Doc. of Sacred Scripture (Potts) n. 92

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92. That appearances of truth, which are truths clothed, may be caught at out of the Word as naked truths, and that when confirmed they become falsities is evident from the many heresies there have been and still are in Christendom. The heresies themselves do not condemn men, but an evil life does, as also do the confirmations from the Word, and from reasonings from the natural man of the falsities that are in the heresy. For everyone is born into the religion of his parents is initiated into it from his infancy, and afterwards holds to it, being unable to withdraw himself from its falsities through being engaged with his business in the world. But to live in evil, and to confirm falsities even to the destruction of genuine truth, is what condemns. For he who remains in his own religion, and believes in God, or if in Christendom, in the Lord, regarding the Word as holy, and from a religious principle living according to the ten commandments, does not swear allegiance to falsities, and therefore as soon as he hears truths and perceives them in his own way, can embrace them and so be led away from falsities; but not so the man who has confirmed the falsities of his religion, for confirmed falsity remains and cannot be rooted out. For after confirmation a falsity becomes as if the man had sworn to the truth of it, especially if it chimes in with his own self-love [amor proprii], and the derivative conceit of his own wisdom.


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