OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW CHURCH

B 2

...that every species among them knows its own food and where it is found; that it recognizes its companions through sound and sight; and among birds, which are friends and which are enemies. They know how to perform their mating rituals under their feathers, join in marriages, skillfully build nests, lay their eggs there, sit upon them, and know the duration of incubation. When that time is up, they hatch their chicks, whom they love most tenderly, warming them under their wings, offering them food, and nourishing them until they are independent and able to do the same for themselves. Anyone who is willing to think about Divine InfluxThe theological concept that life and wisdom flow from God into the created world. through the Spiritual World into the natural world can see it in these things. If such a person wishes, they can say in their heart: such knowledge cannot be given to them from the Sun through its heat and light. For the Sun, from which Nature draws its origin and essence, is pure Fire, and therefore the outflow of its heat and light is entirely dead. Thus, they can conclude that such things result from Divine influx through the spiritual world into the ultimate parts of nature.

Anyone can use the visible things in Nature to confirm their belief in the Divine when they observe the Worms, which—out of the delight of a certain love—desire and breathe for a change of their earthly state into a state analogous to a heavenly one. To this end, they crawl into specific places and wrap themselves in a covering, placing themselves as if in a womb to be reborn; there they become chrysalisesoriginal: "chrysalides, aureliæ, nymphæ" — these terms refer to various stages of insect pupation., nymphs, and finally butterflies. Once they have undergone this metamorphosis and have been clothed with beautiful wings according to their species, they fly out into the air as if into their own heaven. There they play joyfully, perform their marriages, lay eggs, and provide for their posterity; and then they nourish themselves with pleasant and sweet food from flowers. Who—if they confirm their belief in the Divine from the visible things in nature—does not see some image of the earthly state of man in these creatures as worms, and an image of the heavenly state in them as butterflies? Yet those who confirm their belief in Nature see these same things, but because they have rejected the heavenly state of man from their minds, they call them mere operations of nature.

Anyone can confirm their belief in the Divine from the visible things in Nature while attending to what is known about Bees: how they know how to collect wax from roses and flowers, suck out honey, build cells like little houses, and arrange them into the form of a city with streets through which they enter and exit. They can smell from a distance the flowers and herbs from which they collect wax for the house and honey for food; and, laden with these, they fly back according to the direction of their hive. Thus, they provide food for the coming winter as if they foresaw it. They even set over themselves a mistress like a Queen, from whom posterity may be propagated; and for her, they build a sort of palace above themselves with guards around it. When the time for giving birth is near, she goes about accompanied by her guards—who are called Dronesoriginal: "Fuci." Swedenborg describes the social structure of the hive as a "government" mimicking heaven.—from cell to cell and lays her eggs, which the following crowd smears over so they are not harmed by the air. From this comes their new offspring. Later, when this offspring has reached an age where it can do the same, it is expelled from the house; the swarm first gathers itself into a troop so the association is not torn apart, and then flies out to scout for a new home for itself. Around Autumn, those drones, because they brought in no wax or honey, are led out and deprived of their wings so that they do not return and consume the food for which they spent no labor—among many other details. From these things, it can be established that because of the Use they provide to the human race, they have a form of government through Divine influx via the Spiritual World, just like the government among men on earth, or even among the angels in the Heavens. Who, with their reason intact, does not see that such things in them are not from the Natural world? What does the Sun, from which Nature comes, have in common with a government that rivals and mimics the government of heaven?

From these and similar examples among the brute animals, the confessor and worshiper of Nature confirms their belief in Nature, while the confessor and worshiper of God confirms from the same things their belief in God. For the Spiritual man sees spiritual things in them, and the Natural man sees natural things in them—each according to their own quality. As for me, such things have been testimonies to me of the Influx of the Spiritual World into the Natural from God. Consider also whether you can think of any form of government, or any civil law, or any moral virtue, or any...