11. Hoofdstuk 1. Over het Goede en het Ware.

Alle dingen in het heelal, die volgens de Goddelijke Orde zijn, hebben betrekking op het Goede en het Ware. Er bestaat niets in de hemel en niets in de wereld, dat niet op die twee betrekking heeft. De oorzaak hiervan is dat beide, zowel het goede als het ware, voortgaan uit het Goddelijke, waaruit alle dingen zijn.

429. Verse 4. And I heard the number of those sealed, signifies the quality of those who are in good who are separated from the evil. This is evident from the signification of "number," as being the quality of the thing treated of (of which presently); also from the signification of "those sealed," as being those who are in good, distinguished and separated from others (of which just above, n. 427. "Number" and "measure" are mentioned in many passages in the Word, and it is believed that these mean simply number and measure; but "number" and "measure" in the spiritual sense mean the quality of the thing treated of. The quality itself is determined by the numbers expressed, as here by the "hundred and forty-four thousand," and afterwards the "twelve thousand" out of every tribe. What is signified by these numbers will be told in the following article. Number signifies the quality of the thing treated of for the reason that the Word is spiritual, and therefore each and every thing that it contains is spiritual, and spiritual things are not numbered or measured, but still they fall into numbers and measures when they come down out of the spiritual world or out of heaven where the angels are into the natural world or upon the earth where men are; and likewise in the Word, when they come down out of its spiritual sense in which the angels are into the natural sense in which men are; the natural sense of the Word is the sense of its letter. This is why there are numbers in that sense, and why the numbers there signify things spiritual, or such as pertain to heaven and the church. That the spiritual things of heaven, such as the angels think and speak about, also fall into numbers, has often been shown to me. When they spoke with each other, what they said was determined into pure numbers, which were seen upon paper; and they afterwards said that this was what they had said determined into numbers, and that these numbers in series contained everything they had said; I was also taught what they signified and how they were to be understood; this will be spoken of frequently in what follows. (But respecting writings in pure numbers out of heaven, see in the work on Heaven and Hell 263; that all numbers in the Word signify the things of heaven and the church, see above, n. 203, 336[1-10])

93. The angel of the Ephesian church is the first here written to; and by the angel of that church all those in the church are meant who are in the knowledges of truth and good, thus in the knowledges of such things as are of heaven and of the church, and who still are not, or not yet, in a life according to them. By these knowledges are especially meant doctrinals; but doctrinals alone, or the knowledges of truth and good alone, do not make a man spiritual, but a life according to them; for doctrinals or knowledges without a life according to them abide only in the memory and thence in the thought, and all things that abide there only, abide in the natural man; consequently a man does not become spiritual until these enter the life, and they enter the life when a man wills the things which he thinks, and consequently does them.

That this is so anyone can see from this alone, that if anyone knows all the laws of moral and civil life, and does not live according to them, he still is not a moral and civil man; he may indeed talk about them more learnedly than others, but still he is rejected. It is the same with one who knows the ten precepts of the Decalogue, so as to be able even to explain and discourse about them with intelligence, and yet does not live according to them. Those, therefore, within the church who are in the knowledges of such things as pertain to the church, that is, who are in knowledges of truth and good from the Word, but are not, or not yet, in a life according to them, are here first treated of, and these are described by the things written to the angel of the Ephesian church.