perceive it within himself when he hears that the internal man is to be
purified first and the external by it? But one who does not receive the
general idea of this by influx from heaven may go astray when he consults
the external of this thought; from it alone no one sees but that outward
works of charity and piety are saving apart from the internal. It is so
in other things, as that sight and hearing flow into thought, and smell
and taste into perception, that is, that the external flows into the
internal, when the contrary is true. The appearance that what is seen and
heard flows into the thought is a fallacy, for the understanding does the
seeing in the eye and the hearing in the ear, and not the other way
about. So it is in all else.

151. But something should be said here on how the internal man is
reformed and by it the external. The internal man is not reformed solely
by knowing, understanding and being wise, consequently not by thinking
only; but by willing what these teach. When a person knows, understands
and has the wisdom to see that heaven and hell exist and that all evil is
from hell and all good from heaven, and if he then does not will evil
because it is from hell but good because it is from heaven, he has taken
the first step in reformation and is on the threshold from hell to
heaven. When he advances farther and resolves to desist from evils, he is
at the second step in reformation and is out of hell but not yet in
heaven; this he beholds above him. There must be this internal for man to
be reformed, but he is not reformed unless the external is reformed as
well as the internal. The external is reformed by the internal when the
external desists from the evils which the internal sets its will against
because they are infernal, and still further reformed when the external
shuns and fights against the evils. Thus the internal provides the will,
the external the deed. For unless a man does the deed he wills, inwardly
he does not will it, and finally he wills not to do it.

[2] One can see from these few considerations how the external man is
reformed by the internal. This is also meant by the Lord's words to
Peter:

Jesus said, If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me. Peter said to
Him, not my feet only but my hands and head. Jesus said to him, he who
has been washed has no need except to have his feet washed, and is
entirely clean (Jn 13:8-10).

By "washing" spiritual washing is meant, which is