[2] The progression of faith with those who are being created anew is as follows. At first they have no life, for it is only in the good and the true that there is life, and none in the evil and the false; afterwards they receive life from the Lord by faith, first by faith of the memory, which is a faith of mere knowledge (fides scientifica); next by faith in the understanding, which is an intellectual faith; lastly by faith in the heart, which is the faith of love, or saving faith, The first two kinds of faith are represented from (verse 3-13), by things inanimate, but faith vivified by love is represented from (verse 20-25), by animate things. For this reason love, and faith thence derived, are now here first treated of, and are called "luminaries;" love being "the greater luminary which rules by day;" faith derived from love "the lesser luminary which rules by night;" and as these two luminaries ought to make a one, it is said of them, in the singular number, "Let there be luminaries (sit luminaria), and not in the plural (sint luminaria).

[3] Love and faith in the internal man are like heat and light in the external corporeal man, for which reason the former are represented by the latter. It is on this account that luminaries are said to be "set in the expanse of heaven," or in the internal man; a great luminary in its will, and a lesser one in its understanding; but they appear in the will and the understanding only as does the light of the sun in its recipient objects. It is the Lord‘s mercy alone that affects the will with love, and the understanding with truth or faith.

In this passage Pharaoh and the Egyptians are treated of, by whom are meant, in the Word, the principle of mere sense and of mere knowledge (sensuale et scientificum); and here, that by things of sense and of mere knowledge (sensualia et scientifica), love and faith had been extinguished. So in Isaiah:--

Again, in Joel:--

[2] Again, in Isaiah, speaking of the advent of the Lord and the enlightening of the Gentiles, consequently of a new church, and in particular of all who are in darkness, and receive light, and are being regenerated:--

So in David:--

And again:--

[3] In all these passages, "luminaries" signify love and faith. It was because "luminaries" represented and signified love and faith toward the Lord that it was ordained in the Jewish Church that a perpetual luminary should be kept burning from evening till morning, for every ordinance in that church was representative of the Lord. Of this luminary it is written:--

That these things signify love and faith, which the Lord kindles and causes to give light in the internal man, and through the internal man in the external, will of the Lord’s Divine mercy be shown in its proper place.

By the "sun" is here meant love, which is darkened; by the "moon" faith, which does not give light; and by the "stars," the knowledges of faith, which fall from heaven, and which are the "virtues and powers of the heavens."

[2] The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no other faith than love itself. The celestial angels also do not know what faith is except that which is of love. The universal heaven is a heaven of love, for there is no other life in the heavens than the life of love. From this is derived all heavenly happiness, which is so great that nothing of it admits of description, nor can ever be conceived by any human idea. Those who are under the influence of love, love the Lord from the heart, but yet know, declare, and perceive, that all love, and consequently all life--which is of love alone--and thus all happiness, come solely from the Lord, and that they have not the least of love, of life, or of happiness, from themselves. That it is the Lord from whom all love comes, was also represented by the great luminary or "sun," at His transfiguration, for it is written:--

Inmost things are signified by the face, and the things that proceed from them, by the raiment. Thus the Lord’s Divine was signified by the "sun," or love; and His Human by the "light," or wisdom proceeding from love.

[2] Hence it is evident that those who are in love are also in faith, and thereby in heavenly life, but not those who say they are in faith, and are not in the life of love. The life of faith without love is like the light of the sun without heat, as in the time of winter, when nothing grows, but all things are torpid and dead; whereas faith proceeding from love is like the light of the sun in the time of spring, when all things grow and flourish in consequence of the sun‘s fructifying heat. It is precisely similar in regard to spiritual and heavenly things, which are usually represented in the Word by such as exist in the world and on the face of the earth. No faith; and faith without love, are also compared by the Lord to "winter," where He foretells the consummation of the age, in Mark:--

"Flight" means the last time, and also that of every man when he dies. " Winter" is a life destitute of love; the "day of affliction" is its miserable state in the other life.

In Matthew, the Lord calls the former of these the "first and great commandment," and says that "on these commandments hang all the law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-41). The "law and the Prophets" are the universal doctrine of faith, and the whole Word.

And in the same Prophet:--

But concerning these things, of the Lord’s Divine mercy, at (Genesis 8:22).