The Natural Sense is the Container

Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 28... every Divine work is complete and perfect in its last; and also that the whole is in the last, which is a trine, because the prior things are simultaneously therein.

27. III. The sense of the Letter of the Word is the basis, the containant and the support of the spiritual and celestial senses.In every Divine work there is a first, a middle and a last; the first passes through the middle to the last, and so exists and subsists; consequently, the last is the basis. Again, the first is in the middle, and by means of the middle in the last, and thus the last is the containant; and because the last is the containant and the basis, it is also the support.

The Three Senses

37 ...The Word, in its sense of the Letter, is in its fulness, its sanctity, and its power, because the two prior or interior senses, called the spiritual and the celestial, are simultaneously in the natural sense, which is the sense of the Letter

31... there are three senses in the Word; also, that the celestial sense is its first sense, the spiritual its middle sense, and the natural its last or lowest sense. Hence, the rational man may conclude that the first of the Word or the celestial, passes through its middle or the spiritual, to its last or the natural; and that thus its last is the basis. Also, that its first or the celestial is in its middle or the spiritual, and by means of this is in its last or the natural; and consequently that its last or the natural, which is the sense of the Letter of the Word, is the containant; and because it is the containant and the basis, it is also the support.

32...the Word, which is an essentially Divine Work designed for the salvation of the human race, as to its lowest or natural sense, called the sense of the Letter, is the basis, the containant and the support of the two interior senses.

Like a palace without a foundation (or temple, tabernacle, human body, heart & lungs without ...)

33. From this it follows that the Word without the sense of its Letter would be like a palace without a foundation, a palace in the air instead of on the ground, a mere shadow which would vanish away. Again, it would be like a temple, containing many sacred things, whose central shrine had no protecting roof or dividing wall, which are its containants. If these were wanting, or were taken away, its holy things would be carried off by robbers, and violated by the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air, and thus destroyed. It would be like the tabernacle (in the inmost of which was the Ark of the Covenant, and in the centre the golden lampstand, the golden altar upon which was the incense, and the table upon which was the shewbread, which were its holy things) without its outermost things, namely, the curtains and the veils. Indeed, the Word without the sense of its Letter would be like the human body without its coverings, called skins, and without the support of its bones: without these all the inward parts would fall asunder. It would also be like the heart and lungs in the thorax without their covering, called the pleura, and their supports, called the ribs; and like the brain without its covering, called the dura mater, and without its general covering, containant, and support called the skull. Thus would it be with the Word without the sense of its Letter. Therefore, it is said in Isaiah that Jehovah will create upon all the glory a covering. Isaiah 4:5.

Unveiled or naked goods and truths

40. The truths of the sense of the Letter of the Word are, in some cases, not naked truths, but appearances of truth, being, as it were, similitudes and comparisons taken from such things as are in nature, accommodated and adequate to the apprehension of simple people and children; but because they are correspondences, they are the receptacles and abodes of genuine truth. They are like vessels which enclose and contain,

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