them according to the fullness
and clearness of their idea of the Lord, and they are in correspondent
wisdom and in correspondent felicity. All those who have no idea of the
Lord as Divine, like the Socinians and Arians, are under the heavens,
and are unhappy. Those who have a twofold idea, namely, of an invisible
God and of a visible God in a human form, also have their place under
the heavens, and are not received until they acknowledge one God, and
Him visible. Some in the place of a visible God see as it were
something aerial, and this because God is called a spirit. If this idea
is not changed in them into the idea of a Man, thus of the Lord, they
are not accepted. But those who have an idea of God as the inmost of
nature are rejected, because they cannot help falling into the idea of
nature as being God. All nations that have believed in one God, and have
had an idea of Him as a Man, are received by the Lord. From all this it
can be seen who those are that worship God Himself and who those are
that worship other gods, thus who live according to the first
commandment of the Decalogue and who do not. (A.E., n. 957.)
II. The Second Commandment
The second commandment is, "Thou shalt not profane the name of God."
In the first place, what is meant by "the name of God" shall be told,
and afterward what is meant by "profaning" it. "The name of God" means
every quality by which God is worshipped. For God is in His own
quality, and is His own quality. His essence is Divine love, and His
quality is Divine truth therefrom united with Divine good; thus with us
on earth it is the Word; consequently it is said in John:
"The Word was with God, and the Word was God" (i. 1).
So, too, it is the doctrine of genuine truth and good from the Word; for
worship is according to that.
Now as His quality is manifold, for it comprises all things that are
from Him, so He has many names; and each name involves and expresses His
quality in general and in particular. He is called "Jehovah," "Jehovah
of Hosts," "Lord," "Lord Jehovah," "God," "Messiah (or Christ),"
"Jesus," "Saviour," "Redeemer," "Creator," "Former," "Maker," "King,"
and "the Holy One of Israel," "the Rock" and "the Stone of Israel,"
"Shiloh," "Almighty," "David," "Prophet," "Son of God," and "Son of
Man," and so on. All these names are names of the one God, who is the
Lord; and yet where they occur in the Word they signify some universal
Divine attribute or
|