{Footnote 1} Nothing springs from itself, but from what is prior to itself, thus all things from a First, and they also have permanent existence from Him from whom they spring forth, and permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth (n. 2886, 2888, 3627, 3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056).  Divine order does not stop midway, but terminates in an outmost, and that outmost is man, thus Divine order terminates in man (n. 634, 2853, 3632, 5897, 6239, 6451, 6465, 9215, 9216, 9824, 9828, 9836, 9905, 10044, 10329, 10335, 10548).  Interior things flow into external things, even into the extreme or outmost in successive order, and there they spring forth and have permanent existence (n. 634, 6239, 6465, 9215, 9216).  Interior things spring forth and have permanent existence in what is outmost in simultaneous order (n. 5897, 6451, 8603, 10099).  Therefore all interior things are held together in connection from a First by means of a Last (n. 9828).  Therefore “the First and the Last” signify all things and each thing, that is, the whole (n. 10044, 10329, 10335).  Consequently in outmosts there is strength and power (n. 9836).

305.  But man has severed this connection with heaven by turning his exteriors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self by means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing himself that he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for heaven; therefore the Lord has provided a medium to serve in place of this base and foundation for heaven, and also for the conjunction of heaven with man.  This medium is the Word.  How the Word serves as such a medium has been shown in many places in the Arcana Coelestia, all of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on The White Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse; also in the Appendix to the New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, from which some notes are here appended.{1}

{Footnote 1} The Word in the sense of the letter is natural (n. 8783).  For the reason that the natural is the outmost in which spiritual and heavenly things, which are interior things, terminate and on which they rest, like a house upon its foundation (n. 9430, 9433, 9824, 10044, 10436).  That the Word may be such it is composed wholly of correspondences (n. 1404, 1408, 1409, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 8615, 10687).  Because the Word is such in the sense of the letter it is the containant of the spiritual and heavenly sense (n. 9407).  And it is adapted both to men and to angels (n. 1769-1772, 1887, 2143, 2157, 2275, 2333, 2395, 2540, 2541, 2547, 2553, 7381, 8862, 10322).  And it is what makes heaven and earth one (n. 2310, 2495, 9212, 9216, 9357, 9396, 10375).  The conjunction of the Lord with man is through the Word, by means of the internal sense (n. 10375).  There is conjunction by means of all things and each particular thing of the Word, and in consequence the Word is wonderful above all other writing (n. 10632-10634).  Since