“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalms 139:13-16)
“In the natural sense, ‘to create’ means to create, but in the spiritual sense ‘to create’ means, symbolically, to reform and regenerate, which is also to enliven.” (Apocalypse Revealed 475)
“In the spiritual heaven there are magnificent palaces, in which all things within shine with precious stones and decorations in such forms as cannot be equaled by any painting in the world, nor expressed in words. For art there, especially that of architecture, is in its own art. From that heaven many arts in the world derive their laws and harmonies, from which come their forms of beauty.” (Apocalypse Explained 831)
“Ask what truth and good are to the sight of the eye. Is not what is called beautiful truth to it, and what is called enjoyable good to it? For enjoyment is felt in beholding what is beautiful. What are truth and good to the hearing? Is not what is called harmonious truth to it, and what is called pleasing good to it? For pleasure is felt in hearing harmonies. It is the same with the other senses. What natural good and truth are is plain, then. Consider now what spiritual good and truth are. Is spiritual truth anything other than beauty and harmony in spiritual matters and objects? And is spiritual good anything other than the enjoyment and pleasure of perceiving the beauty and harmony?” (Divine Providence 312)
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
"You have many workers: stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as those skilled in every kind of work in gold and silver, bronze and iron—craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the LORD be with you.” (1 Chronicles 22:15-16)
“Every truth shines in heaven, and consequently truth when shining is faith in essence. The beauty and charm faith gets from this illumination, as the truths in it increase in number, can be compared with various shapes, objects and pictures, formed by different colors harmoniously juxtaposed; also with the precious stones of different colors in Aaron's breastplate…. Comparison is also possible with the beauty of the rainbow, or of a meadow full of flowers, and of a garden in bloom in early springtime.”(True Christian Religion 353)
“Spiritual things, which are the truth and goodness involved in faith, were celebrated by harp and lute, by song, and by similar music. The holy or heavenly aspects of faith were celebrated by wind instruments— horns and so on. This is why so many instruments were connected with the Temple and why it says so many times that certain instruments were used in celebrating this thing or that. So the instruments are taken to mean the very qualities themselves that the instruments were honoring, as those just discussed are.” (Secrets of Heaven 420[2] )
