SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE WORD OF GOD - { PT. 29 }

 { PT.  29 } - The idea of God is the chief of all ideas; for such as this idea in such is man's communication with heaven and his conjunction with heaven and his conjunction with the Lord, and such is his enlightenment, his affection for truth and good, his perception, intelligence, and wisdom; for these are not from man but from the Lord according to conjunction with Him. The idea of God is the idea of the Lord and His Divine, for no other is God of heaven and God of earth, as He Himself teaches in Matthew: Authority has been given unto Me in heaven and on earth ( xxviii  18 ). But the idea of the Lord is more or less clear; it is full in the inmost heaven, less full in the middle, and still less full in the out-most heaven; therefore those who are in the inmost heaven are in wisdom, those who are in the middle in intelligence, and those who are in the out-most in knowledge. The idea is clear in the angels who are at the center of the societies of heaven; and less clear in those who are round about, according to the degrees of distance from the center. All in the heavens have places allotted them according to the fullness and clearness of their idea of the Lord, and they are correspondent wisdom and in correspondent felicity. All those who have no idea of the Lord as Divine, like the Socinians and Arians, are under the heavens, and are unhappy.