Verses 1-8. A General Summary.

Verses 9-18. The selection of right principles in the mind.

Verses 19-21. Invitation to enter upon the heavenly life.

Verses 22-25. A search into what constitutes the heavenly life.

Verses 26-40. The unwillingness of the unregenerate heart to enter upon it.

Verses 41-46. The attempt to do so from selfhood and defeat in temptation.

3484. From very much experience I have come to know that there is but one life - the Lord's. This life flows in and gives life to man, to both good and evil alike. To that life the forms which consist of material substance correspond, and those forms - by means of a constant inflow of the Divine - receive life in such a way that they seem to themselves to live independently. This correspondence is a correspondence of the organs of life with life itself. Yet the nature of the recipient organs determines the kind of life they have. In those people who have love and charity within them that correspondence is present, for the life itself is received by them as it should be. But that correspondence is not present in those who have the reverse of love and charity within them, for the life itself is not received by them as it should be. Consequently the nature of the life received by them depends on what they are like themselves. This may be exemplified from the natural forms on to which the light of the sun falls - the nature of the forms receiving it determines the variations of the light reflected in them. In the spiritual world the variations are spiritual, and therefore the nature of recipient forms in that world determines that of the intelligence and the wisdom they have. This is why good spirits and angels are seen as embodiments of charity themselves, while evil and hellish spirits are seen as embodiments of hatred.