54. That by circumcision is represented purification from the evils of purely natural love, is evident from these passages:
Circumcise your heart ... and take away the foreskins of your heart ... lest my fury come forth like fire ... because of the evil of your doings. Jer. iv 4. Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. Deut. x 16.
To circumcise the heart, or the foreskin of the heart, is to purify oneself from evils. Consequently, on the other hand, by one uncircumcised, or one with the foreskin, is meant one who is not purified from the evils of merely natural love, and therefore one who is not in charity; and because the unclean at heart are meant by the uncircumcised it is said:
No [stranger] uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary. Ezek. xliv 9;
No uncircumcised person shall eat of the passover. Exod. xii 48.
That such are damned. Ezek. xxviii 10; xxxi 18; xxxii 19.
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