Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 3911

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3911. Who withholdeth from thee the fruit of the belly. That this signifies that this must be from the internal, is evident from the signification that results from the internal sense of the words; for in the internal sense the "fruit of the belly" signifies the like as "birth," namely, the acknowledgment of truth and good in faith and in act (n. 3905); and what is more, the consequent conjunction of truth and good. This acknowledgment and conjunction cannot come forth from the external man, but from the internal; for all good inflows from the Lord through the internal man into the external, and there adopts the truths that are insinuated by means of the sensuous things of the external man, and causes the man to acknowledge them in faith and act, and causes them to be adjoined and thus appropriated to the man. That all good inflows from the Lord through the internal man into the truths gathered in the memory of the external man, has been repeatedly shown before. This is what is meant by the explication of the words before us-that this must be from the internal.


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