78.  It seems as if the Divine were not the same in one person as in another; as if, for instance, it were different in the wise and in the simple, or in an old man and in a child.  But this is a fallacy arising from appearance; the man is different, but the Divine in him is not different.  Man is a recipient, and the recipient or receptacle is what varies.  A wise man is a recipient of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom more adequately, and therefore more fully, than a simple man; and an old man who is also wise, more than a little child or boy; yet the Divine is the same in the one as in the other.  It is in like manner a fallacy arising from appearance, that the Divine is different with angels of heaven from what it is with men on the earth, because the angels of heaven are in wisdom ineffable, while men are not; but the seeming difference is not in the Lord but in the subjects, according to the quality of their reception of the Divine.

79.  That the Divine is the same in things greatest and least, may be shown by means of heaven and by means of an angel there.  The Divine in the whole heaven and the Divine in an angel is the same; therefore even the whole heaven may appear as one angel.  So is it with the church, and with a man of the church.  The greatest form receptive of the Divine is the whole heaven together with the whole church; the least is an angel of heaven and a man of the church.  Sometimes an entire society of heaven has appeared to me as one angel-man; and it was told that it may appear like a man as large as a giant, or like a man as small as an infant; and this, because the Divine in things greatest and least is the same.

80.  The Divine is also the same in the greatest and in the least of all created things that are not alive; for it is in all the good of their use.  These, moreover, are not alive for the reason that they are not forms of life but forms of uses; and the form varies according to the excellence of the use.  But how the Divine is in these things will be stated in what follows, where creation is treated of.

81.  Put away space, and deny the possibility of a vacuum, and then think of Divine Love and of Divine Wisdom as being Essence itself, space having been put away and a vacuum denied.  Then think according to space; and you will perceive that the Divine, in the greatest and in the least things of space, is the same; for in essence abstracted from space there is neither great nor small, but only the same.

82.  Something shall now be said about vacuum.  I once heard angels talking with Newton about vacuum, and saying that they could not tolerate the idea of a vacuum as being nothing, for the reason that in their world which is spiritual, and which is within or above the spaces and times of the natural world, they equally feel, think, are affected, love, will, breathe, yea, speak and act, which would be utterly impossible in a vacuum which is nothing, since nothing is nothing,