4450. 'And intermarry with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters to yourselves' means the union of goods and truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'intermarrying' as union, dealt with in 4434; from the meaning of 'daughters' as affections, and so goods, dealt with in 489-491, 2362, 3963. Its being a union with truths is meant by 'give to us' and 'take to yourselves', for 'Shechem' and 'the sons of Jacob' mean truths, as shown above. From this it is evident that these words mean the union of goods and truths, that is, that through that union this new Church was to be similar to the Ancient Church not only in outward appearance but also in inward.

589. These and so many other places in the Word make it clear that the manner of speaking is in accordance with the outward appearances that are proper to man. Consequently anyone who wishes to confirm false assumptions from the outward appearances according to which the Word speaks could do so from countless places. Confirming false assumptions from the Word is one thing however, believing in simplicity what the Word contains is quite another. Anybody confirming false assumptions first of all adopts an assumption and then refuses to withdraw from it or to retract the smallest detail. Instead he scrapes together and piles up confirmatory material wherever he can, doing so even from the Word, till at length his self-persuasion renders him incapable any more of seeing the truth. Anybody however who believes in simplicity, or simple-heartedly, has no preconceived assumptions. Instead he thinks that because the Lord has said it, it is the truth. And if he is shown by means of other statements in the Word how the matter is to be understood, there and then he assents to it and in his heart rejoices. The person therefore who believes in simplicity that the Lord is angry, punishes, repents, and grieves, and in so believing fears evil and does what is good, comes to no harm. For by believing all this of the Lord he also believes that the Lord sees every single thing. And that being his faith, he is after that enlightened in all other matters of faith, in the next life if not already in this. It is quite different in the case of people who, prompted by filthy self-love or by love of the world, persuade themselves of what results from preconceived assumptions.