5. III.
The sun of the spiritual world is pure love, from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it.
Spiritual things cannot proceed from any other source than from love, and love cannot proceed from any other source than from Jehovah God, Who is love itself. Wherefore the sun of the spiritual world, from which all spiritual things flow forth as from their fountain, is pure love from Jehovah God, Who is in the midst of it. That sun itself is not God, but is from God, and is the nearest sphere around Him from Him. By means of this sun the universe was created by Jehovah God; by which universe are meant all worlds in the aggregate which are as many as the stars in the expanse of our heaven. [2] That creation was effected by means of that sun, which is pure love, thus by Jehovah God, is because love is the very esse of life, and wisdom is the existere of life therefrom, and all things were created from love by wisdom. This is meant by these words in John:
The Word was with God, and God was the Word, all things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made which was made; and the world was made by Him (1:1, 3, 10). "The Word" there is the Divine truth; thus also the Divine wisdom; wherefore also the Word is there called the light which enlightens every man (verse 9), in like manner as does the Divine wisdom by Divine truth. [3] Those who derive the origin of worlds from any other source than from the Divine love through the Divine wisdom, are deluded like persons of disordered brain, who see specters as men, phantoms as lights, and imaginary beings as real figures. For the created universe is a connected work, from love by wisdom. You will see this if you are able to investigate the connections of things in their order from firsts to lasts. [4] As God is one, so also the spiritual sun is one; for the extension of space cannot be predicated of spiritual things, which are the derivations of that sun; and essence and existence without space is everywhere in spaces without space; thus the Divine love is from the beginning of the universe to all its boundaries. That the Divine fills all things, and by filling preserves all things in the state in which they were created, reason sees remotely, and closely so far as it knows the quality of love as it is in itself, with its conjunction with wisdom for the perception of ends, its influx into wisdom for the exhibition of causes; and its operation through wisdom for the production of effects.