9324. 'And I will remove sickness from the midst of you' means protection from falsifications of truth and adulterations of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'removing from the midst of you' - when it refers to falsified truths and adulterated forms of good, meant by 'sickness' - as protection, for when the Lord protects someone from them He removes them, 9313, [9316;] and from the meaning of 'sickness' as falsified truth and adulterated good. These are the sicknesses of spiritual life, for spiritual life receives its existence from and is kept in existence by the truths that belong to faith and the forms of good that belong to love. When these are falsified and perverted, a person is ill; and when they are completely rejected in the heart the person is dead spiritually. Regarding 'sicknesses', that they mean such things and correspond to them, see 4958, 5711-5727, 8364, 9031 (end).

1068. That 'Noah began to be a man of the ground' means in general a person who has been instructed from matters of doctrine concerning faith is clear from the meaning of 'the ground', dealt with already in 268, 566, as the member of the Church, or what amounts to the same, the Church. For if the Church is to exist at all the individual must be the Church. The Church is called 'the ground' from the fact that it receives the seeds of faith, which are the truths and goods of faith. 'The ground' is distinguished from 'the earth' or 'the land' - which, as has been shown, also means the Church - as faith is from charity. As charity includes faith within itself so does earth or land include the ground. Consequently when the Church is dealt with in general it is called 'the earth' or 'the land', and when dealt with specifically it is called 'the ground', as here. For that which is general is a complex whole consisting of the things deriving from it. The matters of doctrine which the members of the Ancient Church possessed had come down, as stated already, from revelations and perceptions of the Most Ancient Church which had been preserved, and in which they had faith, such as those we have today in the Word. Those matters of doctrine were their Word. 'Noah began to be a man of the ground' therefore means a person who has been instructed from matters of doctrine concerning faith.