July 17, 2019

THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE (pt. 49)

THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE
for the
NEW JERUSALEM
FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
(pt. 49)
IN PROPORTION AS ANYONE SHUNS EVILS AS SINS, IN THE SAME PROPORTION HE HAS FAITH, AND IS SPIRITUAL.
. . .those who are in evils have no faith, no matter how much they may suppose themselves to have it, has been shown in the spiritual world in the case of persons of this character. They were brought into a heavenly society, which caused the spiritual sphere of faith as existing with the angels to enter into the interiors of their faith, and the result was that the angels perceived that those persons possessed only what is natural or external of faith, and not what is spiritual or internal of it, and therefore those persons themselves confessed that they had nothing whatever of faith, and that in the world they had persuaded themselves that to believe or have faith consists in thinking a thing to be true, no matter what the ground for so thinking.

Very different was perceived to be the faith of those who had not been in evil.
(LIFE 49)