Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/92

The church would thus be in illustration concerning such things as are of the Lord's kingdom; for charity illustrates, and in no case faith without charity. The errors, too, induced by faith separate from charity, would be clearly seen. The face of the church would then be as the face of the ancient church which had no other doctrinals of the church than those of charity. Hence they had wisdom from the Lord. (A. C. 6761.)

He who is ignorant of the nature of evil, loves it; and he who pays no attention to it, is continually in it; like a blind man he does not see it. For thought sees the good and evil, as the eye sees the beautiful and the ugly. He is in evil whose thought and will are in it, as also he who believes that God does not regard evil, and he who believes that it is forgiven if regarded; for so those persons think themselves free from evil. If they abstain from doing evil, they do so not because evil is sin against God, but from fear of the law or of public opinion. But still they do evil in spirit; for thought and will belong to the spirit: therefore what man meditates in his spirit in the world, after his departure from the world, when he becomes a spirit, he does.

In the spiritual world to which every man goes after death, it is not the character of your faith into which inquiry is made, nor of your doctrine, but of your life, whether it had been of this character or that; for it is known that such as a man's life is, such is his faith;