692. Verse 9. And men were scorched with great heat and they blasphemed the name of God, who hath authority over these plagues, signifies that by reason of the delight of self-love originating in grievous lusts of evils, they did not acknowledge the Divinity of the Lord's Human, from which nevertheless flows all the good of love and the truth of faith. By "heat" the lust of evils are signified, which are contained in self-love and its delight (n. 382, 691), therefore by "burning with great heat," is signified to be in grievous lust, and so in the delight of love. By "blaspheming the name of God," is signified to deny or not to acknowledge the Divinity of the Lord's Human, nor the sanctity of the Word (n. 517, 582). "To blaspheme" is to deny or not to acknowledge, and "the name of God" is the Lord's Divine Human, and at the same time the Word (n. 584). By "having authority over the plagues," is signified that from Him flows every good of love and truth of faith, by which evils and falsities are removed (n. 673, 680, 690), and because the seven angels having the seven plagues went out from the tabernacle of the testimony (Rev. 15:5, 6), and by "the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony" is signified the inmost of heaven, where the Lord is in His holiness in the Word and in the Law, which is the Decalogue (n. 669), and thence was the influx, which is signified by "pouring out the plagues" (n. 676), it is evident, that by "God having authority over the plagues" is meant the Lord from whom the influx is. [2] The nature of self-love shall be explained in a few words; the delight of it exceeds every delight in the world, for it is composed of mere lusts of evils, and each lust breathes out its delight. Every man is born into this delight, and as it compels the mind of man to think constantly of himself, it withholds it from thinking of God and of the neighbor, except from himself and concerning himself. Wherefore if God does not favor his lusts, he is angry with God, just as he is angry with the neighbor who does not favor them. This delight, when it increases, renders man unable to think above self, but under self, for it immerses his mind in the proprium of his body; thence the man becomes successively sensual, and a sensual man speaks in a high and lofty tone about worldly and civil affairs, but of God and Divine things he can only speak from the memory. If he is a person engaged in civil affairs, he acknowledges nature as the creator, and his own prudence as the governor, and he denies a God. If he is a priest, he speaks of God and of Divine things from the memory, yet in a high and lofty tone, but in his heart he has little belief in them.