1919. That 'Abram said to Sarai' means perception is clear from what has been stated above in 1898. The perception which the Lord had was represented and is here meant by 'Abram said to Sarai', but thought which sprang from that perception is meant by 'Sarai said to Abram' - perception being the source of thought. The thought possessed by those who have perception comes from no other source. Yet perception is not the same as thought. To see that it is not the same, let conscience serve to 'illustrate this consideration.

[2] Conscience is a kind of general and thus obscure dictate which presents those things that flow in from the Lord by way of the heavens. Those things that flow in manifest themselves in the interior rational man where they are enveloped so to speak in cloud. This cloud is the product of appearances and illusions concerning the goods and truths of faith. Thought is, in truth, distinct and separate from conscience; yet it flows from conscience, for people who have conscience think and speak according to it. Indeed thought is scarcely anything more than a loosening of the various strands that make up conscience, and a converting of these into separate ideas which pass into words. Hence it is that the Lord holds those who have conscience in good thoughts regarding the neighbour and withholds them from evil thoughts. For this reason conscience can never exist except with people who love the neighbour as themselves and have good thoughts regarding the truths of faith. These considerations brought forward here show how conscience differs from thought, and from this one may recognize how perception differs from thought.

[3] The Lord's perception came directly from Jehovah, and so from Divine Good, whereas His thought came from intellectual truth and the affection for it, as stated above in 1904, 1914. No idea, not even an angelic one, is adequate as a means to apprehend the Lord's Divine perception, and thus this lies beyond description. The perception which angels have - described in 1384 and following paragraphs, 1394, 1395 - adds up to scarcely anything at all when contrasted with the perception that was the Lord's. Because the Lord's perception was Divine, it was a perception of everything in heaven; and being a perception of everything in heaven it was also a perception of everything on earth. For such is the order, interconnection, and influx that anyone who has a perception of heavenly things has a perception of earthly as well.

[4] But after the Lord's Human Essence had become united to His Divine Essence, and had become at the same time Jehovah, the Lord was then above what is called perception, for He was above the order which exists in the heavens and from there upon earth. It is Jehovah who is the source of order, and therefore one may say that Jehovah is Order itself, for from Himself He governs order, not merely, as is supposed, in the universal but also in its most specific singulars, for it is these singulars that make up the universal. To speak of the universal and then separate such singulars from it would be no different from speaking of a whole that has no parts within it and so no different from speaking of something consisting of nothing. Thus it is sheer falsity - a figment of the imagination, as it is called - to speak of the Lord's Providence as belonging to the universal but not to its specific singulars; for to provide and govern universally but not specifically is to provide and govern absolutely nothing. This is true philosophically, yet, strange to say, philosophers themselves, including the more eminent, understand this matter in a different way and think in a different way.

1914. That 'may the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant-girl into your bosom' means its unwillingness to take any blame is clear without explanation. In the internal sense these words embody within themselves the truth that the Lord perceived this first rational to be such as despised intellectual truth, and for that reason He reproached it. The Lord did indeed think from intellectual truth, as stated above in 1904; and because that truth was superior to the rational, He was able to perceive and see the nature of the rational, that is to say, that it held that truth in contempt.

[2] The Lord's being able from the interior man to perceive and see the nature of the new rational within Himself becomes clear from the fact that what is interior is able to perceive that which occurs in the exterior, or what amounts to the same, what is higher is able to see that which occurs in that which is lower, but not the reverse. Moreover, those who have conscience are able and are accustomed to do the same, for when anything contrary to the truth constituting conscience enters their thought or the intentions of their will, they not only recognize it for what it is but also pour blame upon it; indeed it grieves them that their own nature is such. This is all the more true of those who have perception, for perception is more interior within the rational. What then could the Lord not do who had Divine celestial perception and whose thought sprang from the affection for intellectual truth which is above the rational? Therefore He could not be anything else but righteously angry since He knew that no evil or falsity at all stemmed from Himself and that from the affection for truth He strove anxiously with all His might so that the rational might be pure. From this it becomes clear that the Lord did not despise intellectual truth, yet perceived that the first rational with Him did so.

[3] What thinking from intellectual truth is cannot be explained intelligibly, all the less so because nobody except the Lord has ever thought from that affection and that kind of truth. Anyone who thinks from them is above the angelic heaven, for the angels of the third heaven do not think from intellectual truth but from the interior part of the rational. But to the extent that the Lord united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, He thought from Divine Good itself, that is, from Jehovah.

[4] The early fathers of the Most Ancient Church, who had perception, thought from the interior rational. The fathers of the Ancient Church, who did not have perception but conscience, thought from the exterior or natural rational. But all who do not have conscience never think from the rational at all, since they have no rational however much they appear to do so. Instead they think from the sensory and the bodily experience of the natural. People who do not have conscience are unable to think from the rational for the reason, as has been stated, that they have no rational. The rational man is one in whom the good and truth of faith are the substance of his thought and never one who thinks in opposition to these. Those in whom evil and falsity are the substance of their thought are insane as to their thought and therefore the rational cannot be attributed to them.