Divine Providence (Dick and Pulsford) n. 57

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57. It is the same with men with regard to their affections which belong to their love, and to their perceptions which belong to their wisdom. The variety of both of these is infinite and eternal; so also is their fructification and multiplication, which are spiritual. No man enjoys affection and perception so like another's as to be the same; nor is it possible to eternity. Moreover, affections may be fructified and perceptions multiplied without end; and it is well known that knowledge is inexhaustible. This power of fructification and multiplication without end, or to infinity and to eternity, exists in natural things with men, in spiritual things with spiritual angels, and in celestial things with celestial angels. Not only are affections, perceptions and knowledges of this nature in general, but also every single thing in these, even the least, is such in particular. They are of this nature because they have their existence from the Infinite and Eternal in itself by means of what is infinite and eternal from itself. But since the finite has nothing of the Divine in itself, there is in man or angel nothing of this nature, not even the most minute, as his own; for a man or an angel is finite, and only a receptacle, in itself dead; and what is living in him is from the Divine Proceeding, conjoined to him by contiguity, and this appears to him to be his own. That this is so will be seen in what follows.


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