tions of rank and office, notwithstanding some there have more important functions to perform than others, there is no pride or disdain on the one hand, nor envy or humiliation on the other, any more than among the different members of the body. Notwithstanding there exist authority and obedience, there is nothing like tyranny on the one hand or slavishness on the other. There is the most perfect freedom coupled with unspeakable bliss; for every one acts as his ruling love prompts, but he loves nothing which is not good and true. Be his office high or low, he does precisely that which he is qualified to do best, and in the doing of which he finds a pure delight. Conscious that he could not be so useful or happy in any other sphere, he has no desire to be anywhere or anything else than he is. Whatever there is, therefore, of exaltation or subordination, of authority or obedience there, neither is felt or thought of as such, any more than in the human body.
From what has been said, we trust that Swedenborg's meaning, when he says that heaven is in the human form, will be sufficiently plain. And although the heavenly societies are innumerable, and all different from each other, yet there exists the most perfect union among them—a union corresponding to, and beautifully symbolized by, that among the different organs of the human body. And herein is revealed the true nature of that union among Christians on earth, to which the Lord refers when He speaks of his disciples being made "perfect in one." It is a union of parts that are as different as are the different members of the human
