not a face without these.  The truth of this is made evident from the appearance of the angels of the interior heavens, for these, being in good and truth from the Lord and in consequent wisdom and intelligence, are in a most beautiful and most perfect human form; while the angels of the lower heavens are in human form of less perfection and beauty.  On the other hand, those who are in hell appear in the light of heaven hardly as men, but rather as monsters, since they are not in good and truth but in evil and falsity, and consequently in the opposites of wisdom and intelligence.  For this reason their life is not called life, but spiritual death.

81.  Because heaven as a whole and in part, from the Lord’s Divine Human, reflects a man, the angels say that they are in the Lord; and some say that they are in His body, meaning that they are in the good of His love.  And this the Lord Himself teaches, saying,

Abide in Me and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.  For apart from Me ye can do nothing.  Abide in My love.  If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love (John 15:4-10).

82.  Because such a perception of the Divine exists in the heavens, to think of God as in a human form is implanted in every man who receives any influx from heaven.  Thus did the ancients think of Him; and thus do the moderns think of Him both outside of the church and within it.  The simple see Him in thought as the Ancient One in shining light.  But this insight has been extinguished in all those that by self-intelligence and by a life of evil have rejected influx from heaven.  Those that have extinguished it by self-intelligence prefer an invisible God; while those that have extinguished it by a life of evil prefer no God.  Neither of these are aware that such an insight exists, because they do not have it; and yet it is the Divine heavenly itself that primarily flows into man out of heaven, because man is born for heaven, and no one without a conception of a Divine can enter heaven.

83.  For this reason he that has no conception of heaven, that is, no conception of the Divine from which heaven is, cannot be raised up to the first threshold of heaven.  As soon as such a one draws near to heaven a resistance and a strong repulsion are perceived; and for the reason that his interiors, which should be receptive of heaven, are closed up from their not being in the form of heaven, and the nearer he comes to heaven the more tightly are they closed up.  Such is the lot of those within the church who deny the Lord, and of those who, like the Socinians, deny His Divinity.  But the lot of those who are born out of the church, and who are ignorant of the Lord because they do not have the Word, will be described hereafter.

84.  That the men of old time had an idea of the Divine as human is evident from the manifestation of the Divine to Abraham, Lot, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, and others.  These saw God as a man, but nevertheless adored Him as the God of the universe, calling Him the God of heaven and earth, and Jehovah.  That it was the Lord who was seen by Abraham He Himself teaches in John (8:56); and that it was He who was seen by the rest is evident from His words: