The Bible

 

Genesis 1:28

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28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #10157

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10157. 'That I may dwell in their midst' means what is Divine and the Lord's, which is the All in all of heaven and of the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'dwelling in the midst of the children of Israel', when it refers to Jehovah, as the Lord's presence and His influx through good in heaven and in the Church, dealt with in 10153. And since His presence there is meant, what is Divine and His, the All in all there, is also meant. For the Lord is present with the angels of heaven and with members of the Church not in what is their own but in what is His with them, thus in what is Divine, as accords with what has been shown above in 10151; and when the Lord is present in what is Divine and His in the heavens and in the Church He is also the All in all there. Therefore He constitutes heaven itself, which also explains why the whole of heaven presents an image of the Lord as to His Divine Human, and why heaven in its entirety is a human being, called the Grand Man, a subject dealt with at the ends of a number of chapters, see the places referred to in 9276(end), 10030(end). It also explains why 'man' (homo) in the Word means the Church and also heaven, 478, 768, 3636, and why those who are in heaven, and those who are truly in the Church, are said to be 'in the Lord', 3637, 3638, since the good of love to and the truth of faith in the Lord, received from the Lord, are present in them.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2480

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2480. Since people after death use the interior memory, which has previously been part of their rational, those people therefore who in the world have been more skilled at languages than others are unable to summon up one syllable from them. And people who have been more skilled in branches of learning than others cannot summon up a single fact. Indeed these people are sometimes more stupid than others. But whatever they have absorbed through those languages or branches of learning, because it has helped to form their rational, is brought into use by them. It is the rational, acquired by means of languages and learning, that these people after death think and speak from. All a person does who has imbibed falsities through languages or branches of learning, and who has confirmed himself in those falsities, is reason from falsities, whereas the person who has imbibed truths speaks from truths. Affection is what gives life - the affection for evil giving life to falsities and the affection for good giving life to truths. It is from affection that anyone thinks, and nobody thinks without it.

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