Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/53

Rh  forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing," John xv. 5.

AS the divine essence itself is capable of being distinguished into two distinct principles of life, viz. divine love and divine wisdom, or divine good and divine truth, which yet in the Lord are perfectly one; so in heaven, in the church, and even in nature, every thing that exists in a state of order, bears some relation to the good and truth proceeding from the Lord. In heaven these two principles are united, as in a kind of marriage; and they ought also to be united in every member of the church on earth. There is a mutual tendency on the part of each to unite with the other; and in those who are regenerated, they are actually united; but not so in the unregenerate.

Truth from the Word, and from other instructive writings, enters into the human mind by an external way, chiefly by seeing and hearing: but good from the Lord enters by an internal way, and endeavours to elevate the truth previously received to itself, and thus to give it life: for until it is so elevated, it is merely natural, and destitute of spiritual life. In the first stages of regeneration, man is chiefly under the influence of truth, or at least of what appears to him to be such: for by truth he learns to know the nature and quality of evil, as well as of good, together with the necessity of shunning the one, and pursuing the other. But in the last stage of regeneration, he is placed under the more immediate influence of good; and from this he perceives and loves the truth. Arrived at this state, man is said to be regenerated, the good and the true are united in