419. (16) Love or the will is purified in the understanding, if they are elevated together. From birth man loves nothing but self and the world, for nothing else appears before his eyes, consequently nothing else occupies his mind. This love is corporeal-natural, and may be called material love. Moreover, this love has become impure by reason of the separation of heavenly love from it in parents. This love could not be separated from its impurity unless man had a power to raise his understanding into the light of heaven, and to see how he ought to live in order that his love, as well as his understanding, may be elevated into wisdom. By means of the understanding, love, that is, the man, sees what the evils are that defile and corrupt the love; he also sees that if he flees from those evils as sins and turns away from them, he loves the things that are opposite to those evils; all of which are heavenly. Then also he perceives the means by which he is enabled to flee from and turn away from those evils as sins. This the love, that is, the man, sees, by the exercise of his power to elevate his understanding into the light of heaven, which is the source of wisdom. Then so far as love gives heaven the first place and the world the second, and at the same time gives the Lord the first place and self the second, so far love is purged of its uncleanness and is purified; in other words, is raised into the heat of heaven, and conjoined with the light of heaven in which the understanding is; and the marriage takes place that is called the marriage of good and truth, that is, of love and wisdom. Any one can comprehend intellectually and see rationally, that so far as he flees from and turns away from theft and cheating, so far he loves sincerity, rectitude and justice; so far as he flees and turns away from revenge and hatred, so far he loves the neighbor; and so far as he flees and turns away from adulteries, so far he loves chastity; and so on. And yet scarcely any one knows what there is of heaven and the Lord in sincerity, rectitude, justice, love towards the neighbor, chastity, and other affections of heavenly love, until he has removed their opposites. When he has removed the opposites, then he is in those affections, and therefrom recognizes and sees them. Previously there is a kind of veil interposed, that does, indeed, transmit to love the light of heaven; yet inasmuch as the love does not in that degree love its consort, wisdom, it does not receive it, yea, may even contradict and rebuke it when it returns from its elevation. Still man flatters himself that the wisdom of his understanding may be made serviceable as a means to honor, glory, or gain. Then man gives self and the world the first place, and the Lord and heaven the second, and what has the second place is loved only so far as it is serviceable, and if it is not serviceable it is disowned and rejected; if not before death, then after it. From