389. The reason why the reproductive and protective spheres, that is, those of conjugial love and the love of children, influence everything from first to last in heaven and in the world is that all emanations from the Lord, or from the sun which comes from Him and in which He is present, pass through the whole of creation down to the last stage of everything. This is because what is Divine (and as it advances is called celestial and spiritual) is without space and time. It is well known that extension cannot be predicated of spiritual things, because space and time cannot. Thus it is that whatever emanates from the Lord is in an instant present from first to last. The sphere of conjugial love is similarly universal (see 222-225 above).
[2] It is obvious that the sphere of the love of children behaves in the same way from the existence of that love in heaven, where there are children from earth. Also from its existence among human beings in the world, among animals and birds, snakes and insects. There are even analogous facts in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. In the vegetable kingdom seeds are protected by shells as if in wrappings, and in addition they are contained in a fruit as in a house, and nourished with sap as if with milk. There is something similar in ores, as is clear from matrices and lodes in which precious stones and noble metals are stored and kept safe.
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