8944. In the world it is thought that the human being can recognize from the light of natural evidence alone, that is, without revelation, most of what religion involves, such as the beliefs that there is a God, that He is to be worshipped, and also that He is to be loved, and in addition that a person will be alive after death. and many other beliefs dependent on these. However, those beliefs are the products of self-intelligence. Much experience has taught me that of himself a person knows nothing whatever about Divine realities, or about things belonging to celestial and spiritual life; without revelation he knows nothing about them. For a person is born into the evils of self-love and love of the world, and the nature of these is such that they seal off influx from the heavens and let through influx from the hells. This being so, they blind a person and place him in a negative frame of mind about the reality of the Divine, of heaven and hell, and of life after death. This is plainly evident from the learned people of the world, who through study of different branches of knowledge have developed the inferior light of this natural evidence of theirs to a higher degree than others. As is well known, these more than others deny the Divine, acknowledging natural forces instead. Also, when they speak from what is in their heart and not just from doctrine they deny life after death, also heaven and hell, consequently all things that are matters of faith, which they call bonds for the common people. This makes plain what light received from natural evidence without revelation is like. I have also been shown that in the next life many of those who have written books about natural theology, and from the inferior light of their natural evidence have skillfully substantiated the teachings of their Church, deny those same things at heart more than any others, and also deny the Word itself, which they try to destroy completely. For in the next life people's hearts speak. I have also been shown that those same people are unable to receive anything of the influx from heaven, only that from the hells. All this makes plain what light received from natural evidence, without revelation, is like, and therefore what anything that is a product of self-intelligence is like.

[2] But there are two phenomena that might have placed the mind in doubt so far as this matter is concerned. The first is that people in ancient times who were gentiles nevertheless knew that there is a God, that He is to be worshipped, and that a person as to his soul is immortal. The second is that those things are also known by a large number of nations at the present day among whom no revelation exists. But in the case of the ancients, they did not know those things from the inferior light they received from natural evidence but from revelation that spread from the Church even to them. For the Lord's Church had existed since most ancient times in the land of Canaan, 3686, 4447, 4454, 4516, 4517, 5136, 6516. From there such things as belonged to the worship of God spread to the nations round about and also to the neighbouring Greeks, and from the Greeks to the Italians or Romans. From the Church all these nations received the things they knew about a supreme deity, and about the immortality of the soul, which their learned men wrote about.

[3] As regards the nations at the present day who also know of God's existence and of life after death, they have not come to possess that knowledge from the inferior light they receive from natural evidence. They possess it from their religion which has come down to them from ancient times and which was founded on such things as had spread in various ways from the Church, where revelation existed. This happened in the Lord's Divine Providence. Furthermore those among them who from their religion acknowledge God above all things, and from their religion do what charity requires them to do for their neighbour, on receiving instruction in the next life accept the truths of faith and are saved, 258-2604.

1585. 'And he saw all the plain of Jordan' means the goods and truths that resided with the external man. This is clear from the meaning of 'a plain' and of 'the Jordan'. In the internal sense 'the plain surrounding the Jordan' means the external man as regards all his goods and truths. The reason the plain of Jordan has this meaning is that the Jordan was a boundary of the land of Canaan. 'The land of Canaan', as stated and shown already, means the Lord's kingdom and Church, and in particular its celestial and spiritual things; this also explains why it was called the Holy Land, and the heavenly Canaan. And because it means the Lord's kingdom and Church, it means in the highest sense the Lord Himself, who is the All in all of His kingdom and of His Church.

[2] For this reason all things in the land of Canaan were representative. Those in the midst of the land, or that were inmost, represented His internal Man - Mount Zion and Jerusalem, for example, representing respectively celestial things and spiritual things. More outlying districts represented things more remote from internals. And the most outlying districts, or those which formed the boundaries, represented the external man. There were several boundaries to the land of Canaan, but in general they were the two rivers Euphrates and Jordan, and also the Sea, ¹ for which reason the Euphrates and the Jordan represented external things. Here therefore 'the plain of Jordan' means, as it also represents, all things residing in the external man. The meaning of the land of Canaan is similar when used in reference to the Lord's kingdom in heaven, to the Lord's Church on earth, to the member of that kingdom or Church, or abstractly to the celestial things of love, and so on.

[3] Almost all the cities therefore, and indeed all the mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, and other features in the land of Canaan, were representative. The river Euphrates, being a boundary, represented, as shown already in 120, sensory evidence and facts that belong to the external man, and so too did the Jordan and the plain of Jordan, as becomes clear from the following places: In David,

O my God, my soul bows itself down within me; ² therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons from the little mountain. Psalms 42:6.

Here 'the land of Jordan' stands for that which is lowly and so is distant from the celestial, as a person's externals are from his internals.

[4] The crossing of the Jordan when the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan and the dividing of its waters at that time also represented the approach to the internal man by way of the external, as well as a person's entry into the Lord's kingdom, and much more besides, Joshua 3:14 on to the end of Chapter 4. And because the external man is constantly hostile towards the internal and strives for domination over it, the arrogance or the pride of the Jordan came to be phrases used by the Prophets, as in Jeremiah,

How will you compete with horses? And confident in a land of peace how do you deal with the pride of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5.

'The pride of the Jordan' stands for those things belonging to the external man which rear up and wish to have dominion over the internal, such as reasonings, meant here by 'horses', and 'the confidence' they give.

[5] In the same prophet,

Edom will become a desolation. Behold, like a lion it will come up from the arrogance of the Jordan against the habitation of Ethan. Jeremiah 49:17, 19.

'The arrogance of the Jordan' stands for the pride of the external man against the goods and truths of the internal. In Zechariah,

Howl, O fir tree, for the cedar is fallen, for the magnificent ones have been laid waste! Howl, O oaks of Bashan, for the impenetrable forest has come down. The sound of the howling of shepherds [is heard], for their magnificence has been laid waste; the sound of the roaring of young lions, that the pride of the Jordan has been laid waste. Zechariah 11:2-3.

The fact that the Jordan was a boundary of the land of Canaan is clear from Numbers 34:12, and the eastern boundary of the land of Judah, in Joshua 15:5.

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