Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/48

This page needs to be proofread.
42
THE SWEDENBORG LIBRARY.

give him perception and power, so far as he therefore shuns those evils in himself; and so far as he does this, he regards the good as friend regards friend.

From this then man may, from his faculty of rationality, infer the nature of the good that is beneficial to society in the spiritual world, and of the evil which is there injurious to society, if by evil he understands sin, and by good the works of charity. This also man may do from his reason, if he will, since he possesses rationality and liberty; and his rationality and liberty are evoked and made apparent, restrain him and give him perception and power, so far as he shuns that evil as sin; and so far as he does this, he regards the good of charity as neighbor regards neighbor from mutual love.

Now as it is the Lord's will, for the sake of reception and union, that whatever a man does freely according to reason should seem to him to be his own, and this is in accordance with true reason, it follows that man may from reason desire this, because it is his eternal happiness; and may, by invoking the Lord's divine power, make it so.


THE SOUL'S APPROPRIATIONS.

Whatever man does from freedom according to his own thought, is appropriated to him as his own, and remains. This is because man's selfhood and his freedom make one. Man's selfhood belongs to his life, and what man does from his life, he does from freedom. Again: man's selfhood is what belongs to his love, for love is

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.