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:

3643. I have noticed that those in heaven dwell beneath a clear, bright sky like that of morning and midday, extending also towards evening, and likewise in a warmth like that of spring, summer, and autumn. But those in hell dwell under a dim, cloudy, and darkened sky, and also in the cold [of winter]. I have noticed that between the two in general a balance is kept; also that insofar as love, charity, and consequently faith are present in angels, they dwell under a clear sky and in the warmth of spring, and that insofar as hatred and consequently falsity are present in those in hell they dwell in thick darkness and in coldness. And as stated above, the light in the next life holds intelligence within it, the warmth love within it, while thick darkness holds insanity within it, and cold hatred within it.