Page:Arcana Coelestia (Potts) vol 1.djvu/125

 in the Word "remains." The mode in which the serpent destroyed those lowest natural things in the people before the flood, by the sensuous principle and the love of self; and among the Jews, by sensuous things, traditions, and trifles, and by the love of self and of the world; and how at this day he has destroyed and continues to destroy them by the things of sense, of memory-knowledge, and of philosophy, and at the same time by the same loves, shall of the Lord's Divine mercy be told hereafter.

. From what has been said it is evident that it was revealed to the church of that time that the Lord would come into the world to save them.

. Verse 16. And unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth sons, and thine obedience shall be to thy man (vir), and he shall rule over thee. By the "woman" is now signified the church as to proprium, which it loved; by "greatly multiplying her sorrow," is signified combat, and the anxiety it occasions; by "conception," every thought; by the "sons whom she would bring forth in sorrow," the truths which she would thus produce; by "man," here as before, the rational which it will obey, and which will rule.

. That the church is signified by the "woman," has been previously shown, but here the church perverted by the Own which was itself formerly signified by the "woman," because the posterity of the Most Ancient Church, which had become perverted, is now treated of.

. When therefore the sensuous part averts itself or curses itself, the consequence is that evil spirits begin to fight powerfully, and the attendant angels to labor, and therefore this combat is described by the words, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, in relation to the conception and birth of sons," that is, as to the thoughts and productions of truth.

. That the "conception and birth of sons," in the Word, are taken in a spiritual sense—"conception" for the thought and device of the heart, and "sons" for truths, is evident from Hosea:—

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception; though they shall have