1835. And Abram drove them away means that the Lord put them to flight, as can be seen from the remarks above.

It is the same with the church, too. When it begins to fall away from love for others, evil and the falsity that comes from it can be chased off fairly easily. Up to that point, conditions in the church are not very far removed from neighborly love, so the mindset of the people in it is quite flexible. Over time, though, evil and its falsity grow, and as they grow they strengthen and stiffen, as will be told below. ¹

[2] The Lord constantly drives as much evil and falsity away as he can, but he does so through conscience. When the bonds of our conscience loosen, the Lord has no means of influencing us, because he acts on us by flowing through charity into our conscience. A new means does develop to take its place, but it is an external one: fear of the law and fear for our life, status, money, and consequent prestige. These are not matters of conscience but only superficial restraints. They make it possible for us to live in the same community with others and to seem friendly, no matter what we are like inside.

[3] These means, or restraints, have no effect at all in the other world. Outward appearances are stripped away there and inner character remains. There are large numbers of people who have lived an upright life in private and public, avoided hurting anyone, acted in a polite and friendly way, and even done good to many others, but only for selfish reasons — for the sake of position, money, and so on. They end up among the inhabitants of hell in the other life, because inside them they harbor no goodness or truth but only evil and falsity. In fact hatred, vengefulness, cruelty, and adultery lurk inside them, remaining hidden from others; and they remain hidden to the extent that those fears or external restraints are in charge.

Footnotes:

1843. Your seed will be immigrants means that charity and faith would be rare, as can be seen from the symbolism of immigrants and of seed. Immigrants mean what is not native and so what is not acknowledged as belonging to the local area and therefore what is regarded as foreign. Seed, though, symbolizes charity and the faith that goes with it, as shown before, in §§255, 1025, and above at verse 3 [§1798:1]. The seed is described as immigrants, which are viewed as foreign, and what is foreign is what does not belong to the area, or come from it, so it follows that it is something rare. It also follows, then, that charity and the faith that comes of charity would be rare, since that is what the seed is. When it says that Abram's seed would be immigrants — that is, that charity and faith would be rare — it is speaking about a time before the end, when the shadows (falsity) would be immense.

[2] In Matthew 24:4-end, Mark 13:3-end, and Luke 21:7-end, which describe the close of the age, the Lord predicts that faith will be rare in the last days. Everything said there carries the idea that charity and faith will be scant in those days, until finally they disappear. John predicts the same thing in the Book of Revelation, as the prophets also do many times, not to mention the narrative parts of the Word. ¹

[3] But by the faith that will perish in the final days nothing is meant but neighborly love. No other faith can possibly exist than the faith that grows out of love for others. People who do not love their neighbor cannot have the least faith. Love for others, or charity, is the actual base on which faith is planted. Charity is its heart, the source of its existence and life. As a result, the ancients compared love and charity to a heart, and faith to lungs, both of which reside in the chest. Charity and faith actually resemble the heart and lungs, too, because to imagine a life of faith without charity is like imagining we can live by our lungs alone, without our hearts. Anyone can see it is impossible. So the ancients called every impulse of charity a gesture of the heart, and every word of faith lacking in charity they called lip service, or a product of the lungs (by way of the breath that flows into speech). That is how they developed the habit of talking about goodness and truth as something that ought to "come from the heart."

Footnotes: