Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/181

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PRAYER NOT THE REAL WORSHIP.
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all worldly concerns, especially riches and honors; to be continually engaged in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; to devote one's whole life to prayer, the reading of the Word, and the perusal of pious books; and to suffer self-inflicted pain.

This, however, is not what is meant by renouncing the world. To renounce the world is to love God and the neighbor. And a man loves God when he lives according to his commandments; and he loves his neighbor when he performs uses.

In order therefore that man may receive the life of heaven, it is necessary that he should live in the world and engage in the various offices and businesses of life. A life of abstraction from secular concerns is a life of thought and faith separate from a life of love and charity; and in such a life the principle which prompts man to desire and promote the good of his neighbor, must necessarily perish. When this is the case, the spiritual life becomes like a house without a foundation, which either gradually sinks to the ground, or becomes full of clefts and chinks, or totters till it falls. (N. J. D. 123-126.)


WORSHIP CONSISTS NOT IN PRAYERS.

Worship does not consist in prayers and external devotion, but in a life of charity. Prayers are only the externals thereof, for they proceed from the man by his mouth. Therefore a man's prayers are according to

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