Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/78

72  or finding of that true and higher life which is from Above, and is promised to the regenerate. Accordingly Swedenborg says:

"It is believed by most people within the church that the remission of sins is the wiping or washing them away as of filth by water; and that after remission they are clean and pure in the way in which they go. Such an opinion prevails, especially with those who ascribe the all of salvation to faith alone.

"But it is to be observed that the case is quite otherwise with the remission of sins. The Lord remits sins to every one, since He is Mercy itself; nevertheless they are not remitted on that account, unless a man performs serious repentance, desists from evils, and afterwards lives the life of faith and charity, and this even to the end of his life. When this is done the man receives from the Lord spiritual life which is called new life; and when he looks from this new life at the evils of his former life and holds them in aversion and horror, then sins are first remitted; for then the man is kept in truths and goods, and withheld from evils by the Lord. Hence it is evident what is meant by the remission of sins, and that it cannot be granted in an hour nor in a year." (A. C. 9014. See also A. C. 9443-9454.)

The verb redeem, from which comes the noun redemption, is derived from the Latin words re,