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The Doctrine of Charity - Swedenborg Foundation

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CHARITY 244who thinks nothing against charity, may be known from his faceand voice, and yet with difficulty, because there are such hypocritesthat can simulate to the life, yea, put on the sincerity <strong>of</strong> charity. Butif an angel looks at his face and hears his voice, he discerns hischaracter; because he does not see the material which overveils, butto which the material man gives attention.99. <strong>The</strong> forms <strong>of</strong> charity are innumerable; as many as the angels<strong>of</strong> the second heaven. <strong>The</strong>y are infinite in number. <strong>The</strong>re are asmany varieties <strong>of</strong> it as there are <strong>of</strong> affection for truth from good;and that affection is charity.100. Whoever is not a form <strong>of</strong> charity is a form <strong>of</strong> hatred; or,whoever is not a form <strong>of</strong> the affection <strong>of</strong> truth from good is a form<strong>of</strong> the affection <strong>of</strong> falsity from evil. Of such hell consists. <strong>The</strong>re areall varieties <strong>of</strong> hatred and <strong>of</strong> lust.101. As there are genera <strong>of</strong> affections, and species <strong>of</strong> these genera,so there are also <strong>of</strong> charities. <strong>The</strong>re are therefore charities in theplural; and there are degrees <strong>of</strong> charity, <strong>of</strong> two kinds, which degreesare treated <strong>of</strong> in Divine Love and Wisdom, Chapter 3.102. (3) A man ought to be charity in form not from himself butfrom the Lord; he is thus a receptacle <strong>of</strong> charity. <strong>The</strong> life <strong>of</strong> a man whois to be regenerated is affection <strong>of</strong> truth from good, or charity; andthere is no life except from Life, that is, from the Lord, who inhimself is life, as he teaches that he is:<strong>The</strong> way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6);As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life inhimself (John 5:26);and elsewhere. And as life is God, the Divine cannot beappropriated to man, who is finite and created, but can flow into areceptacle and be adjoined; just as the eye is not in itself light, butcan receive light, and the ear is not in itself hearing, but is a

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