--_True Christian Religion, n._ 126


"BY LITTLE AND LITTLE"

When man is being regenerated, he is not regenerated speedily but
slowly. The reason is that all things which he has thought, purposed
and done since infancy, have added themselves to his life and have
come to constitute it. They have also formed such a connection among
themselves that no one thing can be removed unless all are at the same
time. Regeneration, or the implantation of the life of heaven in man,
begins in his infancy, and continues to the last of his life in the
world, and is perfected to eternity.

--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 9334


A NEW MAN

When a man is regenerated, he becomes altogether another, and a new,
man. While his appearance and his speech are the same, yet his mind is
not; for his mind is then open toward heaven, and there dwell in it
love for the Lord, and charity toward the neighbor, together with
faith. It is the mind which makes another and a new man. The change of
state cannot be perceived in man's body, but in his spirit. When it
[the body] is put off then his spirit appears, and in altogether
another form, too, when he has been regenerated; for it has then a
form of love and charity with inexpressible beauty, in the place of
the earlier form, which was one of hatred and cruelty with a deformity
also inexpressible.