THE IMPUTATION OF THE
TWO LOVES:
SCORTATORY AND CONJUGIAL
Selection from Conjugial Love #523 - 535 ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The Lord says:
Judge not, that ye be not condemned. Matt. 7:1.
This can be understood
in no wise as meaning judgment concerning a man's moral and civil
life in the world, but as meaning judgment concerning his spiritual
and celestial life. Who does not see that were it not lawful for a
man to judge as to the moral life of his fellow inhabitants in the
world, society would fall! What would society be if there were no
public judgments? or if one did not form his own judgment concerning
another? What is not lawful, is judgment as to the quality of the
interior mind or soul within man, thus as to what his spiritual
state is and hence his lot after death. This is known to the Lord
only; nor does the Lord reveal it until after death, and this in
order that what a man does he may do from freedom, and that thereby
good or evil may be from him and so in him, and he thus live for
himself and be himself forever. That the interiors of the mind,
hidden in the world, are revealed after death is because this is a
matter of importance and use to the societies into which the man
then comes; for there all are spiritual. That they are revealed then
is plain from these words of the Lord:
There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid
that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in
darkness shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken
in the ear in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. (Luke 12:2, 3)
A general judgment such as: If in internals you are what you appear
to be in externals you will be saved or condemned, is allowed; but a
particular judgment such as, You are such in internals and therefore
will be saved or condemned, is not allowed.
It is judgment of man's spiritual life or of the internal life of
his soul that is meant by the imputation here treated of. What man
knows who is a whoremonger at heart? and who a consort at heart? Yet
it is the thoughts of the heart, being the purposes of the will,
that judge every man. But these matters shall be laid open in the
following order:
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