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 necessary to a man's faith and life, and also to his salvation, is naked; but the rest is clothed; and in many places where it is clothed, it is visible through the clothes." (T. C. R. 229.) And what is declared to be the primary and most essential doctrine of the New Church? Is it not that contained in the two great commandments which embrace the sum and substance of all that the Law and the Prophets teach? For, speaking of "the New Church which is called the Holy Jerusalem," Swedenborg says: "Its doctrine is the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor." (Ap. Ex. 732; also 721, 724, 730, 758.) This doctrine is what is signified by the male child which the sun-clad woman brought forth, and which the dragon stood ready to devour; and this woman is the same that is called "the Bride the Lamb's wife." And "the doctrine signified by the male child, is especially the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor, that is, the doctrine of the good of life." (Ap. Ex. 724.)

Here we have "the principles of the New Church," its great and essential doctrine, the very pith and marrow of all its teachings, in a nutshell. And all who are in the acknowledgment and life of this doctrine are in and of the New Church, being in conjunction with the Lord and in association with the new angelic heavens. But all who