and that angels are with man, yet few believe
that angels are conjoined to man, still less that they are in his
thought and affection. The angels replied that they knew that such a
belief and such a mode of speaking still exist in the world, and
especially, to their surprise, within the church, where the Word is
present to teach men about heaven and its conjunction with man;
nevertheless, there is such a conjunction that man is unable to think
the least thing unless spirits are associated with him, and on this
his spiritual life depends. They said that the cause of ignorance in
this matter is man's belief that he lives from himself, and that he
has no connection with the First Being [Esse] of life; together with
his not knowing that this connection exists by means of the heavens;
and yet if that connection were broken man would instantly fall dead.
If man only believed, as is really true, that all good is from the
Lord and all evil from hell, he would neither make the good in him a
matter of merit nor would evil be imputed to him; for he would then
look to the Lord in all the good he thinks and does, and all the evil
that flows in would be cast down to hell from which it comes. But
because man does not believe that anything flows into him either from
heaven or from hell, and therefore supposes that all things that he
thinks and wills are in himself and therefore from himself, he
appropriates the evil to himself, and the good that flows in he
defiles with merit.

303. XXXIV. CONJUNCTION OF HEAVEN WITH MAN BY MEANS OF THE WORD.

Those who think from interior reason can see that there is a
connection of all things through intermediates with the First, and
that whatever is not in connection is dissipated. For they know, when
they think about it, that nothing can have permanent existence from
itself, but only from what is prior to itself, thus all things from a
First; also that the connection with what is prior is like the
connection of an effect with its effecting cause; for when the
effecting cause is taken away from its effect the effect is dissolved
and dispersed. Because the learned thought thus they saw and said
that permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth; thus that
all things have permanent existence from a First; and as they sprang
from that First so they perpetually spring forth, that is, have
permanent existence from it. But what the connection of everything is
with that which is prior to itself,