Thursday, July 26, 2007

AC 3310 - doing good from doctrine

AC 3310 [3]
The case here is as with one who by nature inclines to adulteries, thefts, and murders, but who learns from the commandments of the decalogue that such things are of hell, and so abstains from them. In this state he is affected by the commandments because he is afraid of hell, and from these and likewise from many things in the Word he learns how he ought to direct his life; and in this case when he does what is good, he does it from the commandments.

But when he is in good, he begins to be averse to the adulteries, thefts, and murders to which before he had been inclined; and when he is in this state, he no longer does what is good from the commandments, but from good, which then is in him. In the former state he learns good from truth; in the later state he teaches truth from good.

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