hat the human race apart from heaven would be like a
chain without a hook; and heaven without the human race would be like
a house without a foundation.{1}

{Footnote 1} Nothing springs from itself, but from what is
prior to itself, thus all things from a First, and they also
have permanent existence from Him from whom they spring forth,
and permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth (n.
2886, 2888, 3627, 3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056). Divine
order does not stop midway, but terminates in an outmost, and
that outmost is man, thus Divine order terminates in man (n.
634, 2853, 3632, 5897, 6239, 6451, 6465, 9215, 9216, 9824,
9828, 9836, 9905, 10044, 10329, 10335, 10548). Interior things
flow into external things, even into the extreme or outmost in
successive order, and there they spring forth and have
permanent existence (n. 634, 6239, 6465, 9215, 9216). Interior
things spring forth and have permanent existence in what is
outmost in simultaneous order (n. 5897, 6451, 8603, 10099).
Therefore all interior things are held together in connection
from a First by means of a Last (n. 9828). Therefore "the First
and the Last" signify all things and each thing, that is, the
whole (n. 10044, 10329, 10335). Consequently in outmosts there
is strength and power (n. 9836).

305. But man has severed this connection with heaven by turning his
exteriors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self
by means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing
himself that he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for
heaven; therefore the Lord has provided a medium to serve in place of
this base and foundation for heaven, and also for the conjunction of
heaven with man. This medium is the Word. How the Word serves as such
a medium has been shown in many places in the Arcana Coelestia, all
of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on The White
Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse; also in the Appendix to the New
Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, from which some notes are here
appended.{1}

{Footnote 1} The Word in the sense of the letter is natural (n.
8783). For the reason that the natural is the outmost in which
spiritual and heavenly things, which are interior things,
terminate and on which they rest, like a house upon its
foundation (n. 9430, 9433, 9824, 10044, 10436). That the Word
may be such it is composed wholly of corresponden