229. XX. THAT FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, THE LORD PROVIDES SIMILITUDES; AND IF NOT GIVEN ON EARTH, HE PROVIDES THEM IN THE HEAVENS. The reason is because all marriages of love truly conjugial are provided by the Lord. That they are from Him may be seen above (nos. 130, 131). As to how they are provided in the heavens, this I have heard described by angels as follows: "The Lord's Divine Providence is most singular and most universal* in regard to marriages and in marriages, because all the delights of heaven stream from the delights of conjugial love, as sweet waters from the vein of a fountain. Therefore it is provided that conjugial pairs be born and that, under the Lord's auspices, they be continually educated for their marriage, neither the boy nor the girl knowing it. Then when the due time has passed, she, now a marriageable maid, and he, now a young man ripe for marriage, meet somewhere as if by fate, see each other, and at once know as by a kind of instinct that they are mates; and within themselves as though from some dictate, they think, the young man, She is mine, and the maid, He is mine. Then, after this thought has been seated for some time in the mind of each, they deliberately speak to each other and betroth themselves. It is said, as if by fate, instinct, and dictate, though what is meant is by Divine Providence, because when this is unknown, it so appears; for the Lord opens their internal similitudes that they may see themselves."
* Swedenborg distinguishes between universal and singular on the one hand, and general and particular on the other. The universal is wholly present in every singular thereof, e.g., the soul is universally present in the blood and in every globule thereof. But a general has no existence apart from particulars, e.g., a general body has no existence apart from its particular members. To illustrate both usages: A heavenly society as a society exists only from its members, but the love of God is universally present in the whole society and in each single member thereof. See no. 388.
