2719. In this chapter the Lord’s rational has first been treated of, as being made Divine, which rational is “Isaac;” then the merely human rational, as being separated, which is the “son of Hagar the Egyptian;” and afterwards the spiritual church, which was saved by the Lord’s Divine Human, which church is “Hagar” and her “child.” Now the doctrine of faith is treated of, which is to be serviceable to that church; namely, that human reasonings from memory-knowledges are adjoined to it, which are “Abimelech” and “Phicol.” This conjunction is signified by the “covenant” which Abraham made with them.

These reasonings are appearances, not from a Divine but from a human origin, which are adjoined for the reason that without them the spiritual church would not comprehend doctrine, and thus would not receive it. For, as was shown above (n. 2715), the man of the spiritual church is relatively in obscurity; and doctrine is therefore to be clothed with such appearances as are of human thought and affection, and is not to be in discrepancy to such a degree that the Divine good cannot have in them some kind of receptacle. As Abimelech is again treated of in the following twenty-sixth chapter, and also a covenant (but with Isaac); and in the internal sense, the reasonings and memory-knowledges added to the doctrine of faith a second time, only a summary may here be given of the things contained in the internal sense, which will become clearer by the explication of that chapter.

895. The waters were dried up from off the earth. That this signifies that falsities did not then appear, is evident from what has been said. Specifically it signifies that falsities have been separated from the things of the will of the man of this church. The “earth” here signifies man’s will, which is nothing but cupidity; wherefore it is said that “the waters were dried up from off the earth.” His “ground” as said above, is in his intellectual part, in which truths are sown-never in his will part, which in the spiritual man is separate from the intellectual; wherefore it is said afterwards in this verse that the face of the “ground” was dried. With the man of the Most Ancient Church there was ground in his will, in which the Lord sowed goods, and then from the goods the man could know and perceive truth, or from love could have faith; but if this method were followed now, man could not but perish eternally, for his will is wholly corrupted. How the case is with this sowing in man’s will part, or-as is the case now-in his intellectual part, is evident from considering that revelations were made to the man of the Most Ancient Church by means of which he from his infancy was initiated into a perception of goods and truths, but as those revelations were sown in his will part, he without new instruction perceived innumerable things, so that from one general principle he knew from the Lord the particulars and the singulars which now men have to learn and so know, and yet after all they can know scarcely a thousandth part of them. For the man of the spiritual church knows nothing but what he learns, and what he knows in this way he retains and believes to be true. Indeed even if he learns what is false, and this is impressed on his mind as true, he believes it, because he has no other perception than that it is so, for so is he persuaded. Those who have conscience have from conscience a certain dictate, but no other than that a thing is true because they have so heard and learned. This is what forms their conscience, as is evident from those who have a conscience of what is false.