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'.

Footnotes:

523. Verse 12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; and so that the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. "And the fourth angel sounded," signifies influx out of heaven, and thence a fourth change; "and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars," signifies that all the good of love perished, all the good and truth of faith, and all cognition of good and truth; and "so that the third part of them was darkened," signifies they were all converted into falsities of evil, and into evils of falsity; "and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise," signifies that the light of spiritual truth, and the light of natural truth, were completely extinguished.