Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 5063

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5063. I spoke further with them, [saying] that true Christianity consists in this: that men ought to live in charity towards the neighbor, that is, to be sincere, to be just, to be upright; thus, to practice sincerity, justice and goodness for the sake of those things, and to esteem them and venerate them as Divine, because the Divine of the Lord is in them, inasmuch as they are from Himself - which also, they know, for they say that there is nothing of good with them save what comes from above, that is, from God; and thus, that the question whether they are Christians, ought to be weighed from the good of life. I said, moreover, that true faith does not necessarily produce dissensions: that the case is otherwise, is because Christianity is in a corrupt condition. It was also said, that it is not right for anyone to discard, from some reasoning, the things which he believes to be true, immediately, and that such as do so, are not entitled to esteem; and that, therefore, no one should be molested, or injured, in his faith - besides many other things. It was said concerning the Lord, that He was conceived by Jehovah, and that, therefore, He called Jehovah His Father, and that both the former and the latter facts are perfectly well known in the whole Christian [world]; also, that they [i.e. the Christians] might thence have concluded that His Human is the similitude of the Father, and therefore Divine, but that though they know that, they conclude nothing about it. They [i.e. Christians] also know that He rose again, as to the body, and took all things of the body with Him; and this, also, is perfectly well known; but, because they suppose, from doctrine, that their own bodies, also, are to be in like manner raised at the Last Judgment, they draw no conclusion [as to the Lord's Divinity] from thence. They wondered that Christians should be so stupid, saying that they themselves were unaware of those two points. When I spoke with them concerning various things which were from the Word, and which were of the true doctrine of the Church, they became conscious of holiness from them.


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