True Christian Religion (Ager) n. 612

612. Man inclines by birth to evils of every kind and from that inclination lusts after them, and so far as he is in freedom he also does them; for by birth he lusts after dominion over others, and to possess the goods of others, which two lusts cut asunder love to the neighbor, and then man hates everyone who opposes him, and from hatred breathes revenge which inwardly cherishes murder. For the same reason he thinks nothing of adulteries, nothing of such robbery as secret theft, nothing of blasphemies, which include false witness; and he who thinks nothing of these things, is in heart an atheist. Such is man by birth; from which it is clear that he is from birth a hell in miniature. Inasmuch then, as man, in respect to the interiors of his mind, is born spiritual, as beasts are not, and consequently is born for heaven, and yet, as has been said, his natural or external man is a miniature hell, it follows that a heaven cannot be implanted in this hell, unless the hell is removed.


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