Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8550

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8550. Each individual is born into the evils of self-love and love of the world inherited from parents. Every evil which has become second nature through habitual surrender to it is transmitted to offspring, thus from one generation to the next by parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so on going a long way back. The evil transmitted in this way becomes at length so great that the whole of a person's own life is nothing but evil. This chain of transmitted evil is not broken or altered except by the life of faith and charity received from the Lord.


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