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:

681. Verse 15. And the seventh angel sounded, signifies the influx of Divine truth through the heavens from the Lord, and the consequent final changes. This is evident from the signification of "sounding," in reference to an angel, as being the influx of Divine truth from the Lord, and a consequent change in the lower places, where the evil are (See above, n. 489, 502). This is the reason of this signification of "to sound," because "trumpet" and "horn" signify Divine truth about to be revealed or that has been revealed (See above, n. 55, 262). The "sounding of the seventh angel" means the final change caused by the influx of Divine truth from the Lord, because the number "seven" signifies what is full and final (See above, n. 20, 24, 257, 300, 486). As the changes in the lower places where the evil are, which are effected by a stronger or milder influx of Divine truth through the heavens from the Lord, thus by various kinds of influx, have been fully treated of above (n. 413, 418, 419, 426, 489, 493), it is unnecessary to say anything further about them. That the separation of the evil from the good, and the casting down of the evil into hell, and many other changes were effected by these various kinds of influx can be seen in the places indicated. From this now it is evident what is signified by "the seven angels sounding."