1. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

Divine Providence Is the Form of Government Exercised by the Lord's Divine Love and Wisdom

To understand what divine providence is--that it is the way the Lord's divine love and wisdom govern us--it is important to be aware of the following things, which were presented in my book on the subject.

In the Lord, divine love is a property of divine wisdom and divine wisdom is a property of divine love (Divine Love and Wisdom 34-39).

Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created (Divine Love and Wisdom 47-51).

Everything in the universe was created by divine love and wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 52, 53, 151-156).

Everything in the created universe is a vessel of divine love and wisdom (54-60 [55-60]).

The Lord looks like the sun to angels; its radiating warmth is love and its radiating light is wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 83-88, 89-92, 93-98, 296-301).

The divine love and wisdom that emanate from the Lord constitute a single whole (Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102).

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and everything in it from himself and not from nothing (Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284, 290-295). These propositions may be found in the work titled Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom.

89. Warmth and light emanates from the sun that arises from divine love and wisdom. In the spiritual world where angels and spirits live, there is just as much warmth and light as there is in the physical world where we live. The warmth feels just like warmth and the light looks just like light, as well. Still, the warmth and light of the spiritual world and the warmth and light of the physical world are so different that they have nothing in common, as I have already mentioned [83]. They are as different as life and death. The warmth of the spiritual world is essentially alive, and so is the light; while the warmth of the physical world is essentially dead, and so is the light. The warmth and the light of the spiritual world come from a sun that is nothing but love, while the warmth and light of the physical world come from a sun that is nothing but fire. Love is alive, and divine love is life itself. Fire is dead, and solar fire is death itself. We may call it that because it has absolutely no life in it.

99. Spiritual heat and light as they emanate from the Lord as the sun are united, as His Divine love and wisdom are united. How Divine love and wisdom are united in the Lord was explained in Part One. ¹ Heat and light are united in the same way, because they are what emanate, and any attributes that emanate are by correspondence united. For heat corresponds to love, and light to wisdom.

It follows from this that as Divine love is the Divine being, and Divine wisdom its Divine expression (as shown above in nos. 14-16), so spiritual heat is the Divine attribute emanating from the Divine being, and spiritual light the Divine attribute emanating from the Divine expression. Consequently, as by virtue of that union Divine love is a property of Divine wisdom, and Divine wisdom a property of Divine love (as shown above in nos. 34-39), so spiritual heat is a property of spiritual light, and spiritual light a property of spiritual heat. Moreover, because of that union, it follows that heat and light as they emanate from the Lord as the sun are one.

That they are nevertheless not received as one by angels and people will be seen in subsequent discussions. ²

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