26. CHAPTER III. AS A CHURCH TURNS AWAY FROM GOOD TO EVIL, SO ALSO DOES IT TURN AWAY FROM INTERNAL TO EXTERNAL WORSHIP

1. In so far as evil increases in a Church, the man of the Church becomes external.

2. In so far as the man of the Church becomes external, he becomes divided, that is, evil in internals and having the appearance of good in the externals.

3. Every man after death becomes finally such as he was in internals, not such as he was in externals.

4. It is moreover owing to this that the world, judging as it does from externals, does not discern what the state of the Church is; then too, it does not discern either how the Church is growing weaker and declining to its end.

5. Every man has an internal and an external, termed the internal man and the external man.

6. In the internal man it is the will, thus the life's chief love, that has dominion; but in the external man his understanding has dominion, and this is well disposed towards the internal, whether it be clearly, cautiously, or craftily.

7. If the internal man is evil and the external man good, then in the latter the internal man is a dissembler and a hypocrite.

8. No man is good in respect of his internal man unless he is so from the Lord.