2033. Thou shalt keep My covenant. That this signifies still closer union, is evident from the signification of a “covenant,” as being union and conjunction (treated of before, at verses 2, 4, and 7; also in Part First, n. 665, 666, 1023, 1038). The repeated mention here of “covenant,” so frequently mentioned before, denotes a closer union. In the historical sense, which relates to Abraham, nothing else can be said than that he is to keep the covenant; but in the internal sense, in which the Lord is treated of, what is historical vanishes, and the things that can be predicated of Him succeed in its place, which relate to a closer union. The unition of the Lord’s Human Essence with His Divine Essence was not effected all at once, but through the whole course of His life, from infancy to the last of His life in the world. Thus He ascended continuously to glorification, that is, to union; according to what is said in John:

Jesus said, Father glorify Thy name; there came a voice from heaven: I have both glorified and will glorify it again (John 12:28).

(See what was said above, n. 1690, 1864)

1023. And I, behold, I establish My covenant. That this signifies the presence of the Lord in charity, is evident from the signification of “covenant” as shown above n. 666), where it was shown that a “covenant” signifies regeneration, and indeed the conjunction of the Lord with the regenerate man by love; and that the heavenly marriage is that veriest covenant itself, and consequently so is the heavenly marriage with every regenerate man. This marriage or covenant has been treated of before. With the man of the Most Ancient Church the heavenly marriage was in the Own of his will part, but with the man of the Ancient Church the heavenly marriage was effected in the Own of his intellectual part. For when man’s will part had become wholly corrupt, the Lord miraculously separated the Own of his intellectual part from that corrupt Own of his will part, and in the Own of his intellectual part He formed a new will, which is conscience, and into the conscience insinuated charity, and into the charity innocence, and thus conjoined Himself with man, or what is the same, made a covenant with him. So far as the Own of man’s will part can be separated from this Own of the intellectual part, the Lord can be present with him, or conjoin Himself, or enter into a covenant with him. Temptations and the like means of regeneration cause the Own of man’s will part to be quiescent, to become as nothing, and as it were to die. So far as this is done the Lord through conscience implanted in the Own of man’s intellectual part can work in charity. And this is what is here called a “covenant.”