Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/127

 truth are, nor what evil and falsity which are their opposites, unless he be instructed.

What civil and moral good and truth are, which are called justice and sincerity, may be known in the world; because in the world there are civil laws which teach what is just, and there is the intercourse of society in which man learns to live according to moral laws, all of which have reference to what is sincere and right.

But spiritual good and truth are not learned from the world, but from heaven. They may, indeed, be known from the Word, and from the doctrine of the church which is drawn from the Word; but still they cannot flow into the life, unless man, as to his interiors which belong to his mind, be in heaven: and man is in heaven when he acknowledges the Divine, and at the same time acts justly and sincerely from the conviction that he ought to do so because it is commanded in the Word; for he then lives justly and sincerely for the sake of the Divine, and not for the sake of himself and the world as ends.

But no one can act thus, unless he be first instructed in such truths as these: That there is a God; that there is a heaven and a hell; that there is a life after death; that God ought to be loved above all things, and the neighbor as one's self; and that the things which are in the Word ought to be believed, because the Word is divine. Without the knowledge and acknowledgment of these truths, man cannot think spiritually;