AE 1171 - the process & effects of reformation

AE 1171
(1) Before reformation
the light of the understanding is like the light of the moon,
clear according to the knowledges of truth and good;
but after reformation it is like the light of the sun,
clear according to the application of the knowledges of truth and good
to the uses of life.

(2) The reason that the understanding has not been destroyed
is that a person may know truths,
and from truths see the evils of his will,
and seeing them he may resist them as if from himself,
and thus be reformed.

(3) And yet a person is not reformed from his understanding,
but by means of the recognition of truths by the understanding
and its seeing evils by them;
for the operation of the Lord's Divine providence
is into the love of a person's will,
and from that into the understanding,
and not the reverse.

(4) The love of the will gives intelligence according to its quality.
Natural love from spiritual love
gives intelligence in civil and moral matters;
but spiritual love in natural love
gives intelligence in spiritual matters;
but merely natural love and the conceit that comes from it
does not give intelligence in spiritual matters,
but gives the ability to confirm whatever it pleases,
and after confirmation so infatuates the understanding
that it sees falsity as truth, and evil as good.
Nevertheless, this love does not take away the ability
to understand truths in their light;
when it is present it takes it away,
but not when it is absent.

(5) When the will has been reformed,
and the wisdom belonging to the understanding
has come to be of the love belonging to the will,
that is, when wisdom comes to be the love of truth and good in its form,
a person is like a garden in spring time,
when heat is united to light and gives a soul to the germinations.
Spiritual germinations are such productions of wisdom from love;
and in every such production there is a soul from that love,
while its clothing is from wisdom;
thus the will is like a father and the understanding like a mother.

(6) Such is a person's life,
not only the life of his mind,
but also the life of his body,
since the life of the mind acts as one
with the life of the body by correspondences.
For the life of the will or love
corresponds to the life of the heart,
and the life of the understanding or wisdom
corresponds to the life of the lungs;
and these are the two fountains of the life of the body.