Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/77

Rh to exercise forgiveness—as natural filth may be washed off from the body; and that this could be effected instantaneously, and is actually granted in a moment as the reward of the exercise of faith alone.

But Swedenborg teaches (or shows us that the Scripture teaches) and the New Church believes, a very different doctrine. He says that the Divine Love which is Mercy itself, is the very essence of forgiveness; and that this Love is ever ready and waiting to flow into human hearts with its ineffable sweetness and delights; but that it can flow in and be received only in the degree that we come to see our evils in the light of truth, humbly acknowledge them, and shun their indulgence as sins against God. As we do this, the evil of self-love which is the fountain of all other evil loves and the progenitor and instigator of all evil deeds, is overcome or removed, and the good of disinterested neighborly love flows in, and with it a sweet and heavenly peace—a sense of the Divine presence which is essential Love and Forgiveness. So that the Divine forgiveness is not and cannot be experienced, except on condition of repentance and obedience—a voluntary turning away from moral evil, and yielding obedience to the laws of heavenly charity;—a gradual losing, through self-denial and self-surrender, of our own life for the Lord's sake, and the consequent