Consequently when man through the last six commandments conjoins himself to the Lord as if of himself, the Lord then conjoins Himself to man through the first three commandments, which are that man must acknowledge God, must believe in the Lord, and must keep His name holy.  These man does not believe, however much he may think that he does, unless the evils forbidden in the other table, that is, in the last six commandments, he abstains from as sins.  These are the things pertaining to the covenant on the part of the Lord and on the part of man, through which there is reciprocal conjunction, which is that man may be in the Lord and the Lord in man (John xiv. 20). (A.E., n. 1027.)

It is said by some that he who sins against one commandment of the Decalogue sins also against the rest, thus that he who is guilty of one is guilty of all.  It shall be told how far this is in harmony with the truth.  When a man transgresses one commandment, assuring himself that it is not a sin, thus offending without fear of God, because he has thus rejected the fear of God he does not fear to transgress the rest of the commandments, although he may not do this in act.

For example, when one does not regard as sins frauds and illicit gains, which in themselves are thefts, neither does he regard as a sin adultery with the wife of another, hating a man even to murder, lying about him, coveting his house and other things belonging to him; for when he rejects from his heart in any one commandment the fear of God he denies that anything is a sin; consequently he is in communion with those who in like manner transgress the other commandments.  He is like an infernal spirit who is in a hell of thieves; and although he is not an adulterer, nor a murderer, nor a false witness, yet he is in communion with such, and can be persuaded by them to believe that such things are not evils, and can be led to do them.  For he who becomes an infernal spirit through the transgression of one commandment, no longer believes it to be a sin to do anything against God or anything against the neighbor.

But the opposite is true of those who abstain from the evil forbidden in one commandment, and who shun and afterward turn away from it as a sin against God.  Because such fear of God, they come into communion with angels of heaven, and are led by the Lord to abstain from the evils forbidden in the other commandments and to shun them, and finally to turn away from them as sins; and if perchance they have sinned against them, yet they repent and thus by degrees are withdrawn from them.  (A.E., n. 1028.)

Part Third—­PROFANATIONS OF GOOD AND TRUTH

I. Goods and Truths and Their Opposites