Heaven and Hell #157

Da Emanuel Swedenborg

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157. Each individual angel undergoes and passes through changes of state like this, and so too does each community collectively. Still, one individual does so differently from another because people vary in love and wisdom. There are people in the middle, in a more perfect state than those who are around them all the way to the borders (see above, 23 [43] and 128). But it would take too long to recount the differences, since the quality of love and faith determines how each individual undergoes the changes. Consequently, one may be in clarity and delight when another is in dimness and discomfort, even at the same time, within the same community. It happens differently in one community than in another, too, and in communities of the heavenly kingdom differently than in communities of the spiritual kingdom.

Broadly speaking, the differences in their changes of state are like the variations of states of days in one climate and another on earth. There it is morning for some people while it is evening for others, and some have warmth while others are cold, and vice versa.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.