974. Because thou hast judged these things. This signifies, by whom it was foreseen that these things would take place, and was provided that the heavens, which are in Divine good and in Divine truth, might not suffer hurt, is evident from the signification of judging those things, as denoting to cause them to be done or come to pass, namely, those which follow, that because they have shed the blood of the saints and of the prophets, He gave them blood to drink. But because these things are said of the Lord, and the Lord never gives any one blood to drink, or gives what is signified by blood to drink, and yet these things, like many similar ones in the Word, are ascribed to the Lord in the sense of the letter, it follows that by these words is meant that it was foreseen by the Lord that such things would take place, and provided that no hurt should be done to the heavens, which are in Divine good and in Divine truth; for the Lord foresees evil and provides good. Such are the things signified by these words in the spiritual sense; or when the natural, which is the exterior, is put off, and the spiritual, which is the interior, is made manifest, consequently, when the thought of the natural man, which is according to appearances, is removed by the spiritual thought of the angels, which is according to the essence of the thing.

It is therefore evident what is the nature of the sense of the letter of the Word, and what that of its spiritual sense; also, what is the nature of human thought, and what that of angelic thought, that is, that they, nevertheless, agree like the internal and external, or like cause and effect, and that the effect or external with man is put off, and the cause or internal with the angels, who are attendant on man, is made known. This is why a holy internal from the angels flows into the external thought of the man who accounts the Word holy, although he is ignorant of it.

Continuation concerning the Fifth Precept:-

[2] When man begins to shun evils and to turn away from them because they are sins, then all the things that he does are good, and also can be called good works, with a difference according to the excellence of uses. For what a man does before he shuns evils as sins and turns away from them as sins are works from the man himself; and because the man's proprium is in them, which is nothing but evil, and because they are done for the sake of the world, therefore they are evil works; but those works that a man does, after he shuns evils as sins and turns away from them, are works from the Lord. And because the Lord is in them, and with Him heaven, they are good works. The difference between works from man, and works from the Lord with man, does not appear to men, but is clear to the angels. The works which are done from man are like sepulchres whitened outwardly, which within are full of the bones of the dead. They are like plates and cups cleansed outwardly, in which are unclean things of every kind. They are like fruits inwardly rotten, yet outwardly fair. Or like nuts and almonds eaten away by worms within, while the shell remains untouched; or like a foul harlot with a fair face. Such are the good works from the man himself, for however good they may appear to be outwardly, they nevertheless within abound in impurities of every kind; for their interiors are infernal, while their exteriors seem heavenly. But as soon as a man shuns evils as sins and turns away from them, then his works are not only outwardly, but also inwardly good; and the more interior they are, the better they are; for the more interior they are, the nearer they are to the Lord. For they are then like fruits, which have a fine flavoured pulp, in the centre of which are sheaths of many seeds, from which new trees, even to whole gardens, may be produced. All the things in his natural man are as eggs, from which swarms of flying creatures may be produced, and successively fill a great part of heaven. In a word, when a man shuns evils and turns away from them as sins, then the works which he does are living, whereas those which he did before were dead. For what is from the Lord is living, and what is from man is dead.