Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/48

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gathers all its ideas through the senses: it is said "waters," because waters signify knowledges of truth, such as are laid up in the natural memory. Now, in all these degrees or divisions of the mind, when in their proper order, there are various forms and degrees of good and truth; for there is spiritual good and truth, such as respects heavenly life, there is natural good and truth, such as belongs to moral and civil life, and there is sensual good and truth, or such as concerns the orderly pleasures of the senses, and scientifics. To "make a likeness" of any of these, is to assume or pretend to good or truth in any form, which the man does not really possess—in other words, to act the hypocrite, the dissembler. This is the evil that is forbidden by this portion of the Commandment, understood in its spiritual sense. Any one may see that a hypocrite cannot be a true worshiper of God: he has not the primary principle of worship, namely, truth and sincerity,—still less that more interior principle, humility of heart. Says the Doctrine of the New Church, "The things which are in the heavens, and in the earth, and in the waters, mean such things as are from the Divine everywhere. Likenesses of things from the Divine are made by men, when they speak Divine things with the mouth, and also in act do such things as are commanded by the Divine Being, and thus induce a belief that they are in good and truth, when yet in heart they entertain altogether different thoughts and will only what is evil. Such are dissemblers, hypocrites, and the deceitful: these are they that make 'likenesses' of the things which