8. The second state is when a distinction is made between the things that are the Lord's and those that are man's own. Those which are the Lord's are called in the Word 'remnants', and here they are chiefly the cognitions of faith which a person has learned since he was a small child. These are stored away and do not come out into the open until he reaches this state. Nowadays this state rarely occurs without temptation, misfortune, and sorrow, which lead to the inactivity and so to speak the death of bodily and worldly concerns - the things which are man's own. In this way what belongs to the external man is segregated from what belongs to the internal. Within the internal are the remnants, stored away by the Lord until this time and for this purpose.

780. 'Of all flesh in which there was the spirit of life ¹ means a new creature, or the fact that they received new life from the Lord. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'flesh' as all mankind in general and a bodily-minded person in particular, as stated and shown already. Consequently 'flesh in which there was the spirit of life' ¹ means a person who has been regenerated, for the Lord's life, which is the life of charity and faith, is there within his proprium. Nobody is anything more than flesh, but when the life of charity and faith is breathed into him by the Lord, his flesh in that case is made alive, becomes spiritual and celestial, and is called 'a new creature', Mark 16:15, from having been created anew.

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