The Swedenborg Library Vol 2/Chapter 4
IV.
TWO KINGDOMS IN HEAVEN.
INCE there are infinite varieties in heaven, and no society is exactly like another, nor indeed any angel like another, therefore heaven is distinguished generally, specifically, and particularly; generally into two kingdoms; specifically into three heavens; and particularly into innumerable societies. We shall speak of each in what now follows. The general divisions are styled kingdoms, because heaven is called the kingdom of God.
Some angels receive the Divine proceeding from the Lord more, and others less, interiorly. They who receive it more interiorly are called celestial angels; but they who receive it less interiorly are called spiritual angels. Hence heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one of which is called the Celestial and the other the Spiritual Kingdom.
The love in which they are who belong to the celestial kingdom, is called celestial love; and the love in which they are who belong to the spiritual kingdom, is called spiritual love. Celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is charity toward the neighbor. And since all good is of love—for what one loves is good to him—therefore also the good of one kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual.
The angels in the Lord's celestial kingdom far excel in wisdom and glory those in his spiritual kingdom, because they receive the Divine of the Lord more interiorly; for they are in love to Him, and thence nearer and more closely conjoined to Him. These angels are such, because they have received and do receive divine truths immediately into life; and not, as the spiritual, first into the memory and thought. Therefore they have them inscribed on their hearts, and comprehend them, and as it were see them in themselves. Nor do they ever reason about them whether it be so or not. They are like those described in Jeremiah: "I will put My law in their mind, and write it on their heart: they shall not teach any more every one his friend, and every one his brother, saying, Know ye Jehovah: they shall all know Me from the least of them even unto the greatest." xxxi. 33, 34. And they are called in Isaiah, "The taught of Jehovah." liv. 13.
It was said that these angels possess wisdom and glory above the rest, because they have received and do receive divine truths immediately into life. For as soon as they hear them they also will and do them. They do not lay them up in the memory, and then think whether they be true or not.
They who are of such a character know instantly by influx from the Lord, whether the truth which they hear be truth; for the Lord flows-in immediately into man's will, and mediately through the will into his thought; or, what is the same, He flows-in immediately into good, and mediately through good into truth; for that is called good which is of the will and thence of the act, but that is called truth which is of the memory and thence of the thought.
All truth likewise is turned into good and implanted in the love as soon as it enters the will. But so long as truth is in the memory and thence in the thought, it does not become good, nor does it live, nor is it appropriated to man; since man is man from the will and thence from the understanding, and not from the understanding separate from will.
Because there is such a distinction between the angels of the celestial and those of the spiritual kingdom, therefore they do not dwell together, nor do they hold intercourse with each other. There is communication between them only by intermediate angelic societies, which are called celestial-spiritual; through these the celestial kingdom flows into the spiritual. Hence it is, that, although heaven is divided into two kingdoms, still it makes one; for the Lord always provides such intermediate angels through whom there may be communication and conjunction. (H. H., n. 20-27.)
