4803. A matter wholly unknown in the world and worthy of mention is this: The states in which good spirits and angels live undergo constant change and perfection. In this way they are conveyed to the more internal parts of the province in which they dwell, and so into more excellent functions. For in heaven purification takes place constantly, which is so to speak a new creation. Yet the situation is that no angel to all eternity can possibly attain complete perfection. The Lord alone is the perfect One, He being the root and the source of all perfection. Those who correspond to the mouth constantly wish to be speaking, for speaking gives them utmost pleasure. While undergoing perfection they are restricted to speaking nothing but that which is beneficial to companions, the community, heaven, and the Lord. The delight they take in speaking in that way grows in the measure that the desire to regard themselves in what they speak and to strive after wisdom from what is properly their own passes away from them.

9516. 'And their faces of a man towards his brother' means truth and good joined together. This is clear from the meaning of 'the face' as the interiors, at this point looking towards and being joined to, for when two are looking each towards the other they join themselves together on the level of interiors (interiors being meant by 'the face', 1999, 2434, 3527, 3573, 4066, 4796-4805, 5102, 5165, 5168, 5695, 9306); and from the meaning of 'man towards brother' as mutually, dealt with in 4725, so that truth joined to good is meant. For 'man' means truth, 3134, 3309, 3459, 4725, 7716, 9007, and 'brother' good, 367, 2360, 3303, 3803, 3815, 4121, 4191, 5409, 5686, 5692, 6756.

3502. 'And make me savoury food such as I love' means the forms of pleasantness received from that truth, because it is acquired from good. This is clear from the meaning of 'savoury food' as forms of pleasantness; and because that food was received from Esau who represents the good of the natural, that which is acquired from good is therefore meant. In the original language 'savoury food' refers to the forms of delight and pleasantness of taste, and means in the internal sense the delights which go with good and the forms of pleasantness which go with truth, the reason being that taste, as with all the other physical senses, corresponds to celestial and spiritual things - which correspondence will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on. The situation in these matters does not become clear unless one knows how the natural is made new or receives life from the rational, that is, from the Lord by way of the rational.

[2] The natural is not renewed, it does not receive a corresponding life from the rational - that is, it is not regenerated - except by means of matters of doctrine or cognitions of good and truth, the celestial man being regenerated by means primarily of cognitions of good, the spiritual man by means primarily of cognitions of truth. Matters of doctrine or cognitions of good and truth cannot be conveyed to the natural man, nor thus be joined to it and made its own, except through all delight and pleasantness that are appropriate for it, for they are instilled by the external way or that of the senses. Anything that does not enter in by way of some delight or pleasantness does not attach itself there and so does not remain. These are the factors meant by truth acquired from good, and the forms of pleasantness received from this truth. And it is these that are the subject in what follows.