by Samuel Mills Warren and John Bigelow

“ The love of God reaches and extends, not only to men and things that are good, but also to men and things that are evil; consequently, not only to men and things in heaven, but to men and things also in hell; thus not to Michael and Gabriel only, but to the Devil and Satan also. For God is everywhere, and from eternity to eternity the same. ”

“ In the spiritual world no one can do anything contrary to his own will. This they there derive from God, whose power and will are one. God also is Good itself; while therefore He does good He is in Himself, and He cannot go out of Himself. Hence it appears that His omnipotence proceeds and operates within the sphere of the extension of good, which is infinite. For this sphere, from the inmost, fills the universe and all and everything therein; and from the inmost it governs those things which are without, as far as they conjoin themselves according to their order. ”

“ Human reason, however, if it will, may perceive or conclude that there is a God, and that He is one. This truth it can confirm by innumerable things in the visible world. For the universe is as a theatre on which the testimony that there is a God, and that He is one, is continually set forth. ”

“ His infinity comprehends both immensity and eternity. But as infinity transcends what is finite, and the cognition of it, the finite mind, in order to attain some degree of perception of the subject, it must be treated of in this order:—1. God is infinite because He is and exists in Himself, and all things in the universe are and exist from Him. 2. God is infinite because He was before the world, consequently before spaces and times had birth. 3. God, since the world was made, is in space without space, and in time without time. ”

“ An angel of heaven can by no means think otherwise, when he thinks of the divine omnipresence, than that the Divine fills all things without space. What an angel thinks is truth, because the light which enlightens his understanding is divine wisdom. This thought concerning God is fundamental; for without it what is to be said of the creation of the universe from God Man, and of His providence, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, though it should be understood cannot be retained. ”

“ The reasons why this has not heretofore been seen are several: one is, that appearances are the first things from which the human mind forms its understanding, and that it cannot shake them off but by an investigation of the cause; and if the cause lies very deep, it cannot investigate it without keeping the understanding, for some time, in spiritual light, in which it cannot keep it long, by reason of the natural light which continually draws it down. The truth however is, that love and wisdom are very and actual substance and form, and constitute the subject itself. ”

“ It is because the very Divine essence is love and wisdom that man has two faculties of life, from one of which he has his understanding, and from the other his will. The faculty from which he has his understanding derives all that it has from the influx of wisdom from God; and the faculty from which he has his will derives all that it has from the influx of love from God. That man is not justly wise, and does not exercise his love justly, does not take away the faculties, but inwardly closes them. ”

“ A man who has reason, therefore, from a common attribute of his understanding, does not and cannot think otherwise. Say to any one of sound reason that there are two Creators of the universe, and you will find an aversion to you on account of it—and perhaps from the bare sound of the words in the ear. ”

“ Because the merely natural man, when he understands them, relapses yet into his life's love, which is of his will; and this love dissipates, and immerses them in space, in which what he calls his rational light is,—not knowing that in proportion as he denies those things he is irrational. ”

“ For what is the object of a mother's thoughts when she brings forth her child, but to unite herself, as it were, with it, and to provide for its good? What is a bird's concern when she has hatched her young, but to cherish them under her wings, and with every mark of endearment to feed and nourish them? ”

“ God perceives, sees, and knows all things, even to the most minute, that are done according to order; because order is universal from things the most single. For the single things taken together are denominated the universal; as the particulars taken together are denominated a general. The universal together with its most single things is a work cohering as one, insomuch that one part cannot be touched and affected without some sense of it being communicated to all the rest. It is from this quality of order in the universe that there is something similar in all created things in the world. ”

“ These He gives to those who receive His love in themselves. For God, as He is love itself, is also blessedness itself; and as all love breathes forth delight from itself, so Divine love breathes forth very blessedness, satisfaction, and happiness to all eternity. Thus God makes angels, and also men after death, happy from Himself; which is effected by conjunction with them.
That such is the nature of the Divine love is apparent from its sphere, which pervades the universe, and affects every one according to his state. ”

“ Of how great importance it is to have a just idea of God may appear from the consideration, that the idea of God forms the inmost of thought with all who have any religion; for all things of religion and all things of worship have relation to God; and as God is in all things of religion and of worship universally and particularly, therefore unless there be a just idea of God there cannot be any communication with the heavens. ”

“ Love indeed in itself regarded is nothing else than an endeavour towards conjunction. Therefore, in order that this essential of love might take effect, God created man in His image and likeness, that thus he might have conjunction with Him. ”

