6272. 'Crosswise he put out his hands' means thus out of keeping with true order. This is clear from the meaning of 'crosswise putting out one's hands' as not in keeping with true order; for by acting in that way Israel makes the younger the firstborn and the older the later-born, so that the truth of faith is made prior and higher and the good of charity posterior and lower. (For the birthright consists in holding the prior and higher position, 3325.) How much evil is introduced into the Church by that exchange of positions is perfectly plain, for by making the exchange people cast themselves into such obscurity that they do not know what good is, or thus what truth is. For good is like a flame and truth is like the light that shines from it. If you take away the flame the light perishes too; or if any light is visible it is like a false light which does not come from the flame. That exchange of positions also causes Churches to clash and quarrel with one another about what is true, one group declaring that this idea is true, another that it is false. Worse than that, once they make faith take precedence in a group of people forming the Church, they begin to separate faith from charity, to rate charity as nothing in comparison with faith, and so to have no concern about the life they lead - a way of thinking to which a person is by natural disposition also inclined. The Church as a consequence perishes, for the life he leads is what constitutes the Church in a person, not doctrine divorced from life. Nor thus does trust, which is a high degree of faith, constitute the Church; for genuine trust cannot exist except with those who have charity since a life filled with trust springs from charity. Besides, the good of charity is in reality the firstborn, that is, occupies the first place, while the truth of faith only appears to be, see 3324, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3701, 4243, 4244, 4247, 4337, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930, 4977.

5650. 'So that he may come down on us and fall on us' means that for this reason they were subjected to its absolute power and control. This is clear from the meaning of 'coming down on someone' as considering him blameworthy; and from the meaning of 'falling on someone' as making him subject to one's own power and control, which in this case is absolute since the statement 'take us as slaves, and our asses' follows after this. The implications of all this are as follows: Before the natural man is joined to the spiritual, or the external man to the internal, he is left to consider whether he wants the strong desires that spring from self-love and love of the world, also such ideas as he has used to defend those desires, to be done away with, and whether he wants to surrender dominion to the spiritual or internal man. He is left to consider this so that he may choose in freedom what he pleases. When the natural man without the spiritual contemplates this possibility he rejects it; for he loves his strong evil desires for the reason that he loves himself and the world. Such a contemplation fills him with anxiety and he imagines that if those desires are done away with his life would be finished; for he locates everything in the natural or external man. Alternatively he imagines that after they have been done away with he will be left with no power of his own and that all his thought, will, and action will come to him through heaven, so that he will no longer have any responsibility for these. Once the natural man has been left to himself in this condition, he draws back and becomes resistant. But when some light flows from the Lord through heaven into his natural he starts to think differently. That is to say, he now refers the spiritual man to have dominion, for then he is able to think what is true and to will what is good and so is able to enter heaven, which is not possible if the natural man has dominion. And when he considers that all the angels in the whole of heaven are like this and as a consequence experience joy defying description, he goes to war with the natural man and at length wishes to make the same subject to the spiritual. This is the condition into which someone who is to be regenerated is brought, so that he can in freedom turn where he wills; and insofar as he does in freedom turn in that direction he is being regenerated. All these matters are the things under consideration here in the internal sense.