102. (III.) A man ought to be charity in form not from himself but from the Lord; he is thus a receptacle of charity. The life of a man who is to be regenerated is affection of truth from good, or charity; and there is no life except from Life, that is, from the Lord, who in Himself is Life, as He teaches that He is:
The Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) And in another place:
As the Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have Life in Himself (John 5:26);
and elsewhere. And as Life is God, the Divine cannot be appropriated to man, who is finite and created, but can flow into a receptacle and be adjoined; just as the eye is not in itself light, but can receive light, and the ear is not in itself hearing, but is a receptacle. So with the other senses. And it is the same with the mind, and its interior senses.
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