Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
It has been said that the Divine truth proceeds from the Lord, and that the Word is from that, and that through the Word angels and men have wisdom. But so long as it is unknown how the Divine truth proceeds from the Lord, this may be said but it cannot be understood.The Divine truth, which is the same as the Divine wisdom, proceeds from the Lord as light and heat do from the sun. The Lord is the Divine love itself, and love appears in the heavens from correspondence as fire, and the Lord's Divine love as a sun, glowing and resplendent like the sun of the world. From that sun, which is high above the heavens where the angels are, and which is the Divine love, heat and light proceed; the heat therefrom is the Divine good, and the light therefrom is the Divine truth.
The heat is the Divine good, because all the heat of life proceeding from love is felt as good, for it is spiritual heat; and the light is the Divine truth, because all the light proceeding from love is felt as truth, for it is spiritual light; consequently it is from that light that the understanding sees truths, and it is from that heat that the will is sensible of goods; and this is why in the Word love is meant by heavenly fire and wisdom by heavenly light.
It is the same with a man and with an angel. Every angel and man is his own love, and a sphere flowing out from his love encompasses every man and angel. That sphere consists of the good of his love and of the truth of his love, for love produces both, as fire produces both heat and light; from the will of a man or angel it produces good, and from his understanding it produces truth. This sphere, when the man or angel is good, has an extension into the heavens in every direction according to the quality and the amount of the love, and into the hells in every direction when the man or angel is evil. But the sphere of the love of a man or an angel has a finite extension into a few societies only of heaven or hell, while the sphere of the Lord's love, because it is Divine, has an infinite extension, and creates the heavens themselves.
(to be continued)
(Apocalypse Explained 1076:2)