The Doctrine of Charity - Swedenborg Foundation

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CHARITY 280and this his apostles, Paul, the Word, and all religion teach. In theact of repentance do I do nothing as of myself?” Then let it be said,“What will you do, since you are able to do nothing? Do it if youwill. I repent by faith, you by works; and faith without works issaving.” But the man of sound reason will reply, “You are in error,sir. The Lord teaches me to do, and teaches me to believe. Let faithbe for you. For me there shall be faith and works together. I knowthat after death a man must render an account of his doings; andthat just as anyone does, so he believes.”204. (4) As far as anyone does not shun evils as sins, he remains inthem. Man was created in the image and in the likeness of God,and so made that he may be a recipient of the Lord’s love andwisdom. But, because he was not willing to be a recipient, butdesired to be love itself and wisdom itself, and thus as God, heinverted his form, and turned his affections and thoughts from theLord to himself, and began to love himself more than the Lord,yea, to worship himself. And so he alienated himself from the Lord,and looked back from Him; and in this way he perverted the imageand likeness of God in himself, and made it the image and likenessof hell. This is signified by his eating of the tree of the knowledgeof good and evil. By the serpent which he obeyed is signified thesensual, which is the ultimate of the natural man, and its cupidities.This sensual of man, because it is extant in the world and receivesits objects therefrom, loves the things of the world; and if dominionis given to it, it withdraws the mind from the objects of heaven,which are the goods of love and the truths of wisdom, inthemselves Divine.It is from this origin that, as to his proprium, man is nothing butevil, and is born into it from his parents. But means are providedby the Lord that he may not therefore perish; which means are, thathe shall look to the Lord and acknowledge that every good of loveand every truth of wisdom is from Him, and nothing from himself.He thus converts his form, by turning away from himself andturning to the Lord; and so returns to the state in which he wascreated, and which consisted, as has been said, in his being arecipient of good and truth from the Lord, and in no wise from
CHARITY 281himself. And because the proprium of man, by the inversion of it,has become mere evil, the other means of recovering the image ofGod is to shun evils as sins. For if a man does not shun evils as sins,but only because they are injurious, he does not look to the Lord,but only to himself, and so remains in his perverted state. But whenhe shuns evils as sins he fights against them because they arecontrary to the Lord, and against His Divine laws; and then heprays to the Lord for help and for power to resist them, whichpower besought is never denied. By these two means a man ispurified from the evils that are in him from birth. If therefore hedoes not embrace these two means he can but remain as he wasborn. He cannot be purified from evils if he only looks and prays tothe Lord; for then after he has prayed he believes that he is entirelywithout sins, or that they are remitted, by which he understandsthat they are taken away. And so he still remains in them; and toremain in them is to increase them. For they are like a diseasewhich devours and mortifies all that is around it. Nor are evilsremoved by only shunning them; for in this way the man looks tohimself, and thereby confirms the origin of evil, which was that heturned himself back, away from the Lord, and turned to himself.205. (5) As far as anyone does not take cognizance of and know whatsins are, he does not see but that he is without sins. Every man loveshis proprium, both the proprium of his will and the proprium ofhis understanding. The proprium of his will is evil and theproprium of his understanding is falsity from that evil; thus it is thefalsity of evil. And as every man loves his own, he therefore lovesthe evil and its falsity. And as everything that is loved is delightful,he does not therefore know but that the evil in him is good, and itsfalsity truth. For everything is pronounced good that is delightful.From these considerations it may now be seen that if a man doesnot take cognizance of and know what sins are, so far he does notsee but that he is without sins. But because a man loves his evil andits falsity, because he loves his proprium, he cannot of himselfknow what evil is and the falsity therefrom, but must see it fromanother source. He will see it from the precepts of religion, all ofwhich refer to the ten commandments of the Decalogue. If he in
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ContentsTranslator’s Note1. The f
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CHARITY 221Translator’s NoteThis
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CHARITY 223is to shun them as diabo
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CHARITY 225the man is within it, as
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CHARITY 22713. (1) Not to will to d
Page 13 and 14: CHARITY 229eternal life, and yet do
Page 15 and 16: CHARITY 23131. So in a thousand oth
Page 17 and 18: CHARITY 233(5) The good of the inte
Page 19 and 20: CHARITY 23554. Genuine charity itse
Page 21 and 22: CHARITY 237an essence. Therefore wh
Page 24: CHARITY 240laws, are enacted as for
Page 27 and 28: CHARITY 24392. It is known that suc
Page 29 and 30: CHARITY 245receptacle. So with the
Page 31 and 32: CHARITY 247114. (5) Whatever procee
Page 33 and 34: CHARITY 249123. But this is so with
Page 35 and 36: CHARITY 251130. The general good co
Page 37 and 38: CHARITY 253this, that everyone ther
Page 39 and 40: CHARITY 255151. When therefore a ma
Page 41 and 42: CHARITY 257the Lord as the “door
Page 43 and 44: CHARITY 259continually loves peace.
Page 45 and 46: CHARITY 261He loves the general goo
Page 47 and 48: CHARITY 263accepted by the Lord, an
Page 49 and 50: CHARITY 265177. That such things ar
Page 51 and 52: CHARITY 267within him; and everyone
Page 53 and 54: CHARITY 26911There are diversions o
Page 55 and 56: CHARITY 271diversions vary accordin
Page 57 and 58: CHARITY 273diversions are the only
Page 59 and 60: CHARITY 275(2) No one can have char
Page 61 and 62: CHARITY 277the Lord, he would not d
Page 63: CHARITY 279far he does good from Go
Page 67 and 68: CHARITY 283206. (6) As far as anyon
Page 69 and 70: CHARITY 285neighbor does not love h
Page 71 and 72: CHARITY 287evils in oneself, and re
Page 73 and 74: CHARITY 289213. But that these thin
Page 75: CHARITY 2915. The signs of charity
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