were regarded by them as men. This has been said to make known that
there is an intuition, namely, in man's spirit, to see God as a man.
That is called an intuition which is from general influx. (A.E., n.
955.)

As man from a general influx out of heaven sees in his spirit that God
is a Man, it follows that those who are of the church where the Word is,
if they shun and turn away from evils as sins, see, from the light of
heaven in which they then are, the Divine in the Lord's Human, and the
trine in Him, and Himself to be the God of heaven and earth. But those
who by intelligence from what is their own (proprium) have destroyed in
themselves the idea of God as a Man are unable to see this; neither do
they see from the trinity that is in their thought that God is one; they
call Him one with the lips only. But those who have not been purified
from evils, and therefore are not in the light of heaven, do not in
their spirit see the Lord to be the God of heaven and earth; but in
place of the Lord some other being is acknowledged; by some of these
someone whom they believe to be God the Father; by others someone whom
they call God because he is especially powerful; by others some devil
whom they fear because he can bring evil upon them; by others Nature, as
in the world; and by others no God at all. It is said in their spirit,
because they are such after death when they become spirits; therefore
what lay concealed in their spirit in the world then becomes manifest.
But all who are in heaven acknowledge the Lord only, since the whole
heaven is from the Divine that goes forth from Him, and answers to Him
as a Man; and for this reason no one can enter heaven unless he is in
the Lord, for he enters into the Lord when he enters into heaven. If
others enter they lose their mind and fall backward. (A.E., n. 956.)

The idea of God is the chief of all ideas; for such as this idea is such