2669. 'Also, the son of the servant-girl I will make into a nation' means the spiritual Church which was to receive the good of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'the son of the servant-girl' and also of 'a nation'. 'The son of the servant-girl' or Ishmael, while he was in Abraham's house, that is, while he was with Abraham, represented the Lord's first rational, as shown in 2652, 2653, 2657, 2658. But now he has been separated he takes on another representation, namely that of the spiritual Church, 2666. A similar change of representation occurred previously with Lot who while with Abraham represented the Lord's external man, 1428, 1429, 1434, 1547, 1597, 1598, 1698, but once he had been separated from Abraham he represented the external Church and many states of that Church, 2324, 2371, 2399, 2422, 2459, and in the whole of Chapter 19. As regards 'nation' meaning good, see 1159, 1258-1260, 1416, 1849. Here the good of faith is meant since it has reference to the spiritual Church. Hence the words used here, 'Also, the son of the servant-girl I will make into a nation', mean the spiritual Church which was to receive the good of faith, which is charity.

[2] The Lord's kingdom in heaven and on earth is celestial and spiritual, and therefore angels are distinguished into those who are celestial and those who are spiritual, see 202, 337. To celestial angels the Lord appears as the Sun, to spiritual as the Moon, 1053, 1521, 1529-1531. Men in a similar way are distinguished into those who are celestial and those who are spiritual. Those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood were celestial, dealt with in 607, 608, 784, 895, 920, 1114-1125, while those who belonged to the Ancient Church which existed after the Flood were spiritual, dealt with in 609, 640, 641, 765. For what the difference was between those two Churches, see 567, 607, and for what the difference is between what is celestial and what is spiritual, 81, 1155, 1577, 1824, 2048, 2069, 2088, 2227, 2507. The celestial are referred to by the Lord in the following,

He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. And when He has led out His own sheep He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.

The spiritual however are referred to in these words,

And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. John 10:3-4, 16.

The good of love is that which constitutes the celestial Church, but the good of faith that which constitutes the spiritual Church. The truth of faith does not constitute the Church but leads into it.

895. 'The waters dried up from over the earth' means that falsities were not at that time apparent. This is clear from what has been stated. In particular these words mean that falsities had been separated from things of the will belonging to the member of this Church. The statement 'the waters dried up from over the earth' occurs at this point because here 'earth' means the person's will, which is nothing but evil desire. As stated already, the ground is situated in the understanding part of man's mind, in which part truths are sown. No sowing ever takes place in the will part, which in the spiritual man has been separated from the understanding part. This is why in the last part of this verse it is said that 'the face ¹ of the ground was dry'. With the member of the Most Ancient Church there was ground in the will part of his mind, where the Lord implanted goods. It was from goods therefore that he was able to know and perceive truth, that is, it was from love that he was able to possess faith. If the same thing were to happen today however, a person would inevitably and eternally perish, for his will is utterly corrupted. What implantation in the will part entails and what in the understanding part becomes clear from the consideration that the member of the Most Ancient Church had in fact enjoyed revelations through which from early childhood onwards he was led into a perception of goods and truths. But since they used to be implanted in the will part of his mind he perceived without any further instruction the countless aspects of any one general matter. He knew from the Lord the details and the finer points which nowadays men must learn before knowing about them. And even then they can know scarcely one thousandth of them. For the member of the spiritual Church knows nothing unless he acquires it by learning; and what he gets to know in this fashion he retains and believes to be true. Indeed if he learns something false and this is impressed on him as though it were true, he believes that as well, for he has no other perception than that a thing is true because he has in that way been persuaded of it. People who possess conscience derive from conscience a certain dictate. Yet with them a thing is true only because they have heard and learned that it is. This is what constitutes their conscience, as becomes clear from people who have a conscience of what is false.

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