7. The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the Lord's mercy, is 'the Spirit of God hovering over the face ¹ of the waters'.

Footnotes:

In Revelation 6:15, this signifies respectively people who are in goods and people in knowledges of truths. (Apocalypse Revealed 337)