rnals he may live according to them from
natural, moral, and civil law, becomes a citizen and an inhabitant of
the world, but not of heaven.

Most nations possess a knowledge of these commandments, and make them
the commandments of their religion, and live according to them because
God so wills and has commanded; and through this they have communication
with heaven and conjunction with God, consequently they are saved. But
most in the Christian world at this day do not make them the
commandments of their religion, but only of their civil and moral life;
and they do this that they may not appear in external form to act
fraudulently and make unlawful gains, commit adulteries, manifestly
pursue others from deadly hatred and revenge, and bear false witness,
and do not refrain from these things because they are sins and against
God, but because they have fears for their life, their reputation, their
office, their business, their possessions, their honor and gain, and
their pleasure; consequently if they were not restrained by these bonds
they would do these things. Because, therefore, such form for
themselves no communication with heaven or conjunction with the Lord,
but only with the world and with self, they cannot be saved.

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 goods flow in, and so far
does man afterward do goods, not from self, but 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 he 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