Every wise man who belongs to the church knows that all the good of love and charity come from God, and likewise all the truth of wisdom and faith. Human reason can see that this is so, so long as it knows that the source of love and wisdom is the sun of the spiritual world, in the midst of which is Jehovah God, or, what is the same thing, they come from Jehovah God through the sun which surrounds Him. For the heat radiated by that sun is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom. So it is as plain as daylight that in their source love and wisdom are one; consequently in God too, since He is the source of that sun. The sun of the natural world can serve to demonstrate this: it is pure fire, its fiery property producing heat and the brilliance of its fire producing light; so these two are one at their source.

[2] But in their radiation heat and light become separated, as is shown by the things on which they act, some of which receive more heat and some more light. This is particularly true of people, for in this case the light of life, which is intelligence, is separated from the heat of life, which is love. This is because a person needs to be reformed and regenerated, which is impossible unless the light of life, which is intelligence, shows what ought to be willed and loved. It should, however, be known that God is constantly working to link love with wisdom in a person, though he, unless he looks to God and believes in Him, is constantly working to separate them. Therefore in so far as these two, the good of love or charity and the truth of wisdom or faith, are linked in a person, so far does he become an image of God, and is raised towards and into the heaven where angels live. In the contrary case, in so far as these two are separated in a person, so far does he become an image of Lucifer and the Dragon, and is cast down from heaven to earth, and then into hell beneath the earth. The result of these two being linked is that a person's state becomes like that of a tree in springtime, when heat is evenly combined with light, which produces budding, flowering and fruiting. In the contrary case, when these are separated, his state is like that of a tree in winter, when light loses its heat, and the tree is laid bare and stripped of all its leaves and greenery.

[3] When spiritual heat, which is love, is separated from spiritual light, which is wisdom, or, in other words, charity is separated from faith, a person becomes like rank or rotting soil, in which maggots thrive; and if it produces shrubs, their leaves are full of grubs which eat them up. For the enticements of the love of evil, which are in themselves longings, burst forth, untamed and unrestrained by intelligence, but rather fostered, pampered and nourished by it. In short, the separation of love and wisdom, or charity and faith, the two things God constantly strives to link, is, to use a comparison, like depriving a face of redness, so producing a pallor as of death; or taking the whiteness away from redness, which makes the face like a blazing torch. It is also like destroying the bond of marriage between a couple, so that the wife becomes a prostitute and the husband an adulterer. For love or charity resembles a husband, wisdom or faith a wife. Their separation brings about spiritual prostitution and fornication, which are the falsification of truth and the adulteration of good.