10. VIII. Therefore everything which proceeds from this sun, regarded in itself, is dead.
Who does not see from the rational faculty belonging to his understanding, if this be a little elevated above the things of the bodily senses, that love, regarded in itself, is alive, and that the appearance of its fire is life; and, on the contrary, that elementary fire, regarded in itself, is respectively dead; consequently, that the sun of the spiritual world, being pure love, is alive, and that the sun of the natural world, being pure fire, is dead; and that the case is the same with all the products which proceed and exist from them?
[2] There are two things which produce all the effects in the universe, LIFE and NATURE; and they produce them according to order, when life, from within, actuates nature. The case is otherwise when nature, from within, causes life to act, which occurs with those who place nature, which in itself is dead, above and within life, and thence wholly devote themselves to the pleasures of the senses and the lusts of the flesh, esteeming the spiritual things of the soul, and the truly rational things of the mind, as nothing. These persons, on account of this inversion, are those who are called THE DEAD: such are all atheistic materialists in the world, and all the satans in hell.
[3] They are also called the dead in the Word; as in David: “They joined themselves also unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead' (Psalm 106:28). The enemy persecutes my soul; he makes me to sit in darkness, as the dead of the world' (Psalm 143:3). “To hear the groaning of the prisoner, and to set at liberty the sons of death” (Psalm 102:20). And in Revelation: “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die” (3:1-2).
[4] They are called THE DEAD, because spiritual death is condemnation; and condemnation is the lot of those who believe life to be from nature, and thus believe the light of nature to be the light of life, and thereby conceal, suffocate, and extinguish every idea of God, of heaven, and of eternal life. In consequence of so doing, such persons are like owls, which see light in darkness, and darkness in light, that is, they see falsities as truths, and evils as goods, and, as the delights of evil are the delights of their hearts, they are not unlike those birds and beasts which devour dead bodies as choice delicacies, and scent the stenches arising from graves as balsamic odours. They also see no influx but such as is physical or natural; if, notwithstanding, they affirm influx to be spiritual, it is not from any idea of it, but from the mouth of their instructor.
