Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence | Page 6

no power of affecting, has no reality. It is form which enables to all
this. And as all things have a form, then if the form is perfect, all things
in it regard each other mutually, as link does link in a chain. It follows
that it is form which makes a thing a unit and thus an entity of which
character, state, affection or anything else can be predicated; each is
predicated of it according to the perfection of the form.
[3] Such a unit is every object which meets the eye in the world. Such,
too, is everything not seen with the eye, whether in interior nature or in
the spiritual world. The human being is such a unit, human society is,
likewise the church, and in the Lord's view the whole angelic heaven,
too; in short, all creation in general and in every particular. For each
and all things to be forms, He who created all things must be form itself,
and all things made must be from that form. This, therefore, was also
demonstrated in the work Divine Love and Wisdom, as that "Divine
love and wisdom are substance and form" (nn. 40-43); "Divine love
and wisdom are form itself, thus the one Self and the single
independent existence" (nn. 44-46); "Divine love and wisdom are one
in the Lord" (nn. 14-17, 18-22), "and proceed as one from Him" (nn.
99-102, and elsewhere).
[4] A form makes a one the more perfectly as the elements entering into
it are distinctly different and yet united. This hardly falls into a
comprehension not elevated, for the appearance is that a form cannot
make a one except as its elements are quite alike. I have spoken with
angels often on the subject. They said that this is a secret perceived
clearly by their wiser men, obscurely by the less wise. They said it is
the truth that a form is the more perfect as its constituents are distinctly
different and yet severally united. They established the fact from the
societies which in the aggregate constitute the form of heaven, and
from the angels of a society, for as these are different and free and love

their associates from themselves and from their own affection, the form
of the society is more perfect. They also illustrated the fact from the
marriage of good and truth, in that the more distinguishably two these
are, the more perfectly do they make a one; similarly, of love and
wisdom. The indistinguishable is confusion, they said, whence comes
imperfection of form.
[5] In various ways they went on to establish the manner in which
perfectly distinct things are united and thus make a one, especially by
what is in the human body, in which are innumerable things quite
distinct and yet united, held distinct by coverings and united by
ligaments. It is so with love, they said, and all its things, and wisdom
and all its things, for love and wisdom are not perceived except as one.
See further on the subject in Divine Love and Wisdom (nn. 14-22) and
in the work Heaven and Hell (nn. 56 and 489). This has been adduced
as part of angelic wisdom.
5. (iii) This "one" is in some image in every created thing. It can be
seen from what was demonstrated throughout the treatise Divine Love
and Wisdom and especially at nn. 47-51, 55-60, 282-284, 290-295,
313-318, 319-326, 349-357, that divine love and wisdom which are one
in the Lord and proceed as one from Him, are in some image in each
created thing. It was shown that the divine is in every created thing
because God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, produced the
sun of the spiritual world from Himself, and all things of the universe
through that sun. That sun, which is from Him and in which He is, is
therefore not only the first but the sole substance from which are all
things. As this is the one substance, it is in everything made, but with
endless variety in accord with uses.
[2] In the Lord, then, are divine love and wisdom, and in the sun from
Him divine fire and radiance, and from the sun spiritual heat and light;
and in each instance the two make one. It follows that this oneness is in
every created thing. All things in the world are referable, therefore, to
good and truth, in fact to the conjunction of them. Or, what is the same,
they are referable to love and wisdom and to the union of these; for
good is of love and truth of wisdom, love calling all its own, "good,"

and wisdom calling all its own, "truth." It will be seen in what follows
that there is a conjunction of these in