Psalm, VIII, 4
GOD'S UNRELAXED EFFORT
The object of creation was an angelic heaven from the human race; in other words, mankind, in whom God might be able to dwell as in His residence. For this reason man was created a form of Divine order. God is in him, and as far as he lives according to Divine order, fully so; but if he does not live according to Divine order, still God is in him, but in his highest parts, endowing him with the ability to understand truth and to will what is good. But as far as man lives contrary to order, so far he shuts up the lower parts of his mind or spirit, and prevents God from descending and filling them with His presence. Then God is in him, but he is not in God.
—True Christian Religion, nn. 66, 70
AN INSTRUMENT OF LIFE
Man is an instrument of life, and God alone is life. God pours His life into His instrument and every part of him, as the sun pours its heat into a tree and every part of it. God also gives man to feel this life in himself as his own. God wills that he should do so, that man may live as of himself according to the laws of order, which are as many as there are precepts in the Word, and may dispose himself to receive the love of God. But still God perpetually holds with His finger the perpendicular above the scales, and regulates, but never violates by compulsion, man's free decision. Man's free will is from this: that he feels life in himself as his, and God leaves him so to feel, that reciprocal conjunction may take place between Him and man.
—True Christian Religion, n. 504
"ABIDE IN ME"
Man is so created that he can be more and more closely united to the Lord. He is so united not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life in accordance with these. The more closely he is united to the Lord, the wiser and happier he becomes, the more distinctly he seems to himself to be his own, and the more clearly he perceives that he is the Lord's.