Why the Evil Within the Church Reject Charity

Selections from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Why they who are in evil within the church reject charity more than they deny the Lord

No one can do violence to holy things except one who is in possession of the Word; these things are most holy can be seen from the fact that no one can be admitted into the Lord's kingdom (that is, into heaven) unless he is in the good of love and of charity.

No one can be in the good of love and of charity, unless he acknowledges the Lord's Divine and Holy; for this good flows in from Him alone, and indeed into the good itself which is from Him.

The Divine cannot flow in except into the Divine, nor be communicated to man except through the Lord's Divine Human and His Holy thence derived.

From this we can understand how it is that the Lord is the all in all of His kingdom; and also that nothing of the good that is with man is man's, but is the Lord's.

The reason why they who are in evil within the church reject charity more than they deny the Lord, is that in this way they can favor their concupiscences by a kind of religion, and have external worship with no internal (that is, worship of the lips and not of the heart), and the more they make this worship to be Divine and holy, so much the greater are their dignities and wealth, besides many other causes that are hidden and yet are manifest.

Nevertheless, the truth really is that he who rejects the one (that is, does so in doctrine and at the same time in life) rejects also the other (for even if he dare not do this openly he does it in his heart)

(from Arcana Coelestia 2359; 2373)