Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 6620

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6620. From all this it may be known how infinite are the contents also in everything of the Word (for the Word descends from the Lord through heaven), although it appears to those whose ideas have been closed, as a very simple thing. On this subject I once talked with spirits who denied that anything lies hidden in the Word; and I said that there are infinite and unutterable things therein, which cannot be perceived by those whose ideas are closed, and who admit nothing but the literal sense, which they interpret in favor of their own principles and cupidities, and thereby close to themselves access to what is stored within, and they either empty out their own ideas, or else close them tight. There was then also shown how an idea of thought appears when it has been enclosed, and how when it has been opened, for this can be easily shown in the light of heaven: the closed idea appeared like a black point, in which nothing was visible; but the opened idea appeared like a light in which there was something as of flame, and toward which everything there looked. The flame represented the Lord, and the things that looked to Him represented heaven; and it was said that in every idea which is from the Lord, there is an image of the whole heaven, because it is from Him who is heaven.


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