Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/144

138 belief with the new doctrine as received and taught in the New Church.

This doctrine is: That man is not life, but only a form receptive of life from God, who alone is Life itself; that he is gifted with free-will in things spiritual as well as in things civil, moral and natural, and is, therefore, free to choose between right and wrong, and to do whichever he chooses; is as free to look to and obey the revealed will of God, as he is to obey the civil laws which constitute the expressed will of the kingdom or state; that free-will is an essential element of humanity, and without which man would not be man; that it is the Lord's continual desire that man should become spiritual by voluntarily receiving from Him spiritual truth and good—a thing which would be utterly impossible if he had not free-will in spiritual things; that without such free-will the Word of God would be useless, and its commands to believe and do and shun certain things, would be absurd and meaningless; that there could be no reciprocal union of man with the Lord and the Lord with man, consequently no heaven which is the result of such union, without free-will in spiritual things; that the denial of such free-will would necessitate the impious conclusion, that God himself, and not man, is the cause of evil; that God is in the perpetual endeavor to re-create man in his own image and likeness, but cannot