Charity (Coulson) n. 102

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102. 3. A man ought to be a charity in form, not from himself but from the Lord; thus he is a receptacle of charity.

The life of a man who is to be regenerated is the affection of truth from good, or charity; and that life does not exist except from Life, thus from the Lord who is Life in Himself, as He Himself teaches: that He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life";* and elsewhere, that "As the Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given unto the Son to have Life in Himself";** and elsewhere. But, because Life is God, the Divine cannot be appropriated to man, who is finite and created, but it can inflow into, and be adjoined to, a receptacle; just as the eye is not light in itself, but can receive light, and as the ear is not hearing in itself, but is the receptacle for it. So with the rest of the senses. So, also, with the mind and its interior senses. * John xiv. 6. ** John v. 26.


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