490. X. ADULTERIES OF THE THIRD DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF THE REASON,
WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO WITH THE UNDERSTANDING CONFIRM
THEMSELVES IN THE PERSUASION THAT THEY ARE NOT EVILS OF SIN. Every man
knows that there exist such principles as the will and the
understanding; for in his common speaking he says, "This I will, and
this I understand;" but still he does not distinguish them, but makes
the one the same as the other; because he only reflects upon the things
which belong to the thought grounded in the understanding, and not upon
those which belong to the love grounded in the will; for the latter do
not appear in light as the former. Nevertheless, he that does not
distinguish between the will and the understanding, cannot distinguish
between evils and goods, and consequently he must remain in entire
ignorance concerning the blame of sin. But who does not know that good
and truth are two distinct principles, like love and wisdom? and who
cannot hence conclude, while he is in rational illumination, that there
are two faculties in man, which distinctly receive and appropriate to
themselves those principles, and that the one is the will and the other
the understanding, by reason that what the will receives and reproduces
is called good, and what the understanding receives is called truth; for
what the will loves and does, is called truth, and what the
understanding perceives and thinks, is called truth? Now as the marriage
of good and truth was treated of in the first part of this work, and in
the same place several considerations were adduced concerning the will
and the understanding, and the various attributes and predicates of
each, which, as I imagine, are also perceived by those who had not
thought at all distinctly concerning the understanding and the will,
(for human reason is such, that it understands truths from the light
thereof, although it has not heretofore distinguished them); therefore,
in order that the distinctions of the understanding and the will may be
more clearly perceived, I will here mention some particulars on the
subject, that it may be known what is the quality of adulteries of the
reason and the understanding, and afterwards what is the quality of
adulteries of the will.
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