AC 4063 - old person, new person

AC 4063
When a person is being regenerated,
he is kept by the Lord in a kind of mediate good.
This good serves for introducing genuine goods and truths;
but after these have been introduced,
it is separated from them.
Everyone who has learned anything about regeneration
and about the new person, can understand
that the new person is altogether different from the old;
for the new person
is in the affection of spiritual and heavenly things,
and these produce its delights and pleasures;
whereas the old person
is in the affections of worldly and earthly things,
and these produce its delights and pleasures;
consequently the new person has regard to ends in heaven,
but the old person to ends in the world.
From this it is clear that the new person
is altogether different and diverse from the old.

In order that a person may be brought
from the state of the old person into that of the new,
the passions of the world must be put off,
and the affections of heaven must be put on.
This is effected by innumerable means,
which are known to the Lord alone,
and many of which
have also been made known by the Lord to angels;
but few if any to people.
Nevertheless all of them both in general and particular
have been made clear by the internal sense of the Word.
When therefore a person,
from being the old person is made a new one
(that is, when he is being regenerated),
it is not done in a moment, as some believe,
but through a course of years;
even during the person's whole life,
even to its end; for his lusts have to be rooted out,
and heavenly affections have to be insinuated;
and the person has to be gifted
with a life which he had not before,
and of which indeed he knew scarcely anything.
Seeing therefore that the person's states of life
have to be so greatly changed, it must needs be
that he is long kept in a kind of mediate good,
that is, in a good which partakes
both of the affections of the world,
and of the affections of heaven;
and unless he is kept in this mediate good,
he in no wise admits heavenly goods and truths. 

. . . a person is kept in this middle good
no longer than until it has served this use;
but this having been served, it is separated.