426. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. (9:4) This symbolizes the Lord's Divinely providing that they be unable to take away any truth or good of faith, or any affection for or perception of these, from any others than people lacking in charity and so having no faith.

Their being told symbolizes the Lord's Divinely providing, because they were told from heaven. Their not harming the grass of the earth, or any green thing, symbolizes their inability to take away any truth or good of faith; for grass symbolizes the truth of faith that is born first in a person (no. 401), and a green thing symbolizes the life force in faith, which springs from goodness (no. 401). Their not harming any tree symbolizes their inability to take away any affection for or perception of truth and goodness; for a tree symbolizes a person in respect to these (no. 400). Those men not having the seal of God on their foreheads symbolize people lacking in charity and so having no faith; for the forehead symbolizes love and charity (no. 347), and having the seal means, symbolically, to know them and distinguish them from others (no. 345).

[2] People who have affirmed faith alone to the point of embracing the mysteries of justification and salvation by it are unable to take away any truth or good of faith, or any affection for or perception of these, from any others than people lacking the faith that accompanies charity, because scarcely anyone comprehends them other than the prelate who teaches and preaches these. The layman hears them, but they fly in one ear and out the other, as the mystery-preaching priest himself may know for certain from the fact that he himself spent the whole force of his genius on learning them in his youth, and afterward on retaining them in his later age, and from the fact that he reckons himself especially well-educated on account of them. What then does the layman comprehend who, when he hears these mysteries, thinks in simplicity of the faith accompanying charity?

It can be seen from this that a justifying faith alone is the faith of the clergy, and not of the laity, except in the case of those who live heedlessly. The latter learn from the clergy's mysteries only that faith alone saves, that they cannot do good of themselves, that neither can they fulfill the law, and that Christ suffered for them, along with a few other general tenets like these.

75. It is different for us, since we have not only desires of earthly love but desires of spiritual love and desires of heavenly love as well. Our human mind has three levels, as I explained in part 3 of Divine Love and Wisdom. This means that we can rise from earthly knowledge to spiritual intelligence and from there to heavenly wisdom; and because of these latter two, the intelligence and the wisdom, we can turn to the Lord, be united to him, and therefore live forever. This raising of our desires would not be possible, though, if we did not have the ability to raise our discernment because we are rational and to do so intentionally because we are free.

[2] It is by means of these two abilities that we can think inwardly about what we are perceiving outwardly with our physical senses and can think on a higher level about what we are thinking on a lower level. Any one of us can say, "I was thinking about this," or "I am thinking about this," or "I intended this," or "I intend this," or "I understand that this is true," or "I love this because of its quality," and so on. We can see from this that we are able to think about our thinking from a higher perspective and apparently see it down below. This ability of ours comes from our rationality and our freedom. Rationality enables us to think on a higher level, and freedom enables us to think that way from desire, intentionally. If we did not have the freedom to think that way, that is, we would not have the intention and therefore would not have the thought.

[3] The result is that if we do not want to understand anything except what has to do with this world and its nature, if we do not want to understand what is good and true on moral and spiritual levels, we cannot rise from knowledge into intelligence, let alone from intelligence into wisdom, because we have blocked off these abilities. We have then made ourselves human only in the limited sense that we could understand if we wanted to, because of our inborn rationality and freedom and because we are able to want to.

It is these two abilities that enable us to think and to express our thoughts by talking. In other respects, we are not people but animals, and actually worse than animals because of our misuse of these abilities.