"'And,' says Swedenborg, 'the innocence of heaven makes so deep an impression on the soul, that those who enjoy it feel a rapture which goes with them all through life, as I myself have experienced.' 'It is enough, perhaps,' he says elsewhere, 'to have the smallest inkling of it to transform one for ever, and, by desiring to go to heaven, to enter into the sphere of hope.'
"His doctrine of marriage may be summed up in a few words:
"'The Lord took the beauty and grace of man's life and infused them into woman. When man is disunited from this beauty and elegance of life, he is austere, sad, or savage; when he is reunited to them, he is happy, he is complete.'
"The angels are for ever in the perfection of beauty. Their marriages take place with miraculous ceremonies. To such an union, from which no children are born, man brings Understanding, woman brings Will; they become one being—one flesh on earth; then, after putting on the heavenly body, they go to heaven. On earth, in the natural state, the mutual affection of the two sexes leads to lust, which is an effect, producing fatigue and disgust; but in their heavenly form, the pair, having become one spirit, finds in itself a cause of perpetual joys. Swedenborg had seen such an union of spirits, who, as Saint Luke has written, 'neither marry nor are given in marriage,' and this union leads to none but spiritual pleasures. An angel offered to take him to witness such a marriage, and bore him away on his wings; the wings are only symbolical, and not an earthly reality. He clothed him in his festal garment; and Swedenborg, seeing himself arrayed in light, asked the reason.
"'On such occasions,' replied the angel, 'our robes light up and shine and are nuptial garments' (The Delight of Wisdom in Conjugal Love).
"He then saw two angels who came—one from the South, and the other from the East. The angel from the South rode in a chariot drawn by two white horses, whose reins were of the color and the radiance of the morning; but when they came close to him in heaven, he saw no more of the chariot or horses. The angel from the East, clothed in purple, and the angel from the South, in hyacinth color, rushed together like two breaths of wind, and were one; one was an angel of Love, and the other an angel of Wisdom. Swedenborg's guide told him that on earth these two angels had been bound by an inward sympathy, and constantly united, though divided by space. Consent, which is the essence of happy marriage on earth, is the habitual condition of angels in heaven. Love is the light of their world.
"The perpetual ecstasy of the angels is produced by the faculty, bestowed on them by God, of giving back to Him the joy they have in Him. This reciprocity of the infinite constitutes their life. In heaven they too become infinite by partaking of the essential nature of God, who is self-subsistent. Such is the vastness of the heavens where the angels dwell, that if man were endowed with vision as constantly rapid as the transmission of light from the sun to the earth, and if he gazed through all eternity, his eyes would find no horizon to rest on. Light alone can be an emblem of the joys of heaven. 'It is,' says he (Angelic Wisdom), 'an effluence of the virtue of God, a pure emanation from His glory, compared to which our most brilliant day is dark. It is omnipotent, it renews everything, and cannot be absorbed; it surrounds the angel, putting him into contact with God by infinite joys which are felt to multiply and reproduce themselves to infinity. This light kills the man who is not prepared to receive it. No one on earth, or indeed in the heavens, can look on God and live. This is why it is written (Exodus xix. 12, 21-23), 'Set bounds unto the people round about [the Mount] ... lest they break through ... and many of them perish.' And again (Exodus xxxiv. 29-35), 'When Moses came down with the two tables of testimony, the skin of his face shone, and Moses put a veil upon his face till he had done speaking with the people.' The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ also testifies to the light shed by a messenger from heaven and the extreme joy of the angels in being for ever bathed in it. 'His face,' says Saint Matthew (xvii. 2), 'did shine as the sun, and His raiment was as white as the light ... and a bright cloud overshadowed the disciples.'
"When a planet is inhabited only by beings who reject the Lord and misprize His Word, when the angelic spirits have gathered from the four winds, God sends a destroying angel to alter the whole mass of that rebellious world, which, in the vast spaces of the universe, is to Him what an infertile seed is in the natural world. As he approaches that globe, the destroying angel, riding on a cornet, reverses it on its axis and makes the continents become the bottom of the sea, the highest mountains then are islands, and the lands hitherto covered by the seas reappear in all their freshness, obeying the laws of Genesis; thus the Word of God is in power once more on a new earth, which everywhere shows the effects of terrestrial waters and celestial fires. The light the angel brings down from heaven makes the sun pale. Then, as Isaiah saith (ii. 10, 19), men will enter into the holes of the rocks and hide themselves in the dust. 'They will cry to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb' (Rev. vi. 16). The Lamb is the great emblem of the angels who are unrecognized and persecuted on earth.
"Christ Himself hath said, 'Blessed are they that mourn! Blessed are the meek! Blessed are the peacemakers.' All Swedenborg is there: Suffer, believe, and love. To love truly, must we not have suffered; must we not believe? Love begets strength, and strength gives wisdom; this is intelligence, for strength and wisdom include will. Is not true intellect composed of knowledge, will, and wisdom, the three attributes of the angelic spirit?
"'If the universe has a meaning, that surely is the worthiest of God,' said Monsieur Saint-Martin to me when I saw him during his visit to Sweden.