Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 2.djvu/87

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created and formed by the Divine that uses might everywhere be clothed with coverings, whereby they are embodied in act or effect, first in heaven and afterwards in the world; thus by degrees and successively even to the ultimates of nature.

Hence it is evident that the correspondence of natural with spiritual things, or of the world with heaven, is effected by uses, and that uses conjoin them; and that the forms with which uses are clothed, are correspondences and mediums of conjunction in proportion as they are forms of use.

In the natural world and its three kingdoms, all things which exist according to order are forms of use, or effects formed from use for use. Therefore these things are correspondences. The actions of man likewise are uses in form, and are correspondences, whereby he is conjoined to heaven so far as he lives according to divine order, or so far as he is in love to the Lord and in charity toward his neighbor. To love the Lord and the neighbor in general is to perform uses.

It is to be further observed, that the natural world is conjoined with the spiritual by means of man, or that he is the medium of their conjunction; for both worlds exist in him. Therefore so far as man is spiritual, he is a medium of conjunction; but so far as he is natural and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. Still, without man as a medium, the divine influx into the world continues, and also into those things which