Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/139

 amusing himself with a newspaper, when he ought to be instructing his children in Divine things, is not fit to be a parent,—is neglecting the first duties of that sacred relation. The commandment is to "teach these things diligently unto their children," and the parent who neglects to do so, is guilty of depriving his children of those spiritual treasures which rightfully belong to them as sons of God and heirs of immortality. In a word, whoever, by word or deed, directly or indirectly, deprives another of truth or goodness, is chargeable with the sin of spiritual theft.

And now, in the last place, let us consider this Commandment in its highest or celestial sense. To steal, in this sense, is to take from the Lord; that is, to claim as our own what belongs to Him. Now, the truth is, that all our powers, mental and physical—all truth and goodness—nay, life itself,—are from the Lord and are every instant given by him. They are not our own, but are his in us. If he should, for a single instant, cease to give them to us anew, we should be altogether without them. If he for one moment withheld his flow of rationality into the mind, we should be idiots; if he for a moment ceased to pour the stream of love and kindness into the heart, we should be seized upon and carried away by all manner of evil passions; nay, if the influx of life itself ceased for an instant to come in from him afresh, we should fall dead to the ground. Such is the teaching of the New Church Doctrine, as derived