confidently say, "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
And so of other passages in the Word which speak of "the Father's house," "the house of the Lord," "the house of the God of Jacob," etc., and of "going up to" and "dwelling in" that house. When the correspondence or spiritual meaning of house is understood, such passages are seen to have something more than a local or Jewish significance. They are seen to be full of instruction for people of every age and nation; for it is seen that at all times and in all places, even where there is no visible temple or place of external and formal worship, souls may be ever "going up to the mount of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob."
And Swedenborg further tells us that houses in heaven, like the best houses on earth, have many separate apartments,—inner-chambers and closets; and these correspond to the more interior recesses of every soul, to the secret motives of every heart. They are the visible symbols of those interior states to which the devout believer retires when he wishes to be alone with God—to "commune with his own heart"—to examine himself in the light of divine truth. It is to such interior states—to these deeper recesses of the heart, that reference is had in the spiritual sense of the Lord's words, where He says, "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet;" for there, in the secret closet of the soul, is the place for all genuine prayer and worship—for all real fellowship and vital union with Him who seeth in secret, and whose reward is sure.
And thus we find that, between Swedenborg's disclosures of the facts and phenomena of the spiritual
