to them. But to someone in a natural sphere, more so to someone in a sphere of sensory-mindedness, and more so still to one who is completely sensory-minded and concerned only with ideas gained from bodily and earthly things, such matters are of no interest.

Footnotes:

1. The first Latin edition reads within a general state of enlightenment, but Swedenborg's rough draft reads within a state of general enlightenment.

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