civil and moral good and, in its
external form, spiritual good, too, are still to be received, who does
not see that these then constitute the feet and the soles of the feet,
and are trodden on?

[6] Inasmuch, then, as man's state of life is to be inverted so that what
is uppermost may be lowermost, and the inversion cannot be instantaneous,
for the chief enjoyment of his life, coming of self-love and the love of
ruling, can be diminished and turned into a love of uses only gradually,
the Lord cannot introduce good sooner or further than this evil is
removed; done earlier or further, man would recede from good and return
to his evil.

[7] 4. _When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his
understanding and kept in memory, and still not be profaned._ This is
because the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into
the understanding. As the understanding does not flow into the will, many
truths can be received by the understanding and held in memory and still
not be mingled with the evil in the will, and the holy thus not profaned.
Moreover, it is incumbent on everyone to learn truths from the Word or
from preaching, to lay them up in the memory and to think about them. For
by truths held in the memory and entering into the thought, the
understanding is to teach the will, that is, the man, what he should do.
This is therefore the chief means of reformation. Truths that are only in
the understanding and thence in the memory are not in man but outside
him.

[8] Man's memory may be compared to the ruminatory stomach of certain
animals in which they put their food; as long as it is there, it is not
in but outside their body; as they draw it thence and consume it, it
becomes part of their life, and their body is nourished. The food in
man's memory is not material but spiritual, namely truths, rightly
knowledges; so far as he takes them thence by thinking, which is like
ruminating, his spiritual mind is nourished. It is the will's love that
has the desire and the appetite, so to speak, and that causes them to be
taken thence and to be nourishing. If that love is evil, it desires or
has an appetite for what is unclean, but if good, for what is clean, and
sets aside, rejects and casts out what is unsuitable; this is done in
various ways.

[9] 5. _But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care
that truths are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or
more largely than