the perfumes and the censor, also the lampstand with the lamps,
and still further within, the cherubim, the mercy seat, and the ark. All
these were the holy things of the Jewish and Israelitish church;
nevertheless they could not be called holy and a sanctuary until they
had been covered by curtains and veils, for without those coverings they
would have stood under the naked sky, exposed to showers and storms, to
the birds of heaven and the wild beasts of the earth, and also to
robbers that would violate, plunder, and scatter them. So would it be
with the Divine truths in the heavens, which are called spiritual and
celestial, unless they were enclosed in natural truths, like the truths
of the sense of the letter of the Word.

Natural truths, which are the truths of the sense of the letter of the
Word, are not the very truths of heaven, but are appearances of them;
and appearances of truth encompass, enclose and contain the truths of
heaven, which are genuine truths, and cause them to be in connection and
order and to act together, like the cardiac and pulmonary organs with
their coverings and ribs, as has been said above; and when these truths
are held in connection and in order they are holy, and not till then.
This the sense of the letter of our Word does by means of the
appearances of truth of which its outmost consists; and this is why that
sense is the holy Divine itself and a sanctuary.

But he is greatly mistaken who separates appearances of truth from
genuine truths and calls these appearances holy by themselves and of
themselves, and not the sense of the letter holy by these and from
these, and together with these. He separates these who sees only the
sense of the letter and does not explore its meaning, as those do who do
not read the Word from doctrine. The "cherubim" mean in the Word guard
and protection that the holy things of heaven be not violated, and that
the Lord be approached only through love; consequently these signify the
sense of the letter of the Word, because that is what guards and
protects. It guards and protects in this manner that man can think and
speak according to appearances of truth so long as he is well-disposed,
simple, and as it were a child; but he must take heed not to so confirm
appearances as to destroy the genuine truths in the heavens. (A.E., n.
1088.)

It is an invariable truth that no one can understand the Word without
doctrine; for he may be led away into any errors