GENESIS.

...used to denote time, it is also used to denote the state of that time; as in Jeremiah: "Woe unto us, for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out," (vi. 4.) And again: "If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season," etc., (xxxiii. 20, also v. 25.) And again: "Renew our days as of old," (Lamentations v. 21.)

24. Verse 6. And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between the waters in the waters. After the spirit of God, or the mercy of the Lord, has brought forth into day the knowledges of the true and of the good, and has communicated a perception that the Lord is—that he is goodness itself, and truth itself, and that there is no goodness and truth except from Him—he then distinguishes the internal man from the external. Consequently, he distinguishes the knowledges which are in the internal man from the scientifics From the Latin scientifica, referring to the factual information and data stored in the memory of the external or natural mind. which belong to the external. The internal man is called an expanse; the knowledges which are in the internal man are called the waters above the expanse; and the scientifics belonging to the external man are called the waters beneath the expanse.

A person, before they are "born again" or regenerated, does not even know that an internal man exists, much less are they acquainted with its nature and quality. Being occupied with bodily and worldly things in which the faculties of the internal man are submerged, they cannot conceive of any difference between the internal and the external; thus, they form a confused and obscure idea from two perfectly distinct existences. It is for this reason that it is first said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters," and further, "Let it divide between the waters in the waters," but not "Let it divide between the waters which are under the expanse and the waters which are above the expanse," as it is described in the next verses: "And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters which were under the expanse, and the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so. And God called the expanse heaven," (verses 7, 8.)

The next thing, therefore, which a person observes in the course of spiritual growth is that they begin to know there is an internal man—that is, that the things in the internal man are "goods" and "truths," which belong to the Lord alone. Now, as the external man is of such a nature during this process that he still supposes the good things he does are done by himself, and the truths he speaks are spoken by himself, the Lord leads him through these personal beliefs to do good and speak truth. Because of this, mention is first made of a division of the waters under the expanse, and afterwards of those above the expanse. It is also an arcanum A Latin word meaning "secret" or "hidden mystery," used here to describe a profound spiritual truth not visible to the surface level of the senses. of heaven, that man, by things of his own—including the fallacies of the senses as well as natural appetites—is led and inclined by the...