AC 7850 - The Nature of the Spiritual Correspondent; AC 7857 - Going Forward, Not Back

AC 7850

. . . a spiritual or significative correspondent
is conjoined with that to which it corresponds
as is a man's sight with his eye;
his hearing with his ear;
his thought, which is spiritual,
with the form of his interiors,
and through this form with the little organs of speech;
or as the will, which also is spiritual,
is conjoined with the muscular fibers
by which action is produced.
Such is the case with every
spiritual correspondent or significative
relatively to its natural,
with which there is correspondence.

AC 7857

All spiritual good proceeds either from faith
(that is, through faith),
or from love.
When man is being regenerated,
the good with him proceeds from the truth of faith;
for he then acts in accordance with truth;
not from the affection of truth,
but from obedience,
because it has been so commanded.
Afterward, however, when he has been regenerated,
he does what is good from affection,
thus from love.
These two states with man
are precisely distinguished in the Word,
for the reason that
man cannot be at the same time in both states.
He who is in the first state cannot enter into the other
until he has been regenerated;
and he who is in the second state
must not betake himself to the former.
If anyone so betakes himself,
he loses the affection of doing what is good from love,
and relapses into the state of faith,
which had been of service to him
to introduce him to good,
and he also relapses beyond this state.
This is meant in the internal sense
by the Lord's words about the Last Judgment:

Then let him that is upon the house
not go down to take anything out of his house;
and let him that is in the field
not return backward to take his garments.
(Matthew 24:17-18);

and also by Lot's wife,
in that she looked back behind her  . . ..