The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, Founded on the Precepts of the Decalogue. ¹

by Emanuel Swedenborg

(First published 1763)

Translator’s Table of Contents:

- Every Religion Is a Way of Life, and Its Life Is the Doing of Good, 1

- No One Can of Himself Do Good That Is Good, 9

- Insofar as a Person Refrains from Evils as Being Sins, So Far He Does Good, Not of Himself, but from the Lord, 18

1. If a person wills and does good before he refrains from evils as being sins, the good that he does is not good. 24

2. If a person thinks and speaks piously, and does not refrain from evils as being sins, his pious thoughts and words are not pious. 25

3. If a person gains much knowledge and wisdom, and does not refrain from evils as being sins, he is still not wise. 27

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Evils as Being Sins, So Far He Loves Truths, 32

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Evils as Being Sins, So Far He Has Faith and Is Spiritual, 42

- The Ten Commandments Tell Us What Evils Are Sins, 53

- Every Form of Murder, Adultery, Theft, or False Witness, Including Every Urge to Commit Them, Is an Evil Which Must Be Refrained from as Being a Sin, 62

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Every Form of Murder as a Sin, So Far He Has Love for the Neighbor, 67

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Every Form of Adultery as Being a Sin, So Far He Loves Chastity, 74

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Every Form of Stealing as Being a Sin, So Far He Loves Honesty, 80

- Insofar as Someone Refrains from Every Form of False Witness as Being a Sin, So Far He Loves Truth, 87

- No One Can Refrain from Evils as Being Sins So as to Turn Away from Them Inwardly Except by Battles Against Them, 92

- A Person Must Refrain from Evils as Being Sins and Fight Against Them as Though of Himself, 101

- If Someone Refrains from Evils for Any Other Reason Than That They Are Sins, He Does Not Really Refrain from Them, but Only Keeps Them from Being Seen by the World, 108

번역자 노트 또는 각주:

101. A Person Must Refrain from Evils as Being Sins and Fight Against Them as Though of Himself

It is of Divine order that a person act in freedom in accordance with his reason, since to act in freedom in accordance with one’s reason is to act of oneself.

However, these two faculties of freedom and reason are not properly a person’s own, but are the Lord’s in him. And insofar as he is human, they are not taken from him, since without them he cannot be reformed. For without them he cannot repent, cannot fight against evils, and cannot then produce fruits worthy of repentance.

Now because a person has his freedom and reason from the Lord, and acts in accordance with them, it follows that he does not act of himself, but as though of himself. ¹

각주:

589. The Equilibrium between Heaven and Hell

For anything to happen, there needs to be an equilibrium of everything involved. If there is no equilibrium, there is no action and reaction because the equilibrium occurs between two forces, one acting and the other reacting. The state of rest arising from equal agents and reagents is called an equilibrium.

In the natural world there is equilibrium throughout, in general in the atmospheres, with the lower layers reacting and resisting to the extent that the upper layers act and bear down. In the natural world there are also states of equilibrium between warmth and cold, light and darkness, dry and wet. Their median blend is the balance point. There is also an equilibrium in the members of all three of earth's kingdoms — mineral, vegetable, and animal; for nothing would occur in those kingdoms if it were not for the equilibrium. Everywhere, there is a kind of effort acting from one side and another reacting from the other.

[2] Every event, or every result, happens in an equilibrium, or happens by one force acting and another allowing itself to be acted upon, or by one force actively flowing in and the other accepting and yielding appropriately.

In the natural world, what acts and reacts is called force or energy, but in the spiritual world what acts and reacts is called life and volition. Life there is a living force and volition is a living energy, and the actual equilibrium is called a state of freedom. This spiritual balance or freedom occurs, then, between the good acting from the one side and the evil reacting from the other, or from the evil acting on the one side and the good reacting from the other.

[3] The balance between active good and reactive evil applies to good people, and the balance between active evil and reactive good applies to evil people. The reason the spiritual balance is between good and evil is that all human life has to do with good and evil, and our volition is their recipient vessel.

There is also a balance between what is true and what is false, but this is secondary to the balance between good and evil. The balance between the true and the false is like the balance between light and darkness, whose effect on members of the vegetable kingdom depends on the amount of warmth or cold there is in the light or darkness. You can tell that the light and shade themselves do not accomplish anything, only the warmth they bring, from looking at like amounts of light and darkness in winter and in spring.

The comparison of truth and falsity to light and darkness rests in their correspondence, since truth corresponds to light and falsity to darkness, and warmth corresponds to the goodness of love. Further, spiritual light is truth, spiritual darkness is falsity, and spiritual warmth is the goodness of love (on this, see the chapter on light and warmth in heaven, 126-140).