Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 215

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215. It has not yet been known that the ultimate of each series, that is, use, action, work, and practice, is the complex and containant of all the prior things. It appears as if there were nothing more in use, action, work and practice than such as there is in motion. But yet all the prior things are actually present in these, and so fully that there is nothing lacking. They are enclosed therein like wine in its cask and like furniture in its house. They are not apparent, because they are regarded only externally, and regarded externally, they are merely activities and motions. It is like when arms and hands move, and one is unconscious that a thousand motor fibres concur in every motion of them, and that to the thousand motor fibres correspond thousands of things of thought and affection which excite the motor fibres. Because these things act inwardly, they are not apparent to any bodily sense. But this is known, that nothing takes place in or through the body except from the will by means of the thought. And because both of these act, it cannot be otherwise than that all things of the will and the thought, in general and in particular, are within the action. They cannot be separated. Hence it is that from a man s deeds or works others judge of the thought of his will which is called intention. This has been made known to me, that angels, from the mere deed or work of a man, perceive and see everything of the will and thought of the doer. Angels of the third heaven perceive and see from his will the end for which he acts, and angels of the second heaven the cause through which the end operates. It is from this that in the Word, works and deeds are so often commanded, and that it is said that a man is known by his works.


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