SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
neither has baptism regenerated, nor his own labor in reformation; that he is in danger of the abyss from deep natural tendency to sin; that the Lord's merit cannot be imputed to him and so effect his salvation; but that to be saved he must see and confess his sinfulness, be distressed on account of it, pray to the Lord for the grace of forgiveness, making every possible effort of resistance to evil, and all with the acknowledgment that both the prayer and the effort are not his own, but given from the Lord alone. The process is, indeed, not essentially different from that we have seen already sketched in The Animal Kingdom; but it is now being accomplished in interior degrees, far beyond what Swedenborg has imagined. And in his later works he has taught us that regeneration is applicable to several distinct degrees of the mind, of which the more interior are opened and regenerated with comparatively few. And as each successive degree is nearer to the Lord, His presence and agency in its regeneration become more clearly seen; or, in other words, each successive approach to the Lord brings a new consciousness of interior tendency to sin, which must needs be deplored and submitted to Him,
151
