THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE
for the
NEW JERUSALEM
FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Emanuel Swedenborg
— Doctrinal Series —
(pt. 5-7)
ALL RELIGION IS OF THE LIFE, AND THE LIFE OF RELIGION IS TO DO THAT WHICH IS GOOD.
. . . The Exhortation read in England before the people who approach the Sacrament of the Supper, is as follows:The way and means to be received as worthy partakers of that Holy Table is, first, to examine your lives and conversations by the rule of God's commandments; and whereinsoever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either by will, word, or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to confess yourselves to Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life; and if ye shall perceive your offenses to be such as are not only against God, but also against your neighbors, then ye shall reconcile yourselves unto them, being ready to make restitution and satisfaction, according to the uttermost of your powers, for all injuries and wrongs done by you to any other, and being likewise ready to forgive others that have offended you, as ye would have forgiveness of your offenses at God's hand; for otherwise the receiving of the Holy Communion doth nothing else but increase your damnation. Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, a hinderer or slanderer of His Word, an adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to that Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the devil enter into you as he entered into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul.I have been permitted to ask some of the English clerk who had professed and preached faith alone (this was done in the spiritual world), whether while they were reading in church this Exhortation — which faith is not even mentioned — they believed it to be true; for example, that if people do evil things, and do not repent, the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas, and destroy them both body and soul. They said that in the state in which they were when reading the Exhortation they had no other knowledge or thought than that this was religion itself; but that while composing and elaborating their discourses or sermons they had a different thought about it, because they were then thinking of faith as being the sole means of salvation, and of the good of life as being a moral accessory for the public good.
Nevertheless it was incontestably proved to them that with them too there was that common perception that he who leads a good life is saved, and that he who leads an evil one is damned; and that they possess this perception when they are not in what is their Own.
LIFE (5-7)