No man or woman can read "Heaven and Hell" attentively, carefully, and
prayerfully without great benefit. It is clearly shown that, to escape
hell, an evil man has but to repent, to look to the Lord and shun evils as
sins against Him, and that the Lord is no respecter of persons, but that He
gives to every man the ability to do this, if he is willing. When we
examine ourselves carefully in the light of the Sacred Scriptures, and
discover an evil, if we shun that evil as a sin against the Lord, He keeps
us in the effort to shun all evils, and enables us more clearly to see
other evils to which we are inclined. Here is an open door for approaching
the Lord, free to all; there is no mystery about it. If an evil man is to
be reformed, he must repent or face about and commence a life of shunning
evils as sins against God; otherwise, there will be no radical change, but
a miserable shuffling from one evil habit to another. Even if a man shuns
one evil habit, like the smoking or chewing of tobacco, because it injures
his health and is likely to destroy his life, and not because it is a sin,
and without the acknowledgment that it is a sin, he is almost sure to seek
as a substitute some form of intoxicating drinks--opium, strong coffee, or
tea. We make a great mistake, as Christians, if we try to substitute
coffee- or tea-houses for saloons; not that the effects of coffee and tea
are as pernicious as intoxicants, but they are unnecessary, and often
diseases and great suffering result from their use. We should strive to
show men and women, in the light of this day, what substances are
unmistakably injurious to health and endanger life, and strive to lead
them, by precept and example, to shun their use as sins against God.
After reading "Heaven and Hell" I read the "True Christian Religion," which
is the last work that Swedenborg published, containing the essential
doctrines of the New Christian Church, or the New Jerusalem now descending
from God out of Heaven, "making all things new." In this work it is clearly
shown that God is one in essence and in person, and that in the Lord Jesus
Christ that one God is manifested to men. God is love. "In the beginning
was the Word and the Word was, with God and the Word was God." Here we have
the Father or Divine Love, the Son or Divine Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit or
Divine Proceeding, flowing from the Father because He is a being of
infinite love, wisdom, and power, through the Son, a trinity in unity. The
Divine Being is no more three persons than a man is three persons, because
he is created in the image of God and has affection or love, an
understanding, or thoughts, words, and acts that flow from his love through
his understanding out toward his fellow men. All the doctrines of the New
Christianity are based upon the Sacred Scriptures and appeal to our highest
reason; and we are to receive them because we see them to be true and in
strict harmony with the Word when the latter is correctly understood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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