Last Judgment (Post) (Whitehead) n. 118

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118. [119] I was conducted again to the Africans by a way running first to the north and afterwards to the west; and I saw there as it were a palace, where someone walked; and afterwards higher up, where I stopped, and heard a vast number sent forth out of the Christian heaven to those who were Africans; and those were there who in the world had lived according to their religion and had acknowledged one God under the human form. It was told them that he who has lived in good according to religion is also in the affection of truth, because the good of life desires nothing more than truth; for it desires to know how one is to live well. Thence they rejoice when they are informed; and that all such receive truths from the Lord, and are enlightened according to the quality and quantity of their good of life: this they acknowledged, and were glad. The African race can be in greater enlightenment than others on this earth, since they are such that they think more interiorly, and so receive truths and acknowledge them. Others, as the Europeans, think only exteriorly, and receive truths in the memory; nor do they see them interiorly from any intellectual light, which they do not acknowledge in matters of faith. I said there, that few Christians live according to religion, but only according to the civil laws, and live well morally for the sake of fame, honor, and gains; and that they rarely think of living according to their doctrinals; believing also that they are saved by the faith of doctrine, and not by the life: on which account they have no doctrinals of life. At this the Africans wondered exceedingly, not being willing to believe that it is so; believing that there is no man who does not live according to his religion; and if not, that he cannot but become stupid and evil, because he then does not receive anything from heaven.


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