Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/147

Rh damnation. Have mercy upon me for the sake of thy Son. Purify me in his blood. On thy good pleasure depends the salvation of all. I pray for mercy.' Hearing him pray thus, the bystanders asked, 'How do you know that you are of such a character?' He replied, 'I know it because I have heard so.' But he was then sent to the angelic examiners, before whom he spoke in the same way. And they, after examination, reported that he had spoken the truth about himself, but that still he did not know of one single evil that was within him, because he had never examined himself, and had believed that after lip-confession evils were no longer evils in the sight of God, both because God turns his eyes away from them and because He has been propitiated. And the angels said that therefore he had not come to a sense of any of his evils, although he had been a willful adulterer, a thief, a wily detractor and intensely revengeful, and was still such in heart and will." (T. C. R. 517.)

So foreign from the truth was the idea concerning repentance, which this individual had received from the church of his day while he was on earth!

But the New Church teaches a different doctrine on this subject. It teaches that man is born with an inclination (inherited from foregone ancestry) to all kinds of evil—the proclivity to particular kinds varying in strength with different individuals. And unless these evils are overcome or removed, the man remains in them; and they