Page:Inspiration and Interpretation.pdf/692

128 of the Church, and that the things appertaining to love to the Lord and charity towards our neighbor, are the fruits of faith. When yet the real case is this: if love to the Lord be compared to the Tree of Life in the Paradise of Eden, charity and its works are the fruits thence derived, whereas faith and all things appertaining thereto are merely leaves. Since therefore they so invert the Word as to deduce the origin of fruits not from the tree but from the leaves, it is not to be wondered at that they deny the internal sense of the Word and acknowledge only its literal sense; for from the literal sense (separated from the spiritual) any doctrinal tenet, even the most heretical, may be confirmed."—Arcana Cœlestia, 3427. "There are degrees, like the steps of a ladder, which unite the intellectual with the sensual part of man, and by which he is enabled to ascend from the light of the world into the light of heaven." —Ibid., 5114, 5144, etc. See also Tract No. IV. of this Series, p. 54.