AE 654c - the journey to becoming rational

AE 654c [18]
When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt.
(Hosea 6:1)
"Israel" signifies in the spiritual sense the church, and in the highest sense the Lord, and as He is the all of heaven is also the all of the church. And as the sons of Israel were to represent the church, and it was according to Divine order that they should first be instructed in such things as would be serviceable to the rational and through this to the spiritual, they first sojourned in Egypt, and afterwards were led into the wilderness that they might undergo temptations, and that through these the natural man might be subdued; for man does not become rational until empty and false knowledges are removed, and the natural man is thus purified, which is effected mainly by temptations.