366. (3) What flows in from the Lord is received by man according to his form. Form means here man's state in respect both to his love and to his wisdom, consequently in respect both to his affections for the goods of charity and to his perceptions of the truths of faith. That God is one, indivisible, and the same, from eternity to eternity, not the same simply but infinitely the same, and that all variableness is in the subject in which He dwells, has been shown above. That the recipient form or state induces variations, can be seen from the life of infants, children, youths, adults, and aged persons; in each there is the same life, because the same soul, from infancy to old age; but as one's state is varied according to age and what is suitable thereto, in like manner is life perceived. [2] The life of God in all its fullness is not only in good and pious men, but also in the wicked and impious, likewise both in the angels of heaven and in the spirits of hell. The difference is that the wicked obstruct the way and close the door, lest God should enter the lower regions of their minds; while the good clear the way and open the door, and invite God to enter into the lower regions of their minds as He inhabits the highest regions; and thus they form a state of the will for love and charity to flow into, and a state of the understanding for wisdom and faith to flow into, consequently for the reception of God. But the wicked obstruct that influx by various lusts of the flesh and spiritual defilements, which bestrew the way and clog the passage. Nevertheless, God with all His Divine essence resides in the biggest regions of their minds, and gives to them the capacity to will good and understand truth - a capacity which every man has and which he could by no means possess were there not life from God in his soul. That even the wicked have this capacity it has been granted me to know from much experience. [3] That everyone receives life from God according to his form may be illustrated by comparison with plants of every kind. Every tree, every shrub, every bush and every blade of grass, receives an influx of heat and light according to its form, not only those that have a good use, but those also that have an evil use. The sun with its heat does not change their forms, but the forms change the effects of the sun in themselves. It is the same with the subjects of the mineral kingdom; each one of them, the valuable and the common alike, receives influx according to the form of the contexture of parts composing it, thus one stone differently from another, one mineral differently from another, one metal differently from another. Some of them adorn themselves with most beautiful variegated colors, some transmit the light without variegation, and some blur and suffocate it in themselves. From these few examples it can be seen that as the sun of the world with its heat and light is just as present in one object as in another, while it is their recipient forms that vary its operations, so is the Lord, from the sun of heaven in the midst of which He is, present in all men with His heat which in its essence is love, and with His light which in its essence is wisdom, and that it is the man's form, which is induced upon him by the states of his life, that varies the Lord's operations; consequently the cause that man is not born again and saved, is not the Lord, but man himself.