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[6] I said; “Faith alone will not make you blessed, but the deed according to the light of faith, so that faith may become alive. But repair also as much as possible the injustice that you often have
committed to your fellowmen. Then your sins will be forgiven, for as long as someone has not repaid the last unjust penny to his fellowman, he will not enter God’s Kingdom.” [7] The scribe said: “Lord and Master, then, only few will enter God’s Kingdom. For how often does it not happen that even with the best of will, one cannot completely repair the injustice that he has knowingly caused to someone, and there are a lot of such cases wherein this is prevented. What must one do then to receive forgiveness of sins?” [8] I said: “When a person who realizes and regrets his injustice and cannot make up anymore to his fellowman what he has done wrong to him, then he should remorsefully and sincerely confess his injustice in his heart before God and ask Him for forgiveness, and he should ask if He – for who all things are possible – would repair the inflicted damage to the one who was harmed. Then God will certainly always hear such a sincere prayer and forgive the sins of the one who has asked seriously and full of good will and remorse to forgive his sin, more in particular when someone really tries through his works of love to make up again to others what he had to make up for those who are no more there. [9] But whoever even cannot do that anymore, will be helped by God when he is really sorry and his will is truly good. But as long as there is still an opportunity to repair yourself the injustice that you have caused to your fellowmen, only good will, repentance and praying will help little or nothing, but only the deed. And only after the deed you also should ask God to forgive your sins, then they also will be forgiven by God if you really and truly have taken the serious resolution to commit no more sin and when you also keep to that resolution with all the strength of your life that is under the power of your free will. [10] However, if you will fall back into your old sins, then also all your already committed sins are taken into your account. For once you have made up to your fellowman for an injustice so that you have become friends, but soon after that you commit against the same friend or against someone else another new injustice, then also the injustice that was already made up for comes before judgment as an aggravating proof charged to your again committed sin, and by the judgment you will receive also double punishment as you would have received for the first offense. But if already the worldly judges are passing judgment this way, and rightly, then God will not be milder towards a hardened sinner who sometimes indeed improves his life and makes up for his injustice, but soon begins to sin again.
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15. "So, dear brothers, let us introduce quite a different royal rule. In this kingdom the king will be a guide and teacher to his brothers, by no means a lord and ruler. 16. "Such a king will be according to God's order and will have no need of worldly might, but the might and power of divine love, wisdom and order will dwell in his spirit, and out of the spirit he will be able to easily and mightily lead his brothers into all that is good and true. (HHG vol. 2, chap. 201) (Joseph to Cyrenius:) But one thing you should not have done after that as you did. And this one thing is that you had the torn corpses buried in the public place. Of course you did this from a politically correct point of view in order to keep others from similar attempts by such an example, but that is a very short-lived expedient! See, nothing in the world has a shorter life than horror, fear and sadness! Hence an expedient which awakens these three emotions is no more justified than the by it awakened emotions themselves. When any man has shaken off these three emblems of judgment by means of his free spirit, he then becomes angry and thereupon attacks the cruel judge with redoubled fury. Do you therefore always lead the people with the love that lasts forever, and seek to hide such expedient, but for all that horrifying examples from the people, and you will constantly enjoy the people's love. 'I tell you: A drop of compassion at every opportunity is better than a whole palace full of the best intentioned but very strict justice! For compassion betters the enemy as well as the friend, while the best intentioned but very strict justice makes the just one proud and overbearing, and the one guilty and so judged is filled with wrath and thinks only of how he may revenge himself against the one that is just. What you have now done cannot be made undone any more, but in the future remember this rule. It is better than gold, yes, better than purest gold.' Here Cyrenius again fell about Joseph's neck and thanked him for this teaching like a son his father. (The Childhood of Jesus, chap. 138) When Sethlahem was once more at the sacrificial altar in the midst of Abedam, Enoch, Jared and the known Abedam he took a deep breath and wanted through a detailed complaint to give vent to his hurt feelings at the insults.
