He who does not receive
spiritual life, that is, who is not begotten anew by the Lord,
cannot come into heaven. This the Lord teaches in John: "Verily,
verily, I say to thee, Except a man be begotten anew, he cannot see
the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
Man is not born of
his parents into spiritual life, but into natural life. Spiritual
life is to love God above all things, and to love the neighbor as
oneself, and this according to the commandments of faith which the
Lord has taught in the Word. But natural life is to love self and
the world above the neighbor, yea above God Himself.
Every man is born of
his parents into the evils of the love of self and of the world.
Every evil which by habit has contracted a kind of nature, is
derived into the offspring, thus successively from parents, from
grandparents, and from great-grandparents, in a long series
backward. From this the derivation of evil has at last become so
great, that all of man's own life is nothing else than evil. This
continuous derived nature is not broken and changed, except by the
Lord through a life of faith and charity.
Man continually
inclines and lapses into what he derives hereditarily. By so doing
he confirms this evil in himself, and also adds to it more evils
from himself.
These evils are
utterly contrary to spiritual life. They destroy it. Therefore
unless in respect to his spiritual life a man is conceived anew,
born anew, and reared anew, that is, created anew by the Lord, he is
damned, for he wills nothing else, and consequently thinks nothing
else, than what is of hell.
When a man is of
this character, the order of life in him is inverted. That which
ought to rule serves, and that which ought to serve rules. For his
salvation to be possible this order in the man must be wholly
inverted. This is effected by the Lord through regeneration.
(Continuation
respecting THE DOCTRINE OF CHARITY −
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