among Christians, there would indeed have been good ground for such imputation.
Let us now hear the New Church doctrine on this subject, as revealed through the illumined Swede. And if you consider the general darkness of the period in which he lived as compared with our own times, you can the more easily judge whether his claim to have written under a special Divine illumination, be or be not well founded.
"It is a common opinion that those who are born out of the church, who are called Heathen or Gentiles, cannot be saved, because they have not the Word and are therefore ignorant of the Lord, without whom there can be no salvation. Nevertheless it may be known that they also are saved, from these considerations alone: that the mercy of the Lord is universal, that is, extended toward every individual; that they are born men as well as those within the church, who are respectively few; and that it is no fault of theirs that they are ignorant of the Lord.
"Every person who thinks from enlightened reason, may see that no man is born for hell; for the Lord is love itself, and it is agreeable to his love that all be saved. Therefore also He has provided that all shall have some kind of religion, and thereby be in the acknowledgment of a Divine, and in the enjoyment of interior life: for to live according to religion is to live interiorly. For then man looks up to a Divine; and as far as he looks up to a Divine he does not esteem the world, but removes himself from it, consequently from the life of the world, which is exterior life.
"That Gentiles are saved as well as Christians, may be known to those who understand what it is that makes heaven in man. For heaven is in man; and those who have heaven in themselves enter heaven after death. It