When a moral life is at the same time spiritual, this is charity.

Everyone is taught by his parents and teachers to lead a moral life, that is, to be a good citizen, and act in an honest fashion. Honesty refers to various virtues which are its essentials; and he learns by means of these to give formal expression to honesty and this constitutes its graces. As he advances in age, he learns in addition rational arguments, and so to perfect the morality of his life. Moral life for boys up to the beginning of adolescence is natural, and from then on becomes more and more rational. Careful reflexion can show that a moral life is the same thing as a charitable one; it is dealing well with the neighbour, and controlling one's life so as to prevent it being contaminated with evils. This follows from the demonstration in 435-438 above. Still, in the first period of one's life, a moral life is only in its outermost form a charitable one; that is, it affects only its outward form and front, not the inward parts.

[2] From infancy to old age man passes through four stages of life. In the first he acts as he is taught by others. In the second he acts of his own accord, as governed by the understanding. In the third the will acts on the understanding and the understanding modifies the will. In the fourth he follows the course of action he has convinced himself is right and set before himself as his aim. These are stages in the life of a person's spirit and are not paralleled in his body. The body is capable of acting in moral fashion and talking rationally, while the spirit can will and think the opposite. It is obvious that the natural man is like this from looking at pretenders, toadies, liars and hypocrites, who as is well known have duplicitous minds, that is, their minds are split into two parts which disagree. The case is different with those who will good and think rationally, and as a result do good deeds and talk rationally; they are the people meant by 'the simple in spirit' in the Word, being called simple because they are not duplicitous.

[3] These remarks can show plainly the real meaning of the terms 'external' and 'internal man'. No one can draw any conclusions from the morality of the external about that of the internal, since he may be facing the opposite direction, and hiding as a tortoise does its head in its shell, or a snake its in its coils. The so-called moral man of this sort is like a highwayman in town and in the woods; in town he adopts the role of a moral citizen, but in the woods he preys on travellers. It is quite different in the case of those who are inwardly moral, that is, in spirit, the result of being regenerated by the Lord; these are the people meant by 'the spiritually moral.'