fore the Lord's Church is called the church militant."[1]
These uses are still more fully explained in the following passage:—"Good cannot be conjoined with truth in the natural man without combats, or, what is the same thing, without temptations. That it may be known how the case is, in this respect, with man, it shall be briefly told. Man is nothing else than an organ or vessel which receives life from the Lord, for man does not live from himself. The life, which flows in with man from the Lord, is from his Divine love: this love, or the life thence derived, flows in and applies itself to the vessels, which are in man's rational principle and also to those which are in his natural principle. These vessels, with man, are in a situation contrary to that of the in-flowing life, in consequence of the hereditary evil into which man is born, and in consequence, also, of the actual evil which he forms in himself. But as far as the influent life is able to dispose the vessels to receive it, so far it does dispose them. But when the vessels are in a contrary position and direction in respect to the life, it is evident that they must be reduced to a position in agreement with it. This can by no means be effected, so long as man is in the state into which he was born, and to which, also, he has brought himself; for the vessels are not compliant, but obstinately repugnant, and opposing with all their might the heavenly order according to which the life acts. Before they can be rendered compliant, and be made fit to receive any-
- ↑ A. C., 1692.
