40. The sole cause why the Church has immersed itself in so many falsities that not a single truth is left in it; and why it is like a ship that has suffered shipwreck, of which the top of the mast only stands out, is this-that hitherto they have not approached the Lord immediately; and when He is not approached immediately, not a single truth can appear in its own light. The reason is, that the Lord is the Word, that is, all Divine Truth in the Word, and that He alone is the Light which enlightens all men, - as He Himself teaches; and every truth of the Word shines from no other source than from the Lord alone. This light it is which is meant by the "spiritual"; when, therefore, he has not this light, there is nothing spiritual in man's understanding, but only the natural; and the natural man sees only invertedly all things which contain the spiritual: he sees falsity instead of truth. While reading the Word, therefore, he bends all things there to his own falsities, and thus falsifies truths; and is delighted therein. For the human natural mind is in such things as pertain to the world and to self; it is delighted solely by such things: wherefore, unless in the above things there is spiritual light, the natural mind transfers them to those things which are of the world and of self which he puts in the first place. He thus not only shuns spiritual things, and hides them away, but he also scoffs at them afterwards. Faith is spiritual, that is, it can be called spiritual, from no other source than from the truths which it contains, and thus by virtue of light from the Lord. Unless faith is from this source, it 13 natural faith, which neither conjoins nor is saving.