In regard to the primary signification of the Commandment, that which refers to direct theft or robbery, a sense of respectability would, with most persons, prevent the commission of such a crime. In regard to this point, then, it needs only to be observed, that we are to examine ourselves, to see from what motive we abstain from the commission of it; whether, because such an act would be sin against God, or whether only from fear of disgrace amongst men. If only the latter be our motive, then we are continually stealing in spirit, if not in act; and after death, when externals are stripped off, and the man is seen unmasked, we shall appear actually, what we are now in spirit, thieves and robbers. We need, then, to examine our motives, as well as our actions.
On this point, the New Church Doctrine speaks strongly, as follows: "He who abstains from thefts, nay, who even shuns them, from any other motive than from religion, and on account of life eternal, is not purified from them, for no other motive opens heaven, and it is by means of heaven that the Lord removes evils with men. For example, administrators of goods, merchants, judges, officers of all kinds, and laborers, who abstain from thefts on account of reputation and thence honor and gain, or on account of civil and moral laws, in a word, from any merely natural love or any merely natural fear, thus from external bonds alone, and not from religion, have still their interiors full of thefts and rapine, which also break out when the external bonds are taken off, as is the case with every one after death: the apparent sincerity and
