2185. They said, for they are now speaking with me, that the things I have written are so crude, so coarse, that they consider nothing inward to be understandable from these words, or the mere meaning of the words. I also realized by a spiritual mental image that it was so, that they were very crude. So I was given to reply that they are only containers into which purer, better and more inward contents can be poured, as a literal sense or meaning. And I said that just such containers are many of the meanings of the letter in the prophets, which are not only crude, but even made of mud and dung, and of scum, and yet inward, clean and holy things can be poured into them. Take such passages as that the Lord grows angry, rages, kills, which are so roughly composed that one can hardly believe anything good could be poured into them. The prophets, however, spoke to the grasp of the common people, and if they had not, nothing good could have been poured in, because it would not have been understood. So I was given to add, that if they wanted to remain in the meanings of the letter, then they could form their knowledge from such filthy containers; and that those who form doctrine from them can be very much mistaken. 1748, 4 June.