Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg
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page 15 of 404 (03%)
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unit._ Everyone who brings his mind to bear on the matter can see clearly
that there is no "one" apart from form, and if a thing exists at all, it is a form. For what exists at all derives from form what is known as its character and its predicates, its changes of state, also its relevance, and so on. A thing without form has no way of affecting us, and what has no power of affecting, has no reality. It is form which enables to all this. And as all things have a form, then if the form is perfect, all things in it regard each other mutually, as link does link in a chain. It follows that it is form which makes a thing a unit and thus an entity of which character, state, affection or anything else can be predicated; each is predicated of it according to the perfection of the form. [3] Such a unit is every object which meets the eye in the world. Such, too, is everything not seen with the eye, whether in interior nature or in the spiritual world. The human being is such a unit, human society is, likewise the church, and in the Lord's view the whole angelic heaven, too; in short, all creation in general and in every particular. For each and all things to be forms, He who created all things must be form itself, and all things made must be from that form. This, therefore, was also demonstrated in the work _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ as that "Divine love and wisdom are substance and form" (nn. 40-43); "Divine love and wisdom are form itself, thus the one Self and the single independent existence" (nn. 44-46); "Divine love and wisdom are one in the Lord" (nn. 14-17, 18-22), "and proceed as one from Him" (nn. 99-102, and elsewhere). [4] _A form makes a one the more perfectly as the elements entering into it are distinctly different and yet united._ This hardly falls into a comprehension not elevated, for the appearance is that a form cannot make a one except as its elements are quite alike. I have spoken with angels often on the subject. They said that this is a secret perceived clearly |
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