28. In the work itself named The True Christian Religion, it has been shown that the two trees, the one of "life," and the other of the "knowledge of good and evil," being placed in the garden of Eden, signified that free-will in spiritual things was given to man (n. 466-469); to which must be added that without such free-will man would not be man, but only a figure and effigy; for his thought would be without reflection, consequently without judgment, and thus in the Divine things which are of the church, he would have no more power of turning himself, than a door without a hinge, or, with a hinge, fastened with a steel bolt; and his will would be without decision, consequently no more active with respect to justice or injustice, than the stone upon a tomb under which lies a dead body. That man's life after death, together with the immortality of his soul, is owing to the gift of that free-will, and that this is the "likeness of God," has been proved in the work itself, as also above. [2] Yea, man, that is, his mind, without that would be like a sponge which imbibes water in great abundance but is not able to discharge it, in consequence of which both would decompose, the water into corruption, and the sponge into slime. In the same manner the church with him would not be a church, and thus a temple wherein the worship of God is performed: it would be like the den of some wild beast under the root of a lofty tree which rocks itself to and from over its head, except only that it would be able to take something therefrom, and apply itself to some other use besides lying in tranquillity under it. Moreover without free will in spiritual things, man would be more blind in all and each of the things of the church, than a bird of night in the light of day, but more sharp-sighted [in respect to falsities] than that bird in the darkness of night: for he would shut his eyelids, and contract their sight against the truths of faith; but he would raise his eyelids, open his eyes, and dilate their sight like the eagle, to the falsities of faith. Free-will in spiritual things, is from this, that man walks and lives his life in the midst between heaven and hell; and that heaven operates in him from above, but hell from beneath; and that the option is given to a man of turning himself either to higher things or to lower things, thus, either to the Lord or to the Devil.