Page:Arcana Coelestia (Potts) vol 1.djvu/34

22 no life at all; nor would good and truth be discerned or distinguished, much less perceived. These alternations are in the Prophets called "ordinances (statuta)," as in Jeremiah:—

And in the same Prophet:—

But concerning these things, of the Lord's Divine mercy, at Genesis viii. 22.

. Verse 18. And to rule in the day, and in the night, and to distinguish between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good. By the "day" is meant good, by the "night," evil; and therefore goods are called works of the day, but evils works of the night; by the "light" is meant truth, and by the "darkness" falsity, as the Lord says:

Verse 19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

. Verse 20. And God said, Let the water's cause to creep forth the creeping thing, the living soul; and let fowl fly above the earth upon the faces of the expanse of the heavens. After the great luminaries have been kindled and placed in the internal man, and the external receives light from them, then the man first begins to live. Heretofore he can scarcely be said to have lived, inasmuch as the good which he did he supposed that he did of himself, and the truth which he spoke that he spoke of himself; and since man of himself is dead, and there is in him nothing but what is evil and false, therefore whatsoever he produces from himself is not alive, insomuch that he cannot, from himself, do good that in itself is good. That man cannot even think what is good, nor will what is good, consequently cannot do what is good, except from the Lord, must be plain to every one from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew:—