wisdom and love, thus, of life from the Lord. Such degrees of life are, also, in every organ, in all the viscera and members of the body, and they act in unity with the degrees of life in the brains by influx, the skins, the cartilages and the bones constituting their ultimate degree. The reason why such degrees are in man, is, because such are the degrees of the life which proceeds from the Lord, but in the Lord they are life, whereas in man they are recipients of life. It is, however, to be noted, that in the Lord there are degrees still superior, and that all, both the supreme and the ultimate, are life, for the Lord teaches that he is the life, and likewise, that he has flesh and bones. But concerning these degrees, and concerning continuous degrees, see the work on Heaven and Hell, n. 33, 34, 38, 39, 208, 209, 211, 425, where they are more fully described, the knowledge of which it will be expedient to draw forth thence for use in what follows.

29. Inasmuch as God is life, it follows that he is uncreated: the reason why he is uncreated, is, because life cannot be created, but it can create; for to be created is to exist from another, and if life existed from another, there would be another who would be life, and this life would be life in itself; and if this first was not life in itself, it would either be from another or from itself, and life from itself cannot be predicated, because from itself involves birth,

and that birth would be from nothing, and from nothing, nothing can be born. This first, which in itself is, and from which all things have been created, is God, who, from being in himself is called Jehovah. That this is the case, reason may see, especially if it be enlightened by things created. Now, whereas he is not, unless he also exist, hence esse and existere in God are one, for whilst he is he exists, and whilst he exists he is. This, therefore, is the life itself which is God, and which is a Man.

30. That all things are from the life itself which is God, and which is a Man, may be illustrated from the man who has been created, in that he, as to his ultimate principles, as to his middle principles, and as to his inmost principles, is a man; for the man, who in the world, as to his life, has been merely corporeal, thus stupid, after the rejection of the material body appears still in the spiritual world as a man; and again, the man, who in the world, as to his life, has been merely sensual or natural, thus who has known little about heaven, although much about the world, he, after death still appears as a man; the man, again, who in the world, as to life, has been rational, thus who has thought well from natural lumen, he, after death, when he becomes a spirit, appears as a man; again, the man, who in the world, as to his life, has been spiritual, he, after death, when he becomes an angel, appears as

man, perfect according to the reception of life from the Lord; lastly, the man, with whom the third degree is open, thus who in the world, as to life, has been celestial, he, after death, when he becomes an angel, appears as a man in all perfection. The life itself appertaining to him is a man, both the sensual and natural, as well as the rational, the spiritual, and the celestia, for so the degrees of life are called; the man, in whom those degrees exist, is only a recipient. And as it is in the smallest types, so it is in the greatest; the universal angelic heaven in every complex is a man; every heaven by itself, the first, the second, and third, is a man; every society in the heavens, greater and lesser, is a man; yea, the church in the earths, in general, is a man ; also, all congregations, which are called churches by themselves, are men: it is said the church, and thereby are understood all with whom the church is, in the complex; so the church in the earths appears to the angels of heaven; the ground and reason of which appearance is, because the life which is from the Lord is a man: life from the Lord is love and wisdom, hence such as the reception of love and wisdom from the Lord is, such is the man. These things first testify, that all things were created from the life, which is God, and which is a man.

31. That all things are from the life itself, which is God, and which is wisdom and love,

may, also, be illustrated by things created, whilst they are viewed from order. For it is from order that the angelic heavens, consisting of thousands and thousands of societies, act in unity by love to the Lord, and by love towards the neighbour, and that they are kept in order by divine truths, which are the laws of order; and likewise, that the hells beneath them, which, also, are distinguished into thousands and thousands of congregations, are kept in order by judgments and punishments, so that although they are hatreds and insanities, still they cannot occasion the least mischief to the heavens. It is, also, from order, that between the heavens and the hells, there is an equilibrium, in which man is in the world, and in which he is led, if by the Lord, to heaven, if by himself, to hell; for it is a law of order, that man shall act what he acts from freedom, according to reason. Since so many myriads of myriads of men, since the creation of the world, have poured in both to heaven and hell, and are perpetually pouring in like streams, and every individual is of a dissimilar genius and love, it would have been impossible for them to have been consociated together into one, unless God was one, who is life itself, which life is wisdom itself and love itself, and thence order itself: So much respecting heaven. But in the world, divine order appears from the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets; the sun, to appear

ance, makes years, days, and hours, and likewise the times of the year, which are spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and the times of the day, which are morning, mid-day, evening and night, and animates all things of the earth, according to the reception of his heat in light, and of his light in heat, and, according to reception, opens, disposes and prepares bodies and matters, which are in the earth, and upon the earth, to receive influx from the spiritual world; hence, in the time of spring, by the union of heat and light at that season, the fowls of heaven and the animals of the earth return into the love of prolification, and into the science of all things proper to that love, whilst vegetables return into the endeavour and act of producing leaves, flowers, and fruits, and therein seeds, to perpetuate their kind to eternity, and to multiply it ad infinitum. It is, also, from order, that the earth produces vegetables, and that vegetables nourish animals, and that both the latter and the former are of use to man, for food, for raiment, and for pleasure; and whereas man is the creature in whom God dwells, that they thus return to God from whom are all things. From these considerations it is evident, that created things succeed in such an order, that one is for another, and that they are perpetual ends which are uses, and that the ends which are uses are constantly so directed, that they may return to God from