Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/150

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THE SWEDENBORG LIBRARY.

Occasionally I have been permitted to converse with Christians in another life about the state and lot of the Gentiles out of the Church, and have learned that they receive the truths and goods of faith more easily than Christians who have not lived according to the Lord's precepts; and that Christians think cruelly of them in supposing that all who are out of the Church are damned; and this in consequence of a received canon, that out of the Lord there is no salvation; and that this is true, but that the Gentiles who have lived in mutual charity, and have done what is just and equitable from a kind of conscience, in another life receive faith and acknowledge the Lord more easily than they who are within the Church and have not lived in such charity. (A. C. 4190.)


THE SALVATION OF ALL PROVIDED FOR.

It is provided by the Lord that there should everywhere be a religion, and that in every religion there should be the two essentials of salvation, which are, to acknowledge God, and not to do evil because it is contrary to God. All other things which belong to the understanding and therefore to thought, and are called matters of faith, are provided for every one according to his life, for they are accessories of life; and if they precede [the reception of essentials], still they do not before receive life.

It is moreover provided that all [outside of Christen-

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