Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/297

Rh character was not yet so well known in the world; for the reason that there does not then appear any hatred against good and truth, nor against heaven, and still less against the Lord, with those who are of hell and therefore come into hell after death. For every one while he lives in the world is in externals, which from infancy are taught and accustomed to feign such things as are honest and decorous, and just and equitable, and good and true; and yet hatred lies concealed in their spirit, and this in proportion to the evil of their life; and as hatred is in the spirit, therefore it breaks forth when the externals are put off, as is the case after death. This infernal hatred against all who are in good is deadly hatred, because it is hatred against the Lord. This is especially evident from their delight in doing evil, which is such as to exceed in degree every other delight; for it is a fire burning with the lust of destroying souls. It has in fact been proved that this delight is not from hatred against those whom they attempt to destroy, but from hatred against the Lord Himself. Now since man is man from the Lord, and the human which is from the Lord is good and truth; and since those who are in hell, from hatred against the Lord lust to kill the human, which is good and truth; it follows that it is hell from whence murder itself proceeds. (A. E. n. 1013.)

When a man abstains from hatred, and holds it in aversion and shuns it as diabolical, then charity, mercy, and clemency flow in through heaven from the Lord; and then first are the works that he does works of love and charity. The works that he did before, however good they might appear in the external form, were all works of the love of self and of the world, in which there lay concealed hatred if they were not rewarded. So long as hatred is not removed so long man is merely natural, and a merely natural man remains in all his hereditary evil; nor can he become spiritual until hatred, with its root, which is the love of ruling over all, is removed; for the fire of heaven, which is spiritual love, cannot flow in so long as the fire of hell, which is hatred, opposes and precludes it. (ib. n. 1017.)

"Thou shalt not commit adultery." In the natural sense this commandment not only forbids to commit adultery, but also to purpose and to do obscene acts, and therefore to think and speak of lascivious things. That merely to lust is to commit adultery is known from these words of the Lord: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on the woman of another 19