149. One reason why man does not wish in like manner to come out of
spiritual servitude into spiritual freedom is that he does not know what
either is; he does not have the truths to teach this, and without them
spiritual servitude is believed to be freedom and spiritual freedom to be
servitude. A second reason is that the religion of Christendom has closed
the understanding, and "faith alone" has sealed it shut. Each has built
an iron wall around itself in the dogma that theological matters
transcend and cannot be approached by the reason, but are for the blind
and not the seeing. So truths that would teach what spiritual liberty is
have been hidden. A third reason is that few examine themselves and see
their sins, and one who does not see and quit them is in the freedom that
sins have, which is infernal freedom, in itself enslavement. To view
heavenly freedom, which is genuine freedom, from that freedom is like
trying to see daylight in pitch darkness or sunshine from under a black
cloud. So it happens that it is not known what heavenly freedom is, or
that the difference between it and infernal freedom is like the
difference between what is living and what is dead.

150. (vi) The external man is to be reformed by the internal, and not the
other way about. By internal and external man the same is meant as by
external and internal of thought, of which frequently before. The
external must be reformed by the internal because the internal flows into
the external and not the reverse. The learned world knows that what is
spiritual flows into what is natural and not the reverse, for reason
dictates it; the church knows that the internal man must first be
cleansed and made new and the external by it then, because the Lord
teaches it. He does so in the words:

Woe to you . . . hypocrites, for you make the outside of the cup and
platter clean, but the inside is full of extortion and excess. Blind
Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter that the
outside may also be made clean (Mt 23:25, 26).

We have shown in a number of places in the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom_ that reason dictates this. For what the Lord teaches He grants
man to see rationally. This a man does in two ways: in one, he sees in
himself that something is so upon hearing it; in the other, he grasps it
by reasons for it. Seeing in oneself takes place in the internal man, and
understanding through reasoning in the external man. Who does not