AE 1012 [4]
The more remote sense of this commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which is called the celestial spiritual sense, is that one shall not take away from man the faith and love of God, and thus his spiritual life. This is murder itself, because from this life man is a man, the life of the body serving this life as the instrumental cause serves its principal cause. Moreover, from this spiritual murder, moral murder is derived; consequently he who is in the one is also in the other; for he who wills to take away a man's spiritual life is in hatred against him if he cannot take it away, for he hates the faith and love with him, and thus the man himself. These three, namely, spiritual murder, which pertains to faith and love, moral murder, which pertains to reputation and honor, and natural murder, which pertains to the body, follow in a series one from the other, like cause and effect.
AE 1017
When a man abstains from hatred and turns away from it and shuns it as diabolical, then love, charity, mercy and clemency flow in through the heaven from the Lord, and then first the works which he does are works of love and charity.... So long as hatred is not put away, so long man is merely natural...nor can he become spiritual before hatred, with its root, which is the love of ruling over all, is removed; for the fire of heaven, which is spiritual love, cannot flow in so long as the fire of hell, which is hatred, stands in the way and shuts it out.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
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