C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Church Universal

By Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772)

HENCE it is of the Divine Providence that every man can be saved; and they are saved who acknowledge God and live well. That every man can be saved is manifest from what has been demonstrated above. Some are of the opinion that the Lord’s church is only in the Christian world, because the Lord is known there only, and the Word is only there. But still there are many who believe that the church of God is general, or extended and scattered throughout the whole world, therefore among those also who are ignorant of the Lord and have not the Word; saying that this is not their fault, and that they have not the means of overcoming their ignorance, and that it is contrary to God’s love and mercy that some should be born for hell, when yet they are men equally with others. Now as Christians (if not all of them, still many) have the belief that the church is general, which is also called a communion, it follows that there are most general principles of the church which enter into all religions, and make that communion. That these most general principles are the acknowledgment of God and the good of life, will be seen in the following order: 1. The acknowledgment of God makes conjunction of God with man and of man with God; and the denial of God makes disjunction. 2. Every one acknowledges God and is conjoined with him according to the good of his life. 3. Good of life, or to live well, is to shun evils because they are against religion, thus against God. 4. These are the general principles of all religions, by which every one can be saved.

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