Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/105

Rh in Abraham's bosom," Luke xvi. 19 to 31. Lastly, Jesus said to the penitent malefactor on the cross, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," Luke xxiii. 43.

THE life of man's spirit consists in two things, love in his will, and faith in his understanding. If these be derived from the Lord, and also directed to him, and if at the same time man live in charity with his neighbour, according to the directions of the Holy Word, in such case the kingdom of heaven is established within him. For, as the Lord teaches in Luke xvii. 21, heaven is in the internal of man, that is, in his will and his understanding, so far as they are influenced by a right love and a true faith: from thence it extends itself to the external, that is, to his actions and speech, so far as these are brought under the influence of the same love and faith. But heaven cannot be in the external, unless it be first in the internal: the good that appears outwardly, without a corresponding state of spiritual affection within, is merely natural or hypocritical.

As love to the Lord, and love towards our neighbour, together with a true faith, which derives it's essence from those loves, constitute the life of heaven; so self-love and the love of the world, together with a false faith, which in like manner derives it's essence from the last-mentioned disorderly loves, constitute the life of hell. Or again, as the delight of doing good, together with the happiness attending it, constitutes heaven; so the delight of doing evil, together with the misery entailed upon it, constitutes hell. They, who have the life of heaven within them in this