44. Verses 24-25 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, beasts and creeping things and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds; and it was so. And God made wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, and beasts according to their kinds, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Man, like the earth, can produce nothing good unless the cognitions of faith have already been sown in him enabling him to know what to believe and do. It is the function of the understanding to hear the Word, and of the will to do it. A person who hears the Word and does not do it is one who claims to believe, but he does not live according to it. Such a person separates hearing and doing, and splits his mind in two directions; and by the Lord he is called 'a foolish man',

Everyone who hears My words and does them I liken to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; but everyone who hears My words and does them not I liken to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Matthew 7:24, 26.

Matters of the understanding, as has been shown, are meant by 'creeping things which the waters produce', and by 'birds over the earth and over the face ¹ of the expanse'. Matters of the will are here meant by 'living creatures which the earth brings forth', and by 'beasts and creeping things', and also by 'the wild animals of the earth'.

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840. That 'and God remembered' means the end of temptation and the start of renewal is clear from what comes before and after this. 'God remembered' in particular means His being merciful. His remembering is mercy, and this is attributed to Him especially when temptation is past because at that time new light is shining. As long as temptation lasts, a person assumes that the Lord is not present, for he is being harassed by evil genii, so harassed in fact that sometimes he has so great a feeling of hopelessness as scarcely to believe in the existence of any God at all. Yet at such times the Lord is more present than that person can possibly believe. But once temptation subsides he receives comfort, and for the first time believes that the Lord is present. Consequently, because He appears to do so, 'God's remembering' mentioned here means the end of temptation and the start of renewal. God, and not Jehovah, is said to have remembered because the person's state is still that which comes before regeneration. But once he has been regenerated the name Jehovah is used, as in verses 20-21, at the end of this chapter. The reason 'God' is used here is that faith has not yet been joined to charity. A person is for the first time said to be regenerate when he acts from charity. It is in charity that Jehovah is present, and not so much in faith before this has been joined to charity. In the next life charity constitutes a person's very being (esse) and life. Jehovah is Being (Esse) and Life itself, and this is why before a person has this being and life, not Jehovah but God is said to reside with him.