2188. Angels have no memory of things past or foresight of the future
I spoke with angels, and at the time I saw in a spiritual mental image that the more inwardly perfect angels are, the less memory they have of things past, and that therein consists their happiness. For at every moment, the Lord gives them what is pleasant to them, and causes them both to think and to feel-so it is the Lord's doing, not theirs. This is the meaning of the passage, "Give us this day our daily bread" [Matt. 6:11, Luke 11:3], and that they should take no thought for the future, what they should eat and drink [Matt. 6: 25, 31], and that they gathered the manna daily [Exod. 16:14-21]. And since angels have no memory of things past, neither do they have any foresight of the future, which is a result of that same memory. Yet they seem to themselves to have a memory and to know all kinds of things beyond number, because this is granted to them by the Lord from moment to moment. Therefore they may indeed suppose that it is their memory, when yet it is not. In short, their happiness consists in this, and in being in the Lord. 1748, 4 June.