SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE WORD OF GOD - { PT. 19 }


 { PT.  19 } - Consider is respect to yourself, when these external bonds have been taken away, as is done with every man after death, if there are no internal bonds, which are from fear and love of God, thus from religion, to restrain and hold you back, whether you would not rush like a devil into thefts, adulteries, murders, false witnesses, and lusts of every kind, from a love of these and a delight in them. That this is the case I have both seen and heard ( A.E., n. 948 ). So far as evils are set aside as sins so far good flow in, and so far does man afterward do goods, not from the Lord. As, first, so far as one does not worship other gods, and thus does not love self and the world above all things, so far acknowledgment of God flows in from the Lord, and then the worships God, not from self but from the Lord. Secondly, so far as one does not profane the name of God, that is, so far as he shuns the lusts arising from the loves of self and of the world, so far he loves the holy things of the Word and of the church; for these are the name of God, and are profaned by the lusts arising from the loves of self and of the World.Thirdly, so far as one shuns thefts, and thus shuns frauds and unlawful gains, so far sincerity and just from sincere and just from sincerity and justice, and thus does what is sincere and just not from self but from the Lord. Fourthly, so far as one shuns adulteries and thus shuns unchaste and filthy thoughts, so far marriage love enters, which is the inmost love of heaven, and in which chastity itself has its seat. 

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