2. But the high Abedam forestalled him and said, as if asking him: "Sethlahem, where are actually the seven? 4. "And instead of leading the seven here, you have turned up quite alone and with an offended heart full of bitter complaint. 6. "Behold, what good is a thinking spirit to you if you do not have love? 7. "I think not! But if instead of the lengthy, cold pondering you let your heart become aglow, will you not as soon as possible take some action, choose some companions who have a similar longing and set out on a journey to the unknown distance? And when you have arrived there, will you find it exactly as a hundred thousand of your blind thoughts have falsely presented it to you? 8. "Will not there every thoughtless glance reveal more to you than here countless so-called keenest thoughts in a thousand years? 9. "So you can see what a considerable advantage love has before all mental wisdom. 10. "He who has love, that is, the pure love for God the Father of all men and Creator of all things and out of this love for all his brothers, and in a proper, pure measure also for the sisters, has everything. He has eternal life and a clear, holy wisdom, not the dark mental wisdom of the world, which is absolutely useless, except that it gradually matures living man towards death and finally kills him. 11. "However, if you want to attain to true, living wisdom through love, all resentment against your brothers must leave your heart and with it all mental wisdom. If that does not happen you will always be groping in the dark and be even incapable of distinguishing whether you are facing a man or an eternal, almighty God, which to a great extent is the case with you now. 12. "Therefore, first deliberate upon this in your heart. Forgive your brothers however badly they might have treated you, then I, too, will forgive you your foolishness and heal you for everlasting life. "[1] All of them said: “Yes, truly most wise Lord and Master. Thus the true and perfect penance is and remains the only real cure for the soul (sacramentum), and all the rest is nothing and has no value for life. This we all can see now well and very clear. But what do You, o Lord and Master, think about the strict penance in sack and ashes? Are the sack and ashes necessary for a strict penance?”
[2] I said: “These are quite as unnecessary as it was unnecessary from your side to ask Me about this, since I have already told you clearly wherein the true and for Me valuable penance of a sinner consists. What kind of sanctification can a sack and ashes offer man for his soul? A sack and ashes were instituted by the elders as symbolic images under which the right penance has to be understood, because the sack stands for the outer humility and the ashes for the true inner humility of the soul. But only the carrying of a sack and the strewing of ashes on the head has given man quite as less sanctification as fasting and castigating. Like a soldier who creeps away in a safe hole out of fright and fear for the enemy instead of courageously accepting the fight against him, will most probably not be crowned with a crown of victory. [3] For this reason: away with sack and ashes, away with castigating and fasting, and away with the sacrificing of goats, and away with all the other temple sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins, for those do not have the least of value for life for Me. However, instead of this, one should display a firm and inflexible will for a true inner improvement of life, as well as a living love for God and fellowman, and the full faith in God and His incarnation in Me, for only this sanctifies man and makes the soul strong, giving him to live entirely in My Spirit that prevails in him. [4] Remain with this, and teach it also to all other nations, then you will save Me from sending the threatened judgment over all the heathens in later times. However, you should not shudder and tremble before the people, but with a good and courageous will you should proclaim to them openly the full godly seriousness of the truth. And even if you should not be able to oppose effectively and successfully all the heathens in a short time, the pure truth will very well be able to do that in future times. Because the great judgment over the kingdom of the lie that I have announced, consists in the victory of the truth. And that will not be a different truth than what I am proclaiming to you now. "[1]. I said: “Precisely for this reason you have to proclaim the truth to the people. Whoever will accept it, will be free and blessed. However, those who will not accept it will therefore continuously remain in their sins and in the judgment and the spiritual death thereof.
[2] I do not compel you to teach these truths of life to all people in a very short time, so that they also should live completely according to it. For the time being I only have given this to you in order to understand the secret of God’s Kingdom, and not also in this time to all the terrible blind people. Later however, you will meet a great number of people who will join you with all diligence and who will work together with you for the sake of the truths that I have proclaimed to you. [3] However, concerning the confession of guilt before the priests as such that was mentioned by you, as they are now they are wicked and thus completely objectionable because they do not improve the people but they only make the people to persist in their sins until their end. But I am not against it when a weak person, whose soul is sick, will voluntarily and honestly confess his weaknesses and faults to someone with a healthy soul who is stronger than him, because the healthy person who is strong of light can then out of true neighborly love easily convey to him the real way by which the soul of the weak fellowman can become stronger and healthy. Because in this way, a person can be a real savior of souls. However, I am not making a law of it, but with this I am only giving you a good advice. And whatever I am doing, do likewise and convey the truth to everyone. [4] The confession of sins alone will not purify a person from his sins, no more than when a physically sick person will be made healthy when he tells the doctor about his disease and how he has caught it, even if he does it in all sincerity. But he should listen to the advice of the doctor who is wise and has much knowledge, and then also follow the advice faithfully and avoid everything in the future that was the cause of his disease. |
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