1194. When, therefore, I perceived with persuasion that these were the significations of the vision, someone inquired as to what was the difference between these senses of the Word, in order that it might be understood, because most people do not admit of more than one sense, thus an interior sense in the New Testament, and this because it is said in places that there are more interior things. For the Word is such that in some places it discloses also interior, then more interior, and even inmost things. To elucidate this it was given me to say that what is inmost, more interior, interior, and exterior can be known from this, namely, from good works. Good works separated from the charity of the interior man are external actions which are similar to such a deformed face [see n. 1193]. Good works are interior when they come from charity, so that there may be charity of the neighbor, and from that fount, thus from love, come the works, and the neighbor is loved; this charity is also given with the uninstructed Gentiles. But the more interior things are known when charity springs forth from mercy, for then it is from the Lord Who alone is Mercy, and this is the charity of those who are "poor" in the more interior sense. But they are inmost things, when within the mercy there is innocence. So that it is innocence which becomes mercy, and mercy which becomes charity, and charity which becomes the good in works. Thus these things are from the Lord alone, and may then first be called the fruits of faith, for the Lord alone is Innocence. 1748, Mar. 7.