Page:The Gist of Swedenborg.djvu/43

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27

THE SERVICE OF WORSHIP

"I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy;
In Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple."

Psalm, V, 7

ONE should not omit the practice of external worship. Things inward are excited by external worship; and outward things are kept in holiness by external worship, so that things inward can flow in. Moreover, a man is imbued in this way with knowledge, and prepared to receive celestial things, so as to be endowed with states of holiness, though he is unaware of it. These states of holiness the Lord preserves to him for the use of eternal life; for in the other life all one's states of life recur.

Arcana Cœlestia, n. 1618