Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 1887

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1887. Inspiration implies that in every particular of the Word (as well in the historicals as in the other parts) there are celestial things which are of love or good, and spiritual things which are of faith or truth, thus Divine things. For that which is inspired by the Lord descends from Him, and does so through the angelic heaven, and so through the world of spirits down to man, with whom it is presented such as it is in the letter; but in its first origin it is altogether different. In heaven there is never any worldly history, but all is representative of Divine things, and there is no perception there of anything else, as may also be known from the fact that the things which are there are unutterable. Unless therefore the historicals were representative of Divine things, and in this way were heavenly, they could not possibly be Divinely inspired. The Word as it exists in the heavens can be known solely from the internal sense, for the internal sense is the Word of the Lord in the heavens.


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