“ And the reason why many do not comprehend it is that they love the natural, and are therefore not willing to elevate the thoughts of their understanding above it into spiritual light; and they who will not cannot think even of God except from space, and to think of God from space is to think of the expanse of nature. ”

“ So also with the sight; it appears, when a man sees objects at a distance, as if the sight were there, but yet it is in the eye, which is the subject, and is, in like manner, an affection thereof; the distance is only from the judgment forming its conclusions of space from intermediate objects, or from the diminution and consequent obscuration of the object, the image of which is produced within the eye according to the angle of incidence. It hence appears that the sight does not go from the eye to the object, but that the image of the object enters the eye, and affects its substance and form. ”

“ Moreover, that He alone gives life to all and each of the things which are in the worlds of nature and in the worlds above nature; and as He alone gives life, that no angel, spirit, or man, can move hand or foot except from Him. The quality of the infinite power of the Lord is especially evident from the consideration that He alone receives all that come from so many earths into the spiritual worlds, who are some myriads every week from our earth, and consequently so many myriads from so many thousands of earths in the universe ”

“ God is Love itself and Life itself.
If it is thought that Life itself is God, or that God is Life itself, and there is at the same time no idea of what life is, in that case there is no intelligence of what God is beyond these expressions. ”

“ A truly spiritual conception of these has nothing in common with space. It is higher, and sees conceptions derived from space below itself, as heaven looks down upon the earth. But as angels and spirits equally with men see with their eyes, and objects cannot be seen except in space, therefore in the spiritual world, where spirits and angels dwell, spaces appear similar to the spaces on earth. ”

“ This love is also the cause and only origin of all the sympathies and tendencies of congenial and similar minds towards union with each other. Nay, the same Divine sphere operates even upon the inanimate parts of the creation, as trees and plants. ”

“ The reason that He is uncreate is that life cannot be created, though it can create. For to be created is to exist from another; and if life existed from another there would be another being that would be life, and this life would be life itself. ”

“ This sphere especially affects parents, inspiring them with a tender love for their children, who are out of or without them, and with a desire to be one with them, and to make them happy from themselves. It affects even the evil as well as the good; and not only man, but beasts and birds of every kind. ”

“ The idea of God enters into all things of the Church, of religion, and of worship. Not only do theological subjects reside above all [others] in the human mind, but supreme therein is the idea of God. If this therefore be false all things which follow derive from the beginning whence they flow, that they are false, or falsified. ”

“ They are also in conjunction with the whole angelic heaven, and I might venture to affirm with all and each of the angels there; for they all are as the children and descendants of one father whose minds, manners, and faces are resemblant, so that they mutually recognize each other. The angelic heaven is harmoniously arranged in societies, according to all the varieties of the love of good; which varieties all tend to one most universal love, which is love to God. ”

“ But by revelation given man can approach and receive influx from God, and so from natural become spiritual; and a primeval revelation pervaded the whole world. But the natural man perverted it, in many ways ”

“ He who in faith acknowledges and in heart worships one God is in the communion of saints on earth, and in the communion of angels in the heavens. They are called communions, and are so, because they are in one God and one God is in them. ”

“ For it is the same with the sight as with the hearing; the hearing does not go out of the ear to catch the sound, but the sound enters the ear and affects it. It thus appears that the affection of a substance and form, which constitutes sense, is not a thing separate from the subject, but only causes a change in it, the subject remaining the subject then, as before, and after. ”

“ Hence it is that all those in the world who are in conjunction with heaven think of God in like manner, when they think interiorly within themselves, or in their spirit. It is from the fact that God is Man that all angels and all spirits are men in perfect form. The form of heaven effects this, which in its greatest and in its least parts is like itself. It is known from Gen. i. 26, 27, that men were created after the image and likeness of God ”

“ Men cannot but confound the Divine Infinity with infinity of space; and as they cannot conceive of the infinity of space as other than a mere nothing, as it really is, they disbelieve the Divine Infinity. The case is similar in respect to eternity, which men can only conceive of as eternity of time, it being presented to the mind under the idea of time with those who are in time. The true idea of the Divine Infinity is insinuated into the angels by this: that in an instant they are present under the Lord's view, without ”

“ As to the nature and character of the one God, nations and peoples have strayed and are still straying into diverse opinions; for many reasons. The first is, that there can be no knowledge respecting God, and consequent acknowledgment of God, except by revelation ”

“ All the affections, perceptions, and thoughts therein are not exhalations from the substances, but are actually and really the subjects which do not emit anything from themselves, but only undergo changes, according to the influences which affect them, as may evidently appear from what has been said above concerning the senses. ”