against this law, which is one among the fundamental laws of all
religions in the whole globe. For these ten commandments are
universals, given to the end that in living from these a man may live
from religion, since by a life from religion man is conjoined with
heaven, while a life according to these from obedience to civil and
moral law conjoins man with the world and not with heaven, and to be
conjoined with the world and not with heaven is to conjoined with hell.
(A.E., n. 967.)

Man is so created as to be an image of heaven and an image of the world,
for he is a microcosm. He is born of his parents an image of the world,
and he is born again to be an image of heaven. To be born again is to
be regenerated; and man is regenerated by the Lord by means of truths
from the Word and a life according to them. Man is an image of the
world in respect to his natural mind, and he is an image of heaven in
respect to his spiritual mind. The natural mind, which is the world, is
beneath; and the spiritual mind, which is heaven, is above. The natural
mind is full of all kinds of evil, such as thefts, adulteries, murders,
false witnesses, covetousnesses, and even blasphemies and profanations
respecting God. These evils and many others have their seat in that
mind, for the loves of them are there, and thus the delights of
thinking, willing, and doing them.

These things are inborn in that mind from parents, for man is born and
grows up into the things that are in that mind, and is restrained only
by the bonds of civil law and by the bonds of moral life from doing
them, and from thus manifesting the tendencies of his depraved will.
Who cannot see that the Lord cannot flow in out of heaven into man and
teach him and lead him until these evils have been removed? For they
obstruct, repel, pervert, and suffocate the truths and goods of heaven,