Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/199

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WHO TRULY ACKNOWLEDGE GOD?
193

and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. ... He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings," John xiv. 21, 24.

The reason why every one acknowledges God, and is united to Him according to the good of his life, is because good of life is similar to the good which is in the Lord, and consequently to that which is from Him. Therefore when a man's life is good, union is effected. With wickedness of life the contrary is the case: this rejects the Lord.

Good of life, or to live well, is to shun evils because they are contrary to religion, that is, contrary to God. To which I will merely add, that if you do good with all your might — if you build temples, decorate them and fill them with donations, sustain hospitals and asylums, give alms daily, succor widows and orphans, punctiliously observe the holy [ceremonies] of worship; nay, if you think and talk and preach about them as if from the heart — and yet do not shun evils as sins against God, all that good is not good; it is either hypocritical or meritorious, since evil is still inwardly within it. For every one's life is in everything that he does; and good [works] become good only by the removal from them of evil.

Evidently, therefore, to shun evils because they are contrary to religion, and thus contrary to God, is to live well. (D. P. 326.)

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