8773. 'And Moses came and called the elders of the people' means the choice of those who ranked first in the understanding of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling to oneself' as choosing; and from the meaning of 'the elders of the people' as those who rank first in the understanding of truth, or - in the sense completely separate from actual persons - leading truths, dealt with in 6524, 6525, 6890, 8578, 8585. The implications of all this are as follows: People governed by the kind of good that is the subject in the present chapter - that is, good that has not as yet received truths to give it form - are reformed by the Lord first by means of leading truths, that is, by general truths, which contain and are the source of all other truths. Leading truths are these: God is one; the Lord was born a human being in order that the human race might be saved; heaven exists, and hell; those who have led a good life enter heaven, and those who have led a bad one enter hell; love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour are the commandments on which all others hang; and only through faith can this love exist. These and others like them are the leading truths which the Lord first instills into the good present with a person who is being regenerated. When these truths have been instilled into the good and become the truths of good, all other truths are instilled. They are arranged into order within and beneath those general or leading truths, and are in keeping with the form that heaven takes. Thus by degrees they enable the life of heaven to exist in that person, who is then so to speak a miniature heaven; that is, they enable all that composes his understanding and that constitutes his will to be linked to the forms of good and the truths residing with angels, and so to the angels themselves.
