47. A proper perception of these matters may show that the universe is a coherent whole from first to last, since it contains ends, causes and effects bound up in an indissoluble knot. Since every love has an end in view, and all wisdom is the advancement of the end through mediate causes, and through these proceeding to effects, which are the purposes it serves, it follows too that the universe contains the Divine Love, the Divine Wisdom and services, and is thus a coherent whole from first to last. Every wise man can study as in a mirror the fact that the universe is composed of a perpetual succession of services brought about by wisdom and initiated by love, if he forms for himself any general idea about the creation of the universe, and examines its details. For the details adapt themselves to the general pattern, and this arranges them into a consonant form. Many illustrations of this will be given in the following pages.

The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation that drives everything else. In general this will be something we love or feel, because at the core of things we are what we love; our loves define us.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 44, 90, 268; Arcana Coelestia 2252, 2940, 10153, 10365, 10557, 10635, 10641)