ntly is raised into the heat of heaven, he becomes spiritual and
celestial; he then becomes like a garden of Eden, which is at once in
vernal light and vernal heat. It is not the understanding that becomes
spiritual and celestial, but the love; and when the love has so become,
it makes its consort, the understanding, spiritual and celestial. Love
becomes spiritual and celestial by a life according to the truths of
wisdom which the understanding teaches and requires. Love imbibes these
truths by means of its understanding, and not from itself; for love cannot
elevate itself unless it knows truths, and these it can learn only by means
of an elevated and enlightened understanding; and then so far as it loves
truths in the practice of them so far it is elevated; for to understand is
one thing and to will is another; or to say is one thing and to do is
another. There are those who understand and talk about the truths of
wisdom, yet neither will nor practise them. When, therefore, love puts
in practice the truths of light which it understands and speaks, it is
elevated. This one can see from reason alone; for what kind of a man is
he who understands the truths of wisdom and talks about them while he
lives contrary to them, that is, while his will and conduct are opposed
to them? Love purified by wisdom becomes spiritual and celestial, for the
reason that man has three degrees of life, called natural, spiritual, and
celestial (of which in the Third Part of this work), and he is capable of
elevation from one degree into another. Yet he is not elevated by wisdom
alone, but by a life according to wisdom, for a man's life is his love.
Consequently, so far as his life is according to wisdom, so far he loves
wisdom; and his life is so far according to wisdom as he purifies himself
from uncleannesses, which are sins; and so far as he does this does he
love wisdom.

423. That love purified by the wisdom in the understanding becomes
spiritual and celestial cannot be seen so clearly by their correspondence
with the heart and lungs, because no one can see the quality of the blood
by which the lungs are kept in their state of respiration. The blood may
abound in impurities, and yet not be distinguishable from pure blood.
Moreover, the respiration of a merely natural man appears the same as the
respiration of a spiritual man. But the difference is clearly discerned
in heaven, for there every one respires according to the marriage of love
an