450. Having breastplates of fire, and jacinth, and brimstone, signifies their imaginary and visionary arguments from infernal love and their own intelligence, and from the lusts thence. By "breastplates" are signified arguments from which they fight for faith alone (n. 436); by "fire" is signified celestial love, and in the opposite sense, infernal love (n. 452, 468, 494); by "jacinth" is signified intelligence from spiritual love, and, in the opposite sense, intelligence from infernal love, which is one's own intelligence, of which below; and by "brimstone" is signified lusts from that love through one's own intelligence (n. 452). Hence it follows, that by "breastplates of fire, jacinth, and brimstone," such things are signified.
[2] The reason why their arguments in favor of faith alone are thus described, is because all they who believe themselves justified, that is, absolved from sins by faith alone, never think of repentance; and an impenitent man is in mere sins, and all sins are derived from, and thence draw their nature from infernal love, one's own intelligence, and from the lusts thence; and they who are in these things, not only act from them, but also speak, yea, think and will, and consequently reason and argue from them; these constitute, indeed, the very man, because they are his very life; but a man devil, and his life which is an infernal life. They who live a moral life, only for the sake of themselves and the world, do not know this; the reason is, because their interiors are infernal whilst their exteriors are similar to the exteriors of those who live a Christian life: let them know, however, that everyone, when he dies, comes into his interiors, because he becomes a spirit, this being the internal man; and then the interiors accommodate the exteriors to themselves, and they become alike; wherefore the morality of their life in the world then becomes as the scales of fishes which are wiped away. The case is quite different with those who hold the precepts of moral life to be Divine, and then also civil, because they are of love towards the neighbor.
[3] "A jacinth" signifies intelligence from the affection of spiritual love, because that color partakes of the redness of fire and the whiteness of light; and by "fire" is signified love; and by "light," intelligence: this intelligence is signified by:
The hyacinthine blue in the coverings and veils of the tabernacle (Exod. 26:31, 36; 27:16).
In Aaron's ephod (Exod. 28:6, 15).
By the cloth of hyacinth which was placed over the ark, the table, the candlestick, and the altar, when they journeyed (Num. 4:6-7, 9, 11-12).
By the thread of blue on the skirts of their garments (Num. 15:38-39).
And by hyacinth (Ezek. 27:7, 24).
But intelligence from the affection of infernal love, is signified by "hyacinth" in Ezekiel:
Oholah, or Samaria, committed whoredom and delighted in her lovers, the Assyrians, her neighbors, clothed in hyacinth, horsemen riding upon horses (Ezek. 23:4-6).
Hereby the church is described, which, by reasonings from their own intelligence, had falsified the truths of the Word. And in Jeremiah:
They are infatuated and foolish; the teaching of vanities is wood; silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, the work of the workmen and of the hands of the founder; hyacinth and purple is their clothing, they are all the work of the wise (Jer. 10:8-9).
"The work of the workmen and of the hands of the founder, and all the work of the wise," signify here, that they are all from their own intelligence.