Heaven and its Wonders and Hell eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 590 pages of information about Heaven and its Wonders and Hell.

Heaven and its Wonders and Hell eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 590 pages of information about Heaven and its Wonders and Hell.

  {Footnote 2} Interior things are portrayed by higher things,
  and higher things signify interior things (n. 2148, 3084, 4599,
  5146, 8325).

23.  The love in which those are, who are in the celestial kingdom is called celestial love, and the love in which those are who are in the spiritual kingdom is called spiritual love.  Celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is love towards the neighbor.  And as all good pertains to love (for good to any one is what he loves) the good also of the other kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual.  Evidently, then, the two kingdoms are distinguished from each other in the same way as good of love to the Lord is distinguished from good of love towards the neighbor.{1} And as the good of love to the Lord is an interior good, and that love is interior love, so the celestial angels are interior angels, and are called higher angels.

{Footnote 1} The good of the celestial kingdom is good of love to the Lord, and the good of the spiritual kingdom is good of charity towards the neighbor (n. 3691, 6435, 9468, 9680, 9683, 9780).

24.  The celestial kingdom is called also the Lord’s priestly kingdom, and in the Word “His dwelling-place;” while the spiritual kingdom is called His royal kingdom, and in the Word “His throne.”  And from the celestial Divine the Lord in the world was called “Jesus,” while from the spiritual Divine He was called “Christ.”

25.  The angels in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, from their more interior reception of the Divine of the Lord, far excel in wisdom and glory the angels that are in His spiritual kingdom; for they are in love to the Lord, and consequently are nearer and more closely conjoined to Him.{1} These angels are such because they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life, and not first in memory and thought, as the spiritual angels do.  Consequently they have Divine truths written in their hearts, and they perceive them, and as it were see them, in themselves; nor do they ever reason about them whether they are true or not.{2} They are such as are described in Jeremiah: 

I will put my law in their mind, and will write it in their heart.  They shall teach no more everyone his friend and everyone his brother, saying, Know ye Jehovah.  They shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them (31:33, 34).

And they are called in Isaiah: 

     Taught of Jehovah (54:13).

That the “taught of Jehovah” are those who are taught by the Lord He Himself teaches in John (6:45, 46).

{Footnote 1} The celestial angels immeasurably surpass in wisdom the spiritual angels (n. 2718, 9995).  The nature of the distinction between celestial angels and spiritual angels (n. 2088, 2669, 2708, 2715, 3235, 3240, 4788, 7068, 8521, 9277, 10295).
{Footnote 2} The celestial angels do not
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.