149. One reason why man does not wish in like manner to come out of spiritual servitude into spiritual freedom is that he does not know what either is; he does not have the truths to teach this, and without them spiritual servitude is believed to be freedom and spiritual freedom to be servitude. A second reason is that the religion of Christendom has closed the understanding, and "faith alone" has sealed it shut. Each has built an iron wall around itself in the dogma that theological matters transcend and cannot be approached by the reason, but are for the blind and not the seeing. So truths that would teach what spiritual liberty is have been hidden. A third reason is that few examine themselves and see their sins, and one who does not see and quit them is in the freedom that sins have, which is infernal freedom, in itself enslavement. To view heavenly freedom, which is genuine freedom, from that freedom is like trying to see daylight in pitch darkness or sunshine from under a black cloud. So it happens that it is not known what heavenly freedom is, or that the difference between it and infernal freedom is like the difference between what is living and what is dead. 150. (vi) The external man is to be reformed by the internal, and not the other way about. By internal and external man the same is meant as by external and internal of thought, of which frequently before. The external must be reformed by the internal because the internal flows into the external and not the reverse. The learned world knows that what is spiritual flows into what is natural and not the reverse, for reason dictates it; the church knows that the internal man must first be cleansed and made new and the external by it then, because the Lord teaches it. He does so in the words: Woe to you . . . hypocrites, for you make the outside of the cup and platter clean, but the inside is full of extortion and excess. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter that the outside may also be made clean (Mt 23:25, 26).