Arcana Coelestia # 161
161. These descendants of the Most Ancient Church were not evil; they were still good people. And since they desired to live in the external man or proprium, the Lord did allow it; but He mercifully instilled something celestial-spiritual. How the internal and external act as one, or how they appear to be one, cannot be known unless it is known how one flows into the other. To gain some idea of this, take, for example, an action. Unless charity, or love and faith, lies within it, and the Lord within these, the action is not an action that can be called a work of charity or the fruit of faith.
Matthew 13:4-8
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As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them.
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Others fell on rocky ground, where they didn't have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of earth.
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When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away.
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Others fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them.
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Others fell on good soil, and yielded fruit: some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.
