Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/370

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of a temple or factory—the whole body of men engaged in it, will always be found distributed into three classes holding to each other the relation of end, cause, and eficct. Which shows that the trinal distinction of the angelic heavens as disclosed by Swedenborg, is no fanciful or arbitrary division, but one founded on the very constitution of the human soul, and growing legitimately out of it. As there is a trinal distinction in the Divine Being, and three degrees of life in every soul, related like end, cause, and effect, so we find in every larger or collective man on earth, three corresponding degrees similarly related. The conclusion, therefore, seems easy and natural—yea, irresistible—that there must be three discrete degrees of life in heaven, consequently three heavens; and three discrete degrees of good and truth in the Sacred Scripture, suited to the wants or states of these three heavens respectively. So solid and secure is the foundation on which this doctrine of the three angclic heavens rests.




XXVIII.

ETERNAL PROGRESS IN HEAVEN.

THAT change of mind and heart whereby a man is delivered from the bondage of selfish and worldly loves, and brought under the dominion of love to the Lord and the neighbor, is called regeneration. It is the soul's birth into a higher life, even the heavenly. It is not, however, a sudden but a gradual and progres-