“After establishing mathematically that man lives eternally in spheres of either a lower or a higher grade, Swedenborg applies the term ‘Spiritual Angels’ to beings who in this world are prepared for heaven, where they become angels.  According to him, God has not created angels; none exist who have not been men upon the earth.  The earth is the nursery-ground of heaven.  The Angels are therefore not Angels as such (’Angelic Wisdom,’ 57), they are transformed through their close conjunction with God; which conjunction God never refuses, because the essence of God is not negative, but essentially active.  The spiritual angels pass through three natures of love, because man is only regenerated through successive stages (’True Religion’).  First, the love of self:  the supreme expression of this love is human genius, whose works are worshipped.  Next, love of life:  this love produces prophets,—­great men whom the world accepts as guides and proclaims to be divine.  Lastly, love of heaven, and this creates the Spiritual Angel.  These angels are, so to speak, the flowers of humanity, which culminates in them and works for that culmination.  They must possess either the love of heaven or the wisdom of heaven, but always Love before Wisdom.

“Thus the transformation of the natural man is into Love.  To reach this first degree, his previous existences must have passed through Hope and Charity, which prepare him for Faith and Prayer.  The ideas acquired by the exercise of these virtues are transmitted to each of the human envelopes within which are hidden the metamorphoses of the inner being; for nothing is separate, each existence is necessary to the other existences.  Hope cannot advance without Charity, nor Faith without Prayer; they are the four fronts of a solid square.  ’One virtue missing,’ he said, ’and the Spiritual Angel is like a broken pearl.’  Each of these existences is therefore a circle in which revolves the celestial riches of the inner being.  The perfection of the Spiritual Angels comes from this mysterious progression in which nothing is lost of the high qualities that are successfully acquired to attain each glorious incarnation; for at each transformation they cast away unconsciously the flesh and its errors.  When the man lives in Love he has shed all evil passions:  Hope, Charity, Faith, and Prayer have, in the words of Isaiah, purged the dross of his inner being, which can never more be polluted by earthly affections.  Hence the grand saying of Christ quoted by Saint Matthew, ’Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,’ and those still grander words:  ’If ye were of this world the world would love you, but I have chosen you out of the world; be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’