10295. '[These] sweet ones' means affections springing from spiritual good. This is clear from the meaning of 'sweet-smelling spices' as affections for truth springing from good, dealt with above in 10291. As regards their springing from spiritual good, see 10254, 10290, 10293(end). The reason why the incense was made from the spices that mean kinds of truth springing from spiritual good, or what amounts to the same thing, why the kinds of truth that are meant by those spices belong to the spiritual group, is that the worship of God accomplished by means of truths springing from that good is meant by 'incense'. For acts of thanksgiving, adoration, prayer, and the like are what are meant specifically by 'incense', see 9475. Such acts of worship are emanations from the heart expressed through thoughts and speech. The fact that spiritual truths are the means by which such worship is accomplished may be recognized from the ideas a person has in mind while engaged in that worship. For the person's ideas then pass from his memory into his understanding and come forth from there; and anything emanating from there is called spiritual. As regards the worship of God springing from celestial good, such as takes place among those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom, this is not accomplished by means of acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, as is the worship among those who are in the spiritual kingdom, thus not by truths coming from the memory but by truths coming from the heart, which act as one with the actual love that governs those people. For the truths that exist with them have been inscribed on their love, and therefore when moved by love to do what is commanded they are at the same time moved to do so by truths, without any thought about them based on what they have been taught, thus without any recollection of them from their memory. The fact that the state of those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom is such as this may be recognized from what has been shown regarding that kingdom and the spiritual kingdom in the places referred to in 9277. As regards 'incense', that it means acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, which emanate from the thoughts of the heart through the mouth, see 9475, 10177, 10198.

10293. 'And onycha' means an affection for truth on the more internal natural level. This is clear from the meaning of 'sweet-smelling onycha' as an affection for natural truth; 'onycha' means that truth, while 'sweet-smelling' means the perception of what is pleasing, which springs from the affection for truth, and so means the affection itself. The reason for calling it 'sweet-smelling' onycha is that it is described as such both before and after the listing of these spices, in the words, 'Take for yourself sweet-smelling spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum - sweet-smelling ones'. The reason why an affection for truth in the natural is what is meant by 'onycha' is that this spice is mentioned second; for the spices are mentioned in the order in which the different kinds of truth are present with a person, from the most external to the inmost levels of them. Consequently 'stacte' means an affection for truth on the level of the senses, which is the most external kind of truth; 'onycha' means an affection for truth on the natural level, which is interior truth within the natural man; 'galbanum' means an affection for truth on a still more internal level, which is interior truth within the spiritual or internal man; and 'frankincense' means truth on the inmost level within the internal man, which is spiritual good. They have a similar meaning to the spices that the anointing oil consisted of, which were the best myrrh, sweet-smelling cinnamon, sweet-smelling calamus, and cassia. These too mean those levels of truth in that same order, see 10252, 10254, 10256, 10258; but the difference is that the kinds of truth meant by the spices of the anointing oil belong to the celestial group, whereas those meant by the spices of the incense belong to the spiritual group, a subject dealt with above in 10254, 10291.