From a passage in Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
... beasts were employed in the sacrifices in accordance with their signification ... all things in the three kingdoms of nature are representative of the spiritual and celestial things of the Lord's kingdom ... there are correspondences of all things ...... not only all beasts, but also all things in the world, correspond, and according to their correspondences represent and signify spiritual and celestial things, and in the supreme sense the Divine things of the Lord; and from this to show the nature of the Ancient Churches, which were called representative churches; namely, that all their holy rites represented the things of the Lord and His kingdom, thus the things of love and faith in Him; and that by means of such things heaven was then conjoined with the man of the church; for the internal things were presented in heaven.
To the same end the Word of the Lord was given, for each and all things therein, down to the smallest jot, correspond and have a signification; consequently through the Word alone is there a connection of heaven with man.That this is the case no one at this day knows; and therefore when a natural man reads the Word, and searches where the Divine lies hidden in it; and when on account of its ordinary style he does not find it in the letter, he first begins to hold it in low esteem, and then to deny that it has been dictated by the Divine Itself, and sent down through heaven to man; for he does not know that the Word is Divine by virtue of its spiritual sense, which is not apparent in the letter, but nevertheless is in the letter; and that this sense is presented in heaven when a man reads the Word with reverence; and that this sense treats of the Lord and His kingdom. It is these Divine things from which the Word is Divine, and by means of which holiness flows through heaven from the Lord down into the literal sense, and into the very letter itself. But so long as a man does not know what the spiritual is, he cannot know what the spiritual sense is, thus not what correspondence is. And so long as a man loves the world more than heaven, and himself more than the Lord, he does not wish to know or apprehend these things; although all the intelligence of ancient times was from this source, as is also the wisdom of the angels. The mystical secrets which many diviners have in vain busied themselves to trace in the Word, lie hidden solely in its spiritual sense.
(Arcana Coelestia 9280:2,3)