at the spiritual of man has so
far passed over into his natural, that he does not know what the
spiritual is, and thus does not know that there is a spiritual world,
the abode of spirits and angels, other than and different from the natural
world. Since the spiritual world has lain so deeply hidden from the
knowledge of those who are in the natural world, it has pleased the Lord
to open the sight of my spirit, that I might see the things which are in
that world, just as I see those in the natural world, and might afterwards
describe that world; which has been done in the work Heaven and Hell, in
one chapter of which the sun of the spiritual world is treated of. For
that sun has been seen by me; and it appeared of the same size as the sun
of the natural world; also fiery like it, but more glowing. It has also
been made known to me that the whole angelic heaven is under that sun;
and that angels of the third heaven see it constantly, angels of the
second heaven very often, and angels of the first or outmost heaven
sometimes. That all their heat and all their light, as well as all things
that are manifest in that world, are from that sun will be seen in what
follows.

86. That sun is not the Lord Himself, but is from the Lord. It is the
Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom proceeding from Him that appear as a
sun in that world. And because Love and Wisdom in the Lord are one (as
shown in Part I.), that sun is said to be Divine Love; for Divine Wisdom
is of Divine Love, consequently is Love.

87. Since love and fire mutually correspond, that sun appears before the
eyes of the angels as fiery; for angels cannot see love with their eyes,
but they see in the place of love what corresponds to it. For angels,
equally with men, have an internal and an external; it is their internal
that thinks and is wise, and that wills and loves; it is their external
that feels, sees, speaks and acts. All their externals are correspondences
of internals; but the correspondences are spiritual, not natural. Moreover,
Divine love is felt as fire by spiritual beings. For this reason "fire,"
when mentioned in the Word, signifies love. In the Israelitish Church,
"holy fire" signified love; and this is why, in prayers to God, it is
customary to ask that "heavenly fire," that is Divine Love, "may kindle
the heart."

88. With such a difference between the spiritual and the natural (as shown
above, n. 83), nothing from the sun of the natural world, that i