Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/22

 takes the place of the evil, and thus man is inwardly purified. "It is known," says the New Church Doctrine, "that man's interiors must be purified, before the good which he does can be truly good; for says the Lord, 'Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter, that the outside may be clean also.' The interior of man is not otherwise purified than as he desists from evils according to the precepts of the Decalogue. Those evils, so long as he does not desist from them, and flee from, and become averse to them, as sins, constitute his interior man, and are as an interposed veil or covering, appearing in heaven as an eclipse, whereby the sun of heaven is obscured and its light intercepted; and are also as a fountain of black and pitchy waters, from which nothing but what is impure can possibly flow. What flows from it, though it may appear before the world as good, still is not good, because defiled by evils from within. Now, since evils must be removed before good works can be truly good, therefore the Ten Commandments were given as the first of the Word, for they were promulgated from Mount Sinai before the Word was written by Moses and the prophets; and in those Commandments were not declared good works which are to be done, but rather evils which are to be shunned. Hence, also, those Commandments are taught in the churches as the first religious instructions; for they are taught to boys and girls, in order that man may commence his Christian life from them, and by no means forget them as he grows up."