Page:The Golden Reed; Or, the True Measure of a True Church.djvu/89

WITH DIVERSITY OF BELIEF. 83 on no account to covet what belongs to them. These are the commandments of the decalogue, which are exterior doctrinals of faith, and which, with those who are in charity and in the life thereof, are not retained only as matters of science in the memory, but are laid up in the heart, and are inscribed on the inner man, since all such are in charity, and in its essential life. Not to mention other things composing points of doctrine, which they are in like manner acquainted with from charity alone, because they live according to a conscience of what is right. Such, also, in cases where they do not so well understand, and are not able to determine what is right and true, yet believe in simplicity, or out of a simple heart, that it is so, because the Lord has said it; and whosoever thus believes does not incur guilt, although what he believes be not true in itself, but only an apparent truth. As for example: if he believes that the Lord is angry, that he punishes, that he leads into temptation and the like; or if he believes that the bread and wine in the holy supper are somewhat significative; or that the flesh and blood of the Lord are somehow present therein in the way that they explain it; it is of no consequence whether they affirm the one or the other, although there are few who think of the latter; and if they do, provided it be in simplicity of heart, because they have been so instructed, and they still live in charity, it does them no injury. Such persons, when they hear that the bread and wine in the holy supper, in the internal sense, signify the Lord's love towards the whole human race, and the things appertaining to love, with the reciprocal love of man towards the Lord and his neighbor, they instantly believe it, and rejoice that it is so. But the case is otherwise with those who are principled in mere doctrinals, and not in charity: these dispute on every subject, and condemn all, without distinc-