Doc. of Sacred Scripture (Potts) n. 19

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19. There is a still more interior sense in the Word which is called CELESTIAL, and of which something has been said above (n. 6); but this sense can with difficulty be made plain, because it does not fall so much into the thought of the understanding as into the affection of the will. The reason there is in the Word this still more interior sense called celestial is that there proceeds from the Lord Divine good and Divine truth, Divine good from His Divine love, and Divine truth from His Divine wisdom; and both are in the Word, for the Word is the Divine proceeding,* and it is for this reason that the Word gives life to those who devoutly read it. But this subject will be spoken of in the chapter in which it will be shown that there is a marriage of the Lord and the church, and a derivative marriage of good and truth, in each and every thing of the Word. * That is, the Divine in the act of proceeding. In the expression "Divine proceeding," "Divine" is not to be understood as an adjective qualifying "proceeding", but "proceeding" is to be taken as a verb (or participle) describing the act which the Divine there performs. Thus the expression does not mean a proceeding which is Divine, but a Divine that is in the act of proceeding forth. "Divine proceeding," thus understood, exactly translates Swedenborg's "Divinum procedens." [Translator]


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