man, who not only can receive the doctrines of that church in his understanding, but also publish them in print. That the Lord hath manifested himself before me his servant, and sent me on this office, and that afterwards he opened the sight of my spirit, and thereby let me into the spiritual world, and granted me to see the heavens and the hells, and also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now continually for several years, I testify in truth; and further, that from the first day of my call to this office, I never received any thing appertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone, whilst I was reading the word.
To the end that the Lord might be constantly present, he revealed to me the spiritual sense of his word, in which sense divine truth is in its light, and in this light he is continually present; for his presence in the word is only by means of the spiritual sense, through the light whereof he passeth into a shade, in which is the sense of the letter, comparatively as the light of the sun doth in the day-time by the interposition of a cloud; that the literal sense of the word is as a cloud, and the spiritual sense glory, and the Lord himself the sun from which light proceedeth, and that thus the Lord is the word, was proved above. That the glory in which he is to come, Matt. xxiv. 30, signifieth divine truth in its own proper light, in which the spiritual sense of the word is, is abundantly evident from the following passages, The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of Jehovah, and the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, Isaiah xl. 3, 5. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee, chap xli. to the end. I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, and my glory will I not give to another,
