1034. 'Never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood' means that men would not perish in the way that the final descendants of the Most Ancient Church had done. This is clear from what has been stated already about the people before the Flood who perished, that is, the people who were cut off by the waters of the flood. It has been shown already in 310 what the situation was - that the final descendants of the Most Ancient Church were such that when the will part of their minds had become corrupted, the understanding part had been simultaneously corrupted as well. Consequently the understanding part could not be separated from the will part and a new will be formed in the understanding part, since the two parts of their mind were knit together. Because this was foreseen provision was also made by the Lord that the understanding part with man could be separated from the will part and so be renewed. And because it was thus provided that no type of human being should afterwards arise like that people before the Flood, it is therefore said here that 'never again will any flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood'.

310. Each word in this verse embodies so many very deep arcana that all cannot possibly be disclosed. These arcana are applicable to the disposition of those people who perished in the Flood, a disposition which was entirely different from that of the people who lived after the Flood. In short, their earliest forefathers, who constituted the Most Ancient Church, were celestial people, and so had celestial seed planted within them. Consequently their descendants had seed within themselves which had a celestial origin. Seed which has a celestial origin entails love ruling the whole mind and unifying it. For the human mind consists of two parts, will and understanding. To the will belongs love, or good, and to the understanding faith, or truth. From love or good they perceived what was a matter of faith or a matter of truth, so that their mind was one. When people are of this nature that seed which has a celestial origin remains with their descendants. But if the latter recede from truth and good, it is extremely dangerous, for they so corrupt the whole of their mind that it can scarcely be restored in the next life.

[2] It is different with people who do not have celestial but spiritual seed within them, as was the case with the people after the Flood and with those living today. They have no love within them, and so no will for good; but they can be given faith, or understanding of truth. From faith or an understanding of truth they can be guided into some form of charity, but it is by a different route, by a conscience implanted by the Lord and acquired from cognitions of truth and good arising from it. Consequently their state is entirely different from that of people before the Flood. This state will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. These are the arcana which are totally unknown to people nowadays, for nowadays people do not know what the celestial man is, nor even what the spiritual man is, let alone the consequent nature of man's mind and life, and his consequent state after death.