Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/59

 Father." But now, if a man denies this Object of worship, denies that Jesus Christ is God, he has nothing to fix his love and thought upon (for the abstract Divine is, as before said, inaccessible), and consequently he worships nought but himself and the world, and thus remains in his evils, and perishes.

But it is now to be observed, that no one thus interiorly denies the Divine of the Lord, but one who is in evils of life. Many, through erroneous instruction, may not acknowledge that Divine in doctrine here; but if they are in the good of life, and in the effort to obey the Lord's commandments, they are interiorly associated with angels; and after death, when instructed aright, they will easily acknowledge this essential truth.

But there is another mode in which God's name may be taken in vain, namely, by, denying the holiness of the Word. "Inasmuch," says the Doctrine of the New Church, "as by the name of God is meant that which is from God, and this is called Divine truth, which with us is the Word,—this, being in itself Divine and most holy, is not to be profaned; and it is profaned when its holiness is denied, as is the case when it is contemned, rejected, and opprobriously treated. When this is the case, then heaven is shut, and man is left to hell; for the Word is the only medium of conjunction of heaven with the Church; wherefore, when it is rejected from the heart, that conjunction is dissolved, and then man, being left to hell, no longer acknowledges any truth of the Church.