Heaven and Hell (Harley) n. 82

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82. Such being the perception of the Divine in the heavens, there is implanted in every man who receives any influx from heaven the faculty to think of God in a human shape. The ancients thus thought of Him, and the people of to-day do so also, both within and outside the Church. The simple see Him in thought as the Ancient One in radiance. But this implanted faculty has been extinguished in all those who, by their self- intelligence and by a life of evil, have driven away the influx from heaven. Those who have extinguished this implanted faculty by self-intelligence desire an invisible God, while those who have extinguished it by a life of evil desire no God. Neither of these are aware that such an implanted faculty is given, because it does not operate with them. Yet it is the very heavenly Divine which primarily inflows from heaven into man, because man has been born for heaven, and no one comes into heaven without an idea of the Divine.